What's in YOUR food?

[sweet sparrow]

Some days, I wonder if the vast amount of organic and _____-free foods is another way for companies to make money. Other days, I try not to eat things with artificial ingredients as much as I can. I won't buy something that only sounds healthy just because I don't understand it anymore than the ingredient "spices" in bottles of seasoning.

Not that bugs sound appetizing, but some bugs are edible (and people would eat them historically when there was nothing else), and crushed dried bugs are probably much more edible than live, juicy ones. (Ew.)

Still, are we even comfortable with animal testing methods on products that we regularly use, like sunscreen, cosmetics, etc. I'm sure if any of us knew where half the ingredients in anything originated from, we'd probably be much more simplistic in our ways.

[sweet sparrow]

At the same time though, it feels a little like playing the game "whack-a-mole." Studies come out claiming this is bad for you so we stop doing this. Then another study comes out and it's something else that's bad for you. A third study comes out that retracts the findings of the first study..until you reach the point where there's a list a mile long of things you can't buy, eat, cook, or do who can keep it all straight? LOL. Guess all I can do is make the smartest choices I can make and hope for the best.

Yes!

I know most of us are short on time these days, but if we know how to cook a few basic recipes it's a long-term health investment. Our families and loved ones are worth it and cooking is a great bonding experience. Everyone loves food. You just have to keep trying until you find something that your family will eat. (Hint: you may not want to start with liver and brussel sprouts)

[ninna]

lol. I never, ever cook liver at home. It's a darned shame because I really do like it when it's gently fried in butter and topped with onions. And brussel sprouts? YUM! We love brussel sprouts here. I think we're a bunch of weirdos!

"Liver" is the smart alec meal I threaten my kids with when they're nagging me about what's for supper. haha. I'm sure every parent has an old standby smartypants answer they give their kids when they nag incessantly. When I was little, my mom used to speel off this big long word in Dutch when I would nag her about what was for supper. I don't speak Dutch at all and I didn't find out til I was a teenager that she was actually saying "sh*t and slivers" when she said that big long word. LOL. My mother. What a brat!

My kids have been pretty good guinea pigs. They beg for seconds of lentil soup and have been quite accommodating as I've experimented with vegetarian meals--some of them a flop and others a grand success. I'm definitely trying to cook more often from scratch. It's really nice knowing what is going in my food.

[Darth Penguin]

My 3 are starting to branch out food-wise. The girls like to help me cook. DD2(10) loves to watch cooking shows esp if Gordon Ramsey is involved. Listening to her say "I'm walking" like a sous-chef is hilarious.

DD1(14) can cook a few simple things, scrambled eggs and the like.

For myself I think all young people should be able to cook a few basic meals from scratch. A tomato sauce for pasta, a simple cheese sauce or an omelet. Costs pennies but correctly seasoned is not only a filling but tasty meal.

One of the things Mr Penguin impressed me with in the early days of our relationship was he could cook .....not merely take a ready meal out of the freezer and stick it in the stove/microwave

[muggos0101]

About 'pink slime', read this whole article: http://www.snopes.com/food/prepare/msm.asp it's obviously not choice cuts, but I don't really see how it's any worse than making stock out of a carcass. It's just bits of meat that are stuck to the bones. I prefer a nice tenderloin myself but even the best butcher can't get every scrap of meat into quality cuts right? I think it's better than just throwing it out. I try not to eat processed foods very much, but it's usually because of fat content and unhealthy and un-needed additives.

If I found out lard was obtained by mechanically separating it from bones, I wouldn't eat any more or less of it. It's lard either way and it doesn't really matter where it comes from.

[lekate]

Article on Food Fraud

[lecale]

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[Natalka]

Wowsers on that article, lecale - hoping that's mostly in the US, but of course I know it can happen here, too.

Frankenfoods are indeed scary.

[marstec]

But I do think I avoid the worst of it by staying away from highly processed foods and foods that are grown with a ton of herbicides/pesticides/fertilizer like soy. (You can take clean fill from a soybean field and grass will not grow on it for 3 years. A lot of soy in Canada is genetically modified so that it can tolerate high herbicides loads. Basically farmers are able to dump a ton of stuff on a soy field and the soy is the only thing to survive because it is GMO. I buy soymilk for a treat but prefer organic given what I know. I don't buy soy meat substitutes because they are too highly processed and there is that question around the pesticides.)

