Most people eat some combination of food that is good for them and food that tastes good. Finding the balance between the two is a lifelong journey. This is the story of that struggle.
We would be the last people to mock catchy slogans such as Dry January or Veganuary if they help you establish better habits. The Chinese New Year started 9 days ago. The Jewish New Year arrives in the early fall. Never too early or late to start to make better habits.
Your humble narrator has never deliberately done a Dry January. Due to medication issues, I have done a Dry December as well as a Dry January. While many people will have their first drink of 2023 tomorrow, your humble narrator will still be on the sidelines.
I didn't drink all that much before but being held to zero makes social gatherings a bit tricky. You could argue that the bar scene is more accommodating with mocktails, sparking grape juice, and non-alcoholic beers.
We hear about the intricate process of craft beers, top notch wines, and top shelf spirits. Mocktails, well, get the short end of the stick.
If you spent your youth drinking screwdrivers, taking the vodka out of the orange juice is rather easy. If you liked your vodka with cranberry juice with a splash of grapefruit juice, well, there are a few problems before and after.
A bar will stock 100% orange juice. Ask a bartender if the cranberry juice is 100%. They will tell you it is 100% (it isn't) or they don't know (likely true). That splash of grapefruit juice is rare to find but likely to be 100%.
A bar with a good stock of fruit and yes, vegetable juices would be a better option than a lame mocktail with poor ingredients (high-fructose corn syrup) at a cost close to the real thing.
All juices; all 100%. A cocktail of equal parts carrot juice and orange juice is surprisingly refreshing. The orange cancels out the taste of the carrot. A cranberry juice cocktail with a splash of blood orange juice? Sign me up.
The term juice bars are generally associated with young adults who are not of legal drinking age to listen to music. The juice in juice bars was not the reason young people went to juice bars.
An updated juice bar could combine celery juice with tonic water or a cucumber and watermelon juice drink or any of a bunch of different nutritional cocktails.
The bloody mary is a classic vegetable juice drink with spices. Bars don't compromise on tomato juice. Why compromise on cranberry juice?
Women might order cranberry juice drinks as relief for UTIs but can praise the antioxidants when asked.
Right now, people are paying outrageous prices for sub-standard ingredients (high-fructose corn syrup) for drinks nobody really wants to drink. They might be paying outrageous prices for good quality juices but at least they could be drinking non-alcoholic cocktails that taste good and add some nutrition along the way.
The Coca-Cola cans and bottles have had the tagline "Original Taste" for some time. There were layers of meetings to make sure the tagline fit what the company wants to convey. Focus groups saw several possibilities that weren't as impressive as "original taste." Multi-million dollar companies do not come up with "Original Taste" on a whim.
As an adjective, original can be defined as "present or existing from the beginning; first or earliest" or "created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation."
We know the first definition of original does not apply because the North American version of Coca-Cola contains high-fructose corn syrup instead of sugar. Also, the cocaine is missing. So "original taste" doesn't mean the initial recipe or even the recipe that lasted until the 1980s.
As a noun, original can mean "something serving as a model or basis for imitations or copies." Coca-Cola might find some solace here. Coca-Cola wasn't the first soft drink but did grow dominant in the early days of soda pop. Pepsi and RC came later though neither were trying to be imitations or copies. If you couldn't tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi or RC, then your palette isn't terribly picky or selective. You might literally not care which one you would be drinking.
Unfortunately for Coca-Cola, this is likely the definition meant by "original taste": "created directly and personally by a particular artist; not a copy or imitation."
Pepsi had a slogan many years ago that nothing quenches your thirst like a Pepsi. Sounds impressive. Like "original taste," this is a meaningless statement. You have patents on a distinct product so it's original in that there is nothing quite like your product.
Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and RC are all soda pop products but they are distinctively different. Not better, just different. Having original taste means nothing. Lemonade has "original taste" whether it is manufactured with high-fructose corn syrup or a child makes lemonade with real sugar with help from the parents, though the tastes are different.
Those meetings and focus groups broke down phrases to sound impressive and mean absolutely nothing.
Passover 2022 begins on the evening of April 15. Kosher for Passover versions of soft drinks may be available in your area. This is a rite of spring for your humble narrator. The chase has involved Israeli Coca-Cola in the last few years since this is what we get in our area.
