Tag: food

Lessons from Granola #3

Dietitians recommend oatmeal. Doctors recommend the gummy stuff too because it is good for your heart and an excellent source of nutrition. Oatmeal is one of the ancient recipes that reaches back into the Medieval Period if not earlier, making oatmeal one of those more primitive and therefore more unadulterated recipes that excites food purists. The ancient history is correct but the recent history is a bit more convoluted. I am not sure your ancestors four or five generations back would be pleased with our oats.

The ingredients listed on the round container of Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of Pepsico:

WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, SUGAR, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, SALT, CALCIUM CARBONATE, GUAR GUM, CARAMEL COLOR, NIACINAMIDE*, REDUCED IRON, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE*, RIBOFLAVIN*, THIAMIN MONONITRATE*, FOLIC ACID*.

Compare and contrast with a more expensive brand of rolled oats, Bob’s Red Mill:

WHOLE GRAIN OATS.

The irony of this comparison is that the more expensive brand has only one ingredient. There are fifteen ingredients in the cheaper brand and some of them are nearly unpronounceable unless you are a practicing chemist. Why fifteen ingredients?

Quaker Oats is a highly processed product. A byproduct of manipulating the oats in the production process is the loss of nutrients. The more processing, the more loss. The manufacturer adds synthetic nutrients back into the oats to compensate and can actually add more to boost the nutrition claims. There are no impartial definitive studies that prove that the human body ingests synthetic nutrients in any significant quantities although there are studies that we do not absorb all of the synthetic nutrients, purging them from our bodies in our urine. These additives serve another purpose than health though. Food manufacturers are often called out for manipulating the nutrition labels on the