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Recipe For Disaster

What’s (not) in a food label?

By Megan Tady

A decade after high school, and I’m still being served mystery meat. Oh sure, a label is slapped onto the package, but the secret isn’t in the calorie count. The unaccounted for ingredients—or rather, what’s been done to my food before it becomes dinner—is being quietly and covertly left off of the label. Hungry? No, I could go for an… return to article

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    It has been obvious for quite some time now that the FDA and USDA care nothing for the health or welfare of consumers or small family farms.  They care only to enrich their corporate masters.

    Buy food from local farmers.  Go to the farmer’s market in your town.  Go see how your food is grown.  Keep the $$ in the community.

    It is one of the most political acts you can perform.

    United States Posted by lady farmer on Oct 4, 2007 at 7:05 AM

    While disclosure regarding cloning and genetic modification is important in terms of food safety, I hope it doesn’t take a great famine for the general public to understand how cloned and GM foods are a serious threat to food *security*.  It’s taken millenia for mankind to develop its seed banks and livestock breeds; these could be wiped out in a generation by “Big Ag” if we can’t keep an eye on the situation.

    United States Posted by Theodore on Oct 4, 2007 at 2:00 PM

    You are what you eat.

    Dis-moi ce que tu manges, je te dirai ce que tu es. (Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.) - Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

    Der Mensch ist, was er isst. (The man is what he eats) - Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach

    And truer words, metaphorically speaking, were never spoken.

    Genetically modified? Cloned? Bad enough that they make these frankenfoods and worse yet that they won’t tell if you are eating them.

    Simple foods. Raw foods. Whole foods. Good foods!

    If possible - eat food you have grown or raised yourself or food that was grown or raised close to home. Like Lady Farmer says ... it’s a political action (universally). And an important action (personally).

    Any groceries I buy at the supermarket are in their most natural state - for instance; brown rice instead of white rice. If I saw a label that identified a food as genetically modified or cloned I would not buy it.

    A vegetable garden is a family tradition and these days only organic seeds or seeds we preserve from the previous year’s harvest get planted. When I was a kid we had a little farm and raised chickens for fresh eggs and for eating the chickens as well. And we raised a calf, bought from a neighbours ranch, every year and after it had grown, slaughtered it ourselves. There is nothing like seeing the lifeblood gushing from the throat of an animal you have helped raise to give you some respect and perspective for what you eat.

    These days I am more of a city (small town) boy but I still grow various vegetables and herbs and buy locally raised (organic) eggs, (free range) chicken, (grass fed) beef and bison. My favorite hobby ... angling for (rainbow trout) fish provides food too. And with hunting season upon us I hope to provide some wild game for the dinner table as well.

    This year (with help from my Mom - thanks Mom) I learned to can locally grown peaches, pears, cherries. And we also canned some salsa (tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, garlic {all home grown} vinegar, cumin and sea salt). With grapes (and wild blackberries and raspberries) ready to harvest my Dad and I plan to do some homemade wine.

    It’s not as hard as it might seem. With a little bit of effort anyone could (and should) do it.

    Canada Posted by David in Canuckistan on Oct 4, 2007 at 9:44 PM

    All good ideas.

    Our local farmers’ market apples are less photogenic, but they taste like real apples should.

    However, with the huge volume coming from foreign food producers and only one percent inspected, it seems futile.

    More immediate action needs to be taken to stop the inlow of contaminents. Foreign prices are low for good reason — there is no equivalent to the standards we took generations to impose. Those “cheaper consumer goods” have a high price tag attached.

    In 1985 one of my clients shifted their plating operations to Asia where they dumped the solution used out the back door — into a rice paddy.

    I no longer enjoy going out for dinner.  Perhaps it’s time for a single major restaurant chain or food company to announce Domestic Organically Grown Only and we could support their approach.

    First they sold our jobs.. Now they feed us poisons. Well, that’s one way to solve the unfunded Social Security and pension plan problem.

    United States Posted by whattheheck on Oct 8, 2007 at 6:48 AM

    “Buy food from local farmers.  Go to the farmer’s market in your town.  Go see how your food is grown.  Keep the $$ in the community.

    It is one of the most political acts you can perform.”

    lady farmer has hit the nail square on its proverbial head. It’s not easy in some places, for example here in the Phils (esp. Metro Manila) the market is so open to the dominance of imported goods that “staying local” in terms of purchases necessarily means that some very yummy and nutritious items will get passed over. Plus, most of the agro land here is devoted to the raising of rice, the local staple (if there aint rice on the table, it’s just merienda/snack… a MEAL includes rice, syempre!). So, there is an opportunity cost of emphasizing locally raised food… but there would be anyway, if you spent your money on imported goodies.

    The flavor and goodness of local, seasonal vegetables in the Phils puts to shame the stuff I get from the grocer’s shelf when I visit the Golden Mountain, even if the local tomatoes might look a little green or bashed up or bug-bitten sometimes, or the chickens are a bit small. But they’re cheaper and taste better, so there you go.

    (Those swollen-breasted chickens you get in the States… yikes! A little spooky.)

    Actually, undereating is better anyway. That’s another political act I think is worthy of considering, plus the data on calorie restriction and lengthening of life (as long as nutritional balance is practiced) is very compelling. Replication of research is already in the pipeline.

    Less body fat, less raw sewage, less of a “masturbatory” ethical tone, potentially longer life (I do emphasize, potentially)… seems like a winner all around. Don’t eat so much.

    Every dollar (or peso) spent is a vote. And the choices are much more understandable and direct than the disheartening “choices” we have to choose from among in a national election!

    Philippines Posted by Kuya on Oct 15, 2007 at 7:08 PM

    Don’t eat so much. - Good advice, Kuya.

    Anyone who wants to try it might consider fasting for 2 or 3 days and then start eating again (hopefully good food) . They will find that the food tastes incredible and their stomach simply can’t hold as much as it used to.

    Canada Posted by David in Canuckistan on Oct 15, 2007 at 11:06 PM
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