Both the K4P and Israeli versions cost more than the conventional high-fructose corn syrup. We have noted in the past that the cost of sugar is kept artificially high and that high-fructose corn syrup is subsidized with your federal tax dollars.
They are worth the cost because they have "original taste" in the sense of something unique. Most of the world drinks regular Coca-Cola made with sugar and doesn't have to go to the store at a certain time of year and pay more. They grab regular bottles.
North America is not the norm but the exception. For our Canadian readers, glucose-fructose is high-fructose corn syrup.
Coca-Cola has an incredible story, a wonderful history as a product. Food is about storytelling but one of the greatest stories is silent. The Mexican Coca-Cola, Italian Coca-Cola, Danish Coca-Cola: they have the "original taste."
Your humble narrator wrote about 1642 Cola a number of years back. I don't get sucked in just because of a story but this story is rather cool.
Specialty soft drinks have "original taste" sometimes a little too original. High-fructose corn syrup versions of popular soft drinks aren't very original to the North American palette. You can't quite quench your thirst so you drink more of it. That is the hook, unfortunately.
You deserve better when soft drinks are involved. You might drink fewer of them given the costs. Soft drinks can be a treat when made well. Be more original and rethink soft drinks.
"Get extra napkins when you order a hot and juicy Quarter Pounder. A normal amount of napkins just won't do."
Save the trees.
We all are willing to swallow a bit of realism in a fast food ad. Hot and juicy and McDonald's should mean a meeting with the fast food franchise and the Federal Trade Commission.
Hot is likely. Not as in a "fresh off the grill" kind of hot, but more like "straight from the microwave" hot. The beauty of "hot" is McDonald's can claim that "hot" doesn't refer to the temperature of the burger.
Juicy! Juicy? I haven't had a McDonald's hamburger since the pandemic started. I also haven't had a juicy burger from McDonald's in over 1,500 tries. I've eaten more of the regular hamburgers where they taste more like hot pork from a microwave than beef from a grill.
Maybe the juicy part comes from the high-fructose corn syrup dominant ketchup, why you might need napkins, not extra napkins. Based on the smaller hamburger, which normally contains a whisper of mustard no matter how you order, ketchup is the only way you get any sort of moisture.
The ad is also intriguing since this is one of the few McDonald's or fast food ads lately that goes into how good the fast food tastes. The food is cheap and convenient; why talk about how good the food tastes. Just because you sell the most burgers doesn't mean the customers are there for how they taste.
We struggle in writing about food advertising that real food isn't promoted like fast food or quick food or ultra-convenient food. After all, fruit roll-ups are more likely to be seen on TV than actual fruit.
This lovely commercial might seem like an ad for tomatoes, one of nature's most impressive foods. Look how pretty the tomatoes are. Unlike fast food advertising, real tomatoes can actually look better than what you see on screen.
Eventually you realize that the ad is not for tomatoes but Bertolli olive oil, which is drizzled over the tomatoes.
This is great shared advertising. The olive oil maker pays for the ad but tomatoes get the top billing.
This is also a reminder that your local farmers markets are a great source for local tomatoes this fall.
Maybe the (potentially) new U.S. federal government can give financial incentives to have more fruit and vegetable ads so that consumers can see actual fruits and vegetables instead of products that incorporate them far in the background.
Lemonade is made for summer. Some will squeeze the lemons themselves. Some will use bottled lemon juice but still make it themselves. Others will buy pre-made lemonade, often with high-fructose corn syrup.
Making your lemonade is so easy. Paying someone else for their water and questionable sweeteners is foolish.
The great thing about making your own lemonade is you can add flavors to the mix. This is a high-water time for amazing fresh fruits in the Northern Hemisphere. Strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries.
Take some of that great fruit and added that fruit to your homemade lemonade. If some of those strawberries are a bit mushy, they are perfect to put into a lemonade.
Adding the sweetness of fruit means you can reduce the amount of sugar you put in your lemonade. You could even have the fruit be your sugar in a lemonade.
Personally, I make a batch of "lemon water." Pick your ratio of lemons and water in your favorite lemonade recipe. Combine in a pitcher. Take your fruit and combine with the lemon water in a blender. Serve right away or chill for later.
You get the fresh taste of summer fruit in a refreshing drink. Fruit sugar is healthier than regular sugar and is a great way to get servings of fruit.
Raspberries might seem a bit tart so when using raspberries, you might add some sugar but far less than in a typical lemonade recipe. For those who are into vodka and lemonade. vodka and raspberry lemonade is a game-changer.