Maybe I've been living under a rock, but I didn't think Canada had much of a soy bean industry? Are we importing most of them from the States? It's pretty scary to think about how much manipulation goes into our food, but you still have to eat. You are smart to eat foods with the least amount of processing. To think our food contains bits and pieces of unwanted protein, and the government is okay with it. Yum.

I talked to a lady the other day who was buying a lot of gluten-free foods because her husband had celiac's disease. It seems to me that food allergies have increased greatly over the past few years. I asked her why there seemed to be more and more celiacs. Her theory was because of all the genetic modifications we are doing to our grains. I haven't read enough to make an educated decision on that, but it's certainly food for thought.

[lecale]

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[Shwa Girl]

So then tonight I saw an article about Starbucks using Cochineal extract or Carmine in some of their drinks. Intrigued I looked it up to see what it was and what it was used for and in. Ewwwwwwwwwww. Carmine is a red food colouring harvested from dried, ground beetles of the female cochineal beetle. Carmine or Cochineal extract, is a dye used in a variety of foods such as candy, yogurt, ice cream and beverages as well as some medications and cosmetics. Oftentimes this is simply listed as "colour added" and the name isn't listed. Hungry yet?

If you are eating a Peek Frean when you read this, put that cookie down.

Peek Frean's have insect parts in them. When they do the quality control analysis, there is always some fly parts. The government food inspectors actually allow a certain percentage of fly parts in the Peek Freans. After all, in a food plant, using lots of sugar, you are bound to attract flies.

Anyway, extra protein in your cookies.

[lekate]

If you love reading about the horrorshow in the US I would recommend the titles Fast Food Nation by some guy and Food Politics by Marion Nestle (she writes more of the same in What To Eat). I wonder if there is a book out there about the Canadian viewpoint?

I haven't read Food Politics, but I've read Fast Food Nation and it's very eye opening (although it also comments on the deconstruction of society and the breakdown of families because of). I have read, or been meaning too read these:

- The Omnivore's Dilemma is also a good one (by Michael Pollen),

- Food Matters by Mark Bittman, he advocates a mostly vegetarian/vegan lifestyle

- The End of Overeating, can't remember the author (this one has more to do the psychology of eating and how food companies bank on that),

- Death By Supermarket, again can't remember the author, haven't read it all, only parts pretty eye opening.

- I can't remember what it's called or who it's by, I saw it at SDM, and it discussed behavioural issues and children and how food can affect it (ie. too much sugar in a child's diet today compared to the past).

- Diet For a New America, John Robbins

- The China Study, T. Colin Campbell

Honestly when it comes down to it, eat whole foods. Anything that has to make a claim on the front of the package isn't worth your time. Anything low-fat probably has more sugar than the regular kind.

Corn fed meat, ESPECIALLY cows, is NOT healthy. Don't let those pretty little signs and stickers on the meat shelves fool you.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...02081038592146

http://www.corporateknights.com/article/killer-kernel

[Shwa Girl]

I'm not sure what isn't a potential carcinogen. Air and water are, and we wouldn't last too long without them. They're in everything.

It's all risk management. Something is going to kill us, or we'll die anyway.

I blame it all on the NDP.

So true.
Oshawa is between the Pickering Nuclear Plant and Darlington Nuclear Plant. Plus I hear Bowmanville (down the highway a bit) is getting an incinerator to burn waste.
Guess that's why The Shwa Girl has a 'glowing personality'

[radgurl]

It's so hard to not eat crap and carcinogens. A lot of the time, you don't even know they're there, especially when the labels only say "processing agent" (although one can assume it means something bad). Another problem would be that processed food with these additives tends to be less expensive that all-natural, organic-type foods, and with the prices for food, gas and just about everything else constantly going up, it makes it that much more difficult to stick with an all natural organic diet.

I think I'm going to start a veggie garden to at least attempt to reduce pesticides and fungicides found in grocery store produce.

[lecale]

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