Enjoy Responsively—It’s not Just for Drinks
Memorial Day weekend is here and many of us are preparing for barbecues. Meeting with friends is also something to look forward to, especially after the long restrictions due to the pandemic.
I’m heading to get some “bare necessities” for the coming barbecue day. First things first: the grass fed steaks and some chicken.
I don’t buy any snacks like chips and dips. If you look at what’s included in this popular one, you’ll understand. The complete list looks like this one.
For a side-dish, I’m happy with just a salad. Picking up salad greens, avocados, onions, and radishes it’s easy. Now I need to look for salad dressing. After I checked out a few of them, I gave up and this is why.
Mainly, the oils used are canola and soy—both GMOs crops with the famous glyphosate lurking in anything derived from them. Besides, they’re loaded with additives such as thickeners and emulsifiers, artificial flavors, artificial colors (often causing allergic reactions), and at least 3-4 types of preservatives—”for freshness.” Oh dear, fresh they stay……for years even if opened.
You see the notorious MSG (monosodium glutamate) in it. How about the last few names? Some coincide with the additives in chips. Disodium phosphate, sorbic acid, Calcium Disodium Inosinate, & Guanylate—what on earth are all these doing in our foods?
I’m better off making my own salad dressing; I can make more of it and keep it in a glass bottle in the fridge. I don’t need emulsifiers or homogenizers, a good shake before use will do the job.
Last, but not least, there is sugar listed on the labels above. Besides, there are some other names that in reality spell some additional sugars: sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, maltodextrin, modified corn starch. No wonder everything tastes so sweet. This barbecue sauce (on the right) seems a bit less guilty than the salad dressings, having fewer additives. I wonder if the raisin paste and the crushed orange puree lack additional chemical components. If they’re below a certain amount, they don’t have to be listed.
Sliced breads, hamburger or hot dogs buns can have ingredients that look like this:
—enriched wheat flour, water, high-fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, grain vinegar, lactic acid, fumaric acid, calcium lactate, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides, citric acid, polysorbate 60, calcium carbonate, calcium sulfate, phosphoric acid, glucose delta lactone, sodium diacetate, potassium citrate
—whole-wheat flour, water, high-fructose corn syrup, wheat gluten, soybean oil, salt, molasses, dough conditioners (mono and diglycerides, ethoxylated mono- and diglycerides), monocalcium phosphate, ammonium sulfate, calcium sulfate, calcium propionate, soy lecithin.
Is it so hard to make pure and simple bread? It’s bad enough already that the wheat is not the same that was cultivated a few decades ago and it’s sprayed with toxic pesticides. Do we need all these additional chemicals added directly to the flour mix too?
Sugars are also included even in the organic varieties of bread as organic cane sugar, organic molasses and corn syrups. When I watched the documentary Super Size Me I didn’t know that much about the ingredients in foods, but I really understood what the main character described as getting addicted to the starchy meals. It likely wasn’t just because of the starch from bread and potatoes, but the added sugars helped his (and our) addiction to breads tremendously.
In other posts I explained more why we have to pay attention and avoid the flames when we barbecue. Not burning the vegetables or charring the buns when grilling is equally important.
Anywhere there is advertising for some special alcoholic drink the last catchphrase is “Enjoy responsively.” Funny enough, the same catchphrase can apply when it comes to our meals. Looking at all the food options, we need to educate ourselves on what to avoid, what to buy, and how to cook.