Another advantage to using fresh fruit is when you reach the end of the strawberry run, freeze some of those strawberries. They won't freeze terribly well to build a strawberry shortcake but would be great in a late summer strawberry lemonade. Your friends might be a bit envious.
You might find that putting fruit in a lemonade is a bit odd. Lemons are fruit; since they aren't sweet, we forget that lemons count as fruit.
I recently had a birthday. Numbers aren't important. I can remember having birthday cakes when I was a child.
There was a desire to have a cherry cake, like a cherry cupcake but larger. My mother could never figure out what was involved in making that happen.
I was glad to "settle" for chocolate cake with chocolate icing whenever possible. If you knew the old-time Bill Knapp's chocolate cakes, you got to enjoy a treat. Moist and rich. Even after the regional restaurant chain closed down, the cakes were still available for a short time.
There is an appeal to the notion of childhood memories of birthday cake. Unfortunately, there is a wave of deception of products marked as "birthday cake" flavor.
When 3 Musketeers introduced a birthday cake variety, it features "vanilla-flavored nougat and colorful sprinkles covered in rich milk chocolate." We seriously debate the idea of milk chocolate being "rich."
Vanilla cake and sprinkles is an unofficial recipe for birthday cake flavor. Even when I couldn't get cherry cake or chocolate cake, yellow cake was the clear winner.
You could argue that vanilla cake and sprinkles were the go-to when you were a child. That birthday cake flavor is a true throwback to those simpler times.
The American supermarket is filled with products with "flavors" that don't remotely come close to that flavor.
They rely on this "you eat with your eyes" principle and hope the visual and the words "birthday cake" will get past your limited taste buds.
That works for a 1-year-old whose memory of birthday cake is sticking their hands all over the cake without actually tasting any of that cake.
The cake isn't even the target but the fakish, bad vanilla frosting and the visual of the sprinkles that are more about food dye. A good frosting can't hide the taste of a bad cake. Birthday cake flavor is bad frosting hiding the fact that there is no cake.
The argument for birthday cake flavor to replicate childhood memories if your mother (or father) baked your birthday cake, childhood memories usually involve sugar, not high-fructose corn syrup. The birthday cake flavor in a lot of these products have high-fructose corn syrup and/or artificial sweeteners. If those are your memories, life should apologize to you.
Memories and food are a strong emotional bond without the artificial influence of pretend birthday cake. When you celebrate a birthday, you can create new and stronger memories. I buy Girl Scouts Thin Mints cookies and put them in the freezer. I take them out to thaw around my birthday. They aren't like the cakes of my youth, especially that amazing Bill Knapp's chocolate cake.
The Thin Mints cookies are really good and they make my birthdays a bit brighter. Sure they have palm oil; their tastes are authentic and flavorful. Real flavor.
The Canadian election cycle is a lot shorter compared to the United States. The election period started on September 11, a mere 40 days away from the election on October 21. Regular readers know we love when politicians actually talk food policy. The United States doesn't talk much but says a lot with laissez-faire food regulation and policy.
The Canadian election cycle won't produce a whole lot of conversation, but let's find out what they should be discussing.
Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer attacked the new Canada Food Guide in July. Scheer claimed the newest version “seems to be ideologically driven by people who have a philosophical perspective.” His basic concern was that water replaced milk as a "beverage of choice."
Scheer made the attack while speaking to a group of dairy farmers.
"The Canada Food Guide is based on evidence, based on science, based on research," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in response to the Scheer attack. "It is there to serve Canadian families. It has nothing to do with politics."
That passes for a food policy discussion in North America. The idea is that politics really shouldn't go into a national food guide. That would arguing that more Canadians should eat poutine to use up Quebec cheese curds.
The supply management element of dairy production is a third-rail topic in Canadian politics. Maxime Bernier, the leader and only member of the right-wing People's Party of Canada, wants to get rid of supply management for the dairy industry in Canada.
Eat Think Vote from Food Secure Canada worked during the 2015 Canada election to help change the Canadian food system. The organization is working in individual ridings as well in 2019.
In a recent example, Eat Think Vote hosted a talk with the candidates in the Halifax riding (Nova Scotia) at the Halifax Brewery Market on a Saturday morning.
