If you've seen the documentary King Corn, you know that it takes more than a Hazmat suit and a kitchen to make High Fructose Corn Syrup, yet food packaging can say "100% natural ingredients" and be mostly HFCS.
Tag: Food
How do humans know what’s edible? Nature or nuture? Pink Slime vs GMOs
SO I am going to brave the hypothesis that you can write about Twinkies without having to eat one. Actually I discovered Twinkie image aversion easily overcomes Twinkie the concept, and I don't just mean examples like the phallic Strangelove Slim Pickens hat tip at right, excuse me? Even to look at the dubiously baked confections is unappetizing, so why do we think they're edible? This might be a recurring quandary of mine to which short term memory blinds me. Why don't we try to eat dirt? (Easy for a well fed person to ask.) Where do we get a hunger for breakfast cereals, but not processed pet food? Why do humans stop consuming a fruit at the seed or rind, yet question why those discards fail to interest animal life too? Taste? We grasp that fire consumes nutrients, a toaster sometimes terminally, but how do industrial processes blur how we discern between live food and dead? Is it box art? Which grocery aisle? Sugar and butter are both edible and inedible, with flour it's the reverse --never mind, that's not what I meant to write about, I wanted to address the sudden Soylent Greening of PINK SLIME. I know
Hillendale Farm bursts pastoral cliche
The recall of salmonella-tainted eggs reaches half-billion as second farm implicated. Wait a minute, we're only up to two farms? What kind of "farm" yields 250 million eggs? Not one you'd picture called Sunny Farms, or Sunny Meadow, or Wholesome Farms, or West Creek. These are the pastoral facades behind Hillendale Farm, the latest source of factory food-sourcing contamination. But the mother of all deceptively cruel trade name conjures "over hill and dale," the expanse of concentrations of cages required to "farm" those chickens.
The Famous burger not most famous
Once again COLORADO SPRINGS STYLE nominates THE FAMOUS for the city's best burger. It ran against the usual lineup of respectable dining establishments plus King's Chef, the token dive, but there were notable omissions worth pointing out. At the crux, The Famous grinds their own hamburger from bits trimmed from nonpareil $40 steaks, but we're talking Iowa corn-fed variety, not prairie grass fed beef. You can find a free-range burger at Adams Mountain, which is listed, and Manitou's The Keg, which is not. The health aspect is a first omission that might have informed local diners immeasurably. 14396
Tapping into the nutrition of life energy
Yes, it's a live fish. The Youtube video upsetting PETA depicts Chinese diners poking at the still gasping mouth of what's for dinner. The plate isn't hot, but watch your fingers! The meat is blackened to a crisp, while from the neck up the fish is kept wet with towels to ensure it doesn't expire before the last bite. My, what a playful presentation with the red sauce! 11734
Simplifying the Omnivore’s Dilemma
The author of The Omnivore's Dilemma put together a list of eating rules for the New York Times. From 2,500 submissions made by his readers, Michael Pollan gleaned 20. If I lob cheap laughs off the top, like "Don't eat egg salad from a vending machine" and other home-spun wisdoms which help NYT editors trivialize critiques of consumerism, I'm left with eight tips to spark constructive rethinking of our eating patterns. For starters: 1. If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you’re not hungry. 11002
Smart choices graded on a curve
With local produce, organics and natural foods adorning their packaging with seals of approval to differentiate themselves from ordinary supermarket slop, the processed food purveyors have conjured their own green badge. They call it the SMART CHOICES program, and it's extraordinarily egalitarian. Whoever pays gets one. The makers of Fruit Loops, for example, have shown themselves smart enough to buy in. 9171
the food revolution starts here. only the healthy will survive.
There is a spate of recent films spilling the beans about the corporate takeover of the global food economy. Many are available online or through Amazon and Netflix. Please watch some of these. Show your kids. Host a screening in your community. Donate a copy or two to the local library or public school system. Encourage teachers to show the films. Spread the word! Subvert the dominant food paradigm! Refuse to play along anymore! 8411
It’s what’s for dinner
Crying while eating
You've done it. I've certainly done it. Sitting down for a bite to eat, suddenly overcome by emotion. "My GOD. What has my life become?" Or "Why, oh why, are we making WAR when we should be making LOVE?" Or, in my most recent case, "Why the HELL do I spend half my life doing things I HATE?" 3816
Ice Cream rBGH opens a pint of worms
Looking for an organic source of dairy products leads inevitably to questions about the most substantive food items of the so-called food group: the fat-rich cheeses and ice creams. Where are the blurbs which eschew rGBH and talk of range-fed dairy cows? 3480
Life, Love, Liberty and Lunch
I'm taking over the Bachelor Nutrition Series. Yes, Eric is a bachelor. But he's my bachelor; as such, he's carefully tended and well fed. The Simple Nutrition Series (its new name) should be geared toward those who know something about the body and, as such, desire nutritious fare but who, for whatever reason, find themselves culinarily challenged for a spell. 3399
FDA rapists on the loose, again
One of my favorite jump starts to the day is a breakfast of cottage cheese, fresh fruit and almonds. It's is a simple meal, easy to prepare, and represents a near-perfect combination of protein, carbohydrate and healthy fat. It's the almonds that provide the magic. In addition to a low glycemic index, which curtails a heavy duty insulin response, almond intake protects proteins from oxidative damage while delivering vitamin E and other antioxidants, magnesium, calcium, folic acid, protein, fiber and living enzymes. 3329
Yerba maté means love
A few years ago, I went with a friend to a little restaurant in Manitou called The Maté Factor. I ordered maté which, it turned out, was tea. Very dark and bitter tea. On my recent trip to Argentina, I discovered that this very same maté is consumed by nearly everyone, every day, throughout the entire day. However, it is never drunk during mealtimes, isn't sold at restaurants, and is never -- or very rarely -- offered to tourists. 3180
Eco regressive marketing
Canning fruit in plastic containers earns more money and less environmental merit badges.