Liberal candidate Andy Fillmore (incumbent) and Green Party candidate Jo-Ann Roberts were at the event while Conservative candidate Bruce Holland and NDP candidate Christine Saulnier did not attend the event.
Backbenchers (not the prime minister or in cabinet) don't usually have too much power in the Canadian parliamentary system. Getting a backbencher to be aware of an issue, such as food policy, is helpful. Who knows, maybe backbenchers helped get the new Canada Food Guide off the ground.
CBC News introduced a new Face to Face segment where 5 undecided Canadians get 5 minutes to talk to the major party leaders.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May drew a couple of people who brought up food in terms of climate change.
Danny Ottenbreit, 35, is a 4th-generation grain farmer in Saskatchewan. Danny talked a lot about agriculture needs to be involved in climate change, how Canada has huge forests and farmlands. He was clearly nervous and didn't have any specifics.
May helped out by talking about soil quality to keep carbon in the ground. That is better for the nutrition of the crops and better since the carbon isn't being released into the atmosphere.
May spoke of the concern for "carbon miles of our groceries" and how more food grown in Canada should stay in Canada. She cited local gardens, rooftop gardens, and self-sufficiency of agriculture.
As a negative example, May pointed out a package of wild British Columbia smoked salmon. The label said product of Canada but processed and packaged in the People's Republic of China. May spoke of the carbon footprint of processing so far away.
May noted that some of that self-sufficiency involves more milling of flour, presumably from Danny's grains. She says farmers are most at risk for climate change.
May reinforced the small local backyard gardens as well as more geothermal energy to heat more greenhouses in the north in a conversation with Shirley Frost, a 62-year-old mother and grandmother from Whitehorse, Yukon. She noted that the food prices in the north are a scandal, a real problem. We have written on this topic in the past.
Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau had an undecided voter bring up supply management for the dairy industry. Trudeau promised there would be no more concessions on supply management in further trade talks.
Food topics did not come up in the segments with other leaders.
(You can find Danny's segment at 9:45 in the video; Shirley's segment at 16:30 in the video.)
Economic insecurity isn't exclusive to the United States. Canada has had a great economy by the national numbers. On the ground, credit card debt, soaring housing costs, and tariffs from south of the 49th parallel add up to insecurity.
The territories in the Canadian Arctic suffer greatly from food insecurity and availability on a whole different level. Most food is shipped north by airplane leading to severely inflated prices.
Nutrition North Canada is a federal program designed to subsidize the costs to make food more affordable. The criticism is that the money goes to the stores and not the people who need the help.
One intriguing twist came up in an edition of The House from CBC Radio One about a year ago. Some people were using Amazon Prime to get non-perishable food sent to the North. Customers could get free shipping for the $80/year membership fee.
An example given in the podcast was a 340g can of diced tomatoes. The can would cost $8.69-$8.89 in the stores in the north vs. $1.89 by delivery.
Fixes to Nutrition North have been a struggle. There have been a few stories on greenhouses in that part of the world. The traditional seal hunt isn't as productive since the United States bans the import of anything made from seals.
Soda taxes aren't a part of the dynamic in Canada. Groceries, including soft drinks, are more expensive in Canada than in the United States.
The regular beverages have glucose-fructose, which is high-fructose corn syrup.
There were a few federal MPs (members of Parliament) in the Liberal caucus in Ontario who were pushing for a soda tax. The proposal ranked 18th out of 19 items on the list of caucus platform priorities.
A draft proposal suggested a 20% tax. The revenue from the new tax would have gone to create a national school lunch program. Canada is the only G-7 country without a national school lunch program.
The federal Green Party is proposing a soda tax in its platform. The Green Party in Manitoba proposed a 20% tax leading up to the provincial election last month. The Greens have made strides in other parts of Canada but didn't win a seat in the provincial election.
Canada has the official commission debates next week: Monday in English and Thursday in French. The politicians have had a pair of smaller debates in the last few weeks.
The chances of food policy coming up in the debates is as likely as the Toronto Maple Leafs winning the Stanley Cup (streak goes back to 1967). The government in charge does set the tone for policies, including ones that relate to food. The Canada Food Guide is better than it might have been under the previous government.
If you live in Canada, ask questions of the MP candidates in your riding. Hopefully, you will get a significant response.
Fear-based food marketing has taken over: gluten-free, non-GMO, antibiotic-free & more. Learn more about what to look for on food labels in @drsusanmitchell's 8-minute interview with me for her Breaking Down Nutrition for Medical Professional podcast. https://t.co/iqT7WB9U97
"let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933 Inaugural Address.
There is fear-based food marketing, such as calling something "natural" where there is no standard definition. As we see above, the movement by some dietitians isn't about that kind of confusion. Their fear is that consumers will avoid products with GMOs, antibiotics, and hormones.
The bigger question is why those dietitians spend so much time with their own level of fear.
An item identified as gluten-free is informational. There is not fear in something being without gluten. Those who are more sensitive have the fear of buying a product that can do them harm, especially over cross-contamination concerns. "Gluten-free" does not inspire fear.
A lot of people want to know if products contain GMOs, especially glyphosate from Monsanto. There is a concern of eating foods that contain glyphosate. If you don't care, you have no concern.
People concerned over the abundant use of antibiotics are fearful of antibiotics not working for them when they need them. People are concerned about eating animals and consuming their byproducts if the food they are eating contains antibiotics and hormones.
People who exhibit legitimate fear are underdogs in a situation. Those who support glyphosate, antibiotics, and hormones are in the vast majority of U.S. food policy. The easiest thing is to eat all of those things. When the most powerful exhibit fear and try to transfer their fear onto others, that is unsettling.
Have you noticed how the marketing of food has changed? Whoever thought fear mongering would be a part of it? I'm not talking about cibophobia or the fear of food that's a complicated phobia rather fear-based marketing and how it affects food choices. Choose food, not fear.
Let's say one of your patients or clients picks up a can of some vegetable at the store and sees words and symbols on the label that might include all-natural, no msg, gluten-free, antibiotic-free, made in the USA, non-bpa liner or non-GMO ingredients. Some of these terms are vague or have no legal meaning. What really bugs me is a label that states a product is non-GMO or gluten-free when it never would contain those things to begin with. So does a label like this suggest that the competitor next to it on the shelf may contain all those ingredients so you better not choose it? Is this fear-based marketing when the potential lack of consumer knowledge along with fear of certain ingredients and a label of symbols and words leads someone to grab one product over another?
This Dr. Susan Mitchell excerpt mentioned in the tweet at the top of this column furthers the paranoia. A product could put a label that says non-GMO as a benefit but there are few food products on the shelves that absolutely couldn't have GMOs. Anything that potentially has a sweetener could have GMO-filled high-fructose corn syrup, especially in a product category that shouldn't be sweet.
The dietitians on the podcast say consumers should ignore those concerns and worry about whether foods have fat or sodium or vitamins.
We should be thankful that consumers want to know what is in their food. There are a lot of ingredients hidden behind "natural flavor" (e.g., castoreum from the back side of the beaver is "natural flavor") and "artificial flavor." If a product doesn't lend itself to glyphosate, but you find out later that your Cheerios has been sprayed with glyphosate, you won't find out on the food label.
Information on the front of food labels can be sleight of hand, such as advertising "no trans fat" on milk containers. Most consumers know the back of the food label is most significant; when added sugars is finally on the label, consumers will be even wiser.
Dietitians go to school and gain significant knowledge. They should be pressing for fun and interesting ways to eat fruits and vegetables instead of wasting resources on sucking up to corporate food masters.
Eating dark chocolate for me is like the bus speed in Speed. Once you go past 50, you can't go below 50.
The number isn't miles per hour, but the percentage of cacao in that chocolate. The higher the number, the less sugar there is, reducing the sacrifice to get the benefits from chocolate.
100% cacao is pure chocolate. This is a little extreme. I tried 100% cacao chocolate in Le Musée du chocolat Érico in Quebec City in Canada. Once you have had 100% cacao, any chocolate with sugar tastes better.
There is no standard for what can be defined as "dark chocolate." 50% appears to be a minimum but 50% isn’t really that dark of a chocolate.
The chocolate chart on Good Eats with Alton Brown reads like this:
Chocolate type
Cacao %
Bitter
90
Bitter Sweet
35
Semi Sweet
15-30
Milk
10
White
0
A realistic parameter for minimal dark chocolate is 60% cacao. There is still quite a bit of sugar in 60% cacao but you are still better off than most chocolate on the market.
Ghirardelli sells two primary dark chocolate "sizes" at 72% cacao and 86% cacao. That is pretty dark chocolate.
There is hope if your palate is stuck at milk chocolate from candy bars you see as at the checkout in grocery stores. Even 40% can seem really intense. You need to build up the bitterness you get from a darker chocolate.
Making the conversion to a darker chocolate requires another huge step. Eat less of the dark chocolate per serving. The individual square in the Ghirardelli bars is an ideal size. You don't eat a dark chocolate square in the same fashion that you eat a standard candy bar.
Nibble at the chocolate. Appreciate how the chocolate actually tastes without the high-fructose corn syrup taste missing from dark chocolate.
Some will adapt more easily. Build up your endurance. If 60% is a struggle and you get there, good for you. If you can handle the increased cacao, stretch your limits. Don’t stop at 72% if you can make it to 86%.
If you miss the milk part of chocolate, drink a glass of milk along with the dark chocolate. That is a much better option than milk chocolate because you avoid the extra sugar.
If you can get your cacao level high enough, don't grab a random bar because "dark chocolate" is on the label. Since there are no requirements, a label that reads "dark chocolate" might not be all that dark.
You can find some dark chocolate bars with fruit undertones. If the bitter taste is a concern, the fruit can help you make that transition easier if you are missing the sugar.
Very few people make the instant transition from 10% to 86%. Give yourself some love by taking it slow. Over time, your palate will be happy and you will get the benefits of chocolate without paying a high sugar price.
Separating Monsanto and glyphosate from the overall concept of genetic engineering, the fear against those GMOs has a lot to do with mistrust of the food system. The FDA standard of GRAS — generally regarded as safe — makes a lot of people feel unsafe.
Some people have certainly taken advantage of people's fears to make money and to spread more fear. The forum that followed the Food Evolution film didn't really talk much about the film. The primary connection with the film focused on condescending views about economic incentives driving people to speak poorly about GMOs i.e., glyphosate. This ignores that Monsanto does the same thing.
Food Evolution has very little to justify the use of glyphosate. The forum wasn't that much better. They said that scientists spoke up initially about the positive nature of GMOs. I tend to believe them but those voices were pretty soft and didn't address Monsanto or glyphosate. When I asked at the forum about the advantages of Monsanto and glyphosate to the average consumer, the primary answer was the environmental impact of no-till agriculture.
The people who think the United States has the safest food supply are puzzled as to why people are concerned about the food they eat. Those who live in the United States who go to farmers markets and try to eat organic, or close to organic, are puzzled why their voices are buried in the avalanche that is the status quo.
Before the film and the forum, my hope was for a middle path, something between the extremes.
The concern over glyphosate is also tied to the concern over monocultures, big farms that produce massive manure runoffs that cause e-coli scares in vegetables as well as the Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Small farmers who use better growing techniques end up with better-tasting, more nutritious food for those who can afford to buy this food and have reasonably easy access.
Shopping at Wal-Mart is easier than going to Whole Foods. Rolling over and blindly buying food is simple. Turn off your brain and buy high-fructose corn syrup made from GMO corn. Farmers markets aren't as easy to random shop on a one-time basis; the benefits are greater if you go on a regular basis.
Do people who are conscious about their food do so to be liberal or pretentious? Do they work harder, read more food labels, spend more money and time to stand out in a crowd?
Grocery shopping is a lot easier in Europe. You do have to read some food labels but most food isn't hiding ingredients that are less than stellar. You do have to watch for UHT in Europe so buying milk requires a bit more thought. Then again, "food safety" people in the United States couldn't handle the idea of nonrefrigerated eggs and raw milk for sale.
"Furthermore, almost all of the foods currently produced using genetic engineering are useless at best and harmful at worst: 'GMOs' are mostly present in junk food, which you want to avoid anyway."
Mark Bittman and David L. Katz supplied that answer in a conversation about food and nutrition. The answer is simple: the more wholesome food you buy, the fewer labels you have to read. High-fructose corn syrup from GMO corn can't be found in products without labels.
Shopping on the outside edge of the grocery store still requires some thought, even without labels. "Natural" and "grass-finished" are very unhelpful terms in the meat department. You might buy organic apples but maybe not bananas.
The general consensus of eating as close to natural as one can is the overall best direction to head in established your own balance of food. The more truly natural you eat, the less GMOs (i.e., glyphosate) are a concern to your diet and health.
If you do spend more time at farmers markets this spring, ask them how they deal with their pests or what they feed their animals. If you don't normally spend time at a farmers market, learn what makes them different. Even if your proverbial shopping cart is mostly GMOs, see why people go to farmers markets. If you find yourself being anti-GMO, learn about genetic engineering outside of Monsanto and glyphosate.
The middle ground is not directly in the middle. Golden rice might make a world of difference in some parts of the world. You can be in favor of genetic engineering and still be concerned about glyphosate and Monsanto.
Important to understand processed food exists on a spectrum. Slicing an apple in half is one end; Pop-Tarts on the other. We need nuance when talking about processed food, hence the term 'ultraprocessed'. Yes, technically cooking quinoa is 'processing', I get it. Not the point.
Processed food can be considered a bogeyman of sorts. Dietitians tell us to eat around the outside edge of the grocery store. But what happens when a good dietitian asks us to rethink processed food in a positive way? Let's find out.
"All foods (with a few exceptions) are processed. It’s simply not possible, convenient, or even healthy to avoid all processed foods."
You could do rather well without processed foods. You would need tons of time and money. Fruits, vegetables, meat, fish in their natural state sound appealing. Milk and butter might fit her definition of processed food, but most people don't think of milk and butter as “processed food.” If you pick well, you could eat quite healthy without processed foods.
"The Industrial Revolution is what allowed us to achieve these important qualities in our food system. Food ingredients, from ones that are centuries old to ones more recently developed, help make possible a safe, convenient, healthful, flavorful and affordable food supply. By processing food and incorporating different ingredients, we are able to enjoy safer food (through the use of preservatives, like ascorbic acid, i.e., vitamin C), higher-quality food (which stays fresh longer), more nutritious food (by enriching with various nutrients), and more delicious food (enhanced taste and texture through flavors, spices, emulsifiers, etc.)"
Yes, the food industry and consumers have benefited from the Industrial Revolution. The objections to processed food have more to do with the last 40 years than the previous 100 years. And we aren’t worried about ascorbic acid.
We do have more enriched food than ever before but that is because we strip so many nutrients from food. A loaf of whole wheat bread from 100 years ago has a lot more nutrients but won’t last as long on the shelf as Wonder Bread. That classic loaf of bread isn't made artificially sweet with lots of high-fructose corn syrup. I'm picking the older loaf even if I know I had to eat it up much quicker.
Our dietitian friend brings in a food historian and author:
"Farm products are not food; they are the raw materials for food. Turning plants and animals into something edible is just as difficult, just as laborious as farming itself."
Uh, farm products are food. Raw food but still food. Cutting up animals as "processed food" is a very odd definition. A steak or a pork tenderloin doesn't have chemicals and artificial colors and preservatives. I have enough respect for farmers to know their work is more laborious than minimal processing of plants and animals.
"Very few of our calories come from raw, unprocessed food. And if those calories are from fruits and vegetables, then it's only because centuries of breeding has [sic] made them less chewy, more tasty, and easier to digest."
She is correct on the first part. That's not a good statement but it's true. So hundred of years of breeding fruits and vegetables is the same as processed food, equal to processed food? That is rethinking processed food but not in a helpful way.
"Cooking, which is one part of processing, went hand in hand with becoming human. Human food is processed food."
The idea of taking raw ingredients and cooking them is a healthy step to avoid processed food. If cooking from raw ingredients counts as "processed food," then you've made a mockery of the term "processed food."
We are told by dietitians that you don't have to eat fresh fruits and vegetables; frozen fruits and vegetables can help out. By the definition of these two people, frozen fruits and vegetables are "processed food."
The design of this article appears to diminish the legitimate concerns about what is in our food supply by dragging in the Industrial Revolution and lumping butter and milk with heavily preserved items in the middle of the store.
Not all of us will make our own ketchup or mayonnaise but we can buy smarter versions of these products. Sometimes, we will choose a more processed bread but we should know there are better alternatives out there. Chances are you don't use castoreum, high-fructose corn syrup, or food dyes when you cook at home.
Avoiding "processed food" by the standard definition is difficult, but a smarter consumer can pay more attention and make wiser choices in the processed food world. This advice might sound better coming from a dietitian, but sometimes agendas are in conflict.
There is no right way to finding the balance of food, just your way. My typical breakfast is whole wheat spaghetti with homemade sauce, sautéed mushrooms, and a naturally low-fat Italian cheese sprinkled on top. Works for me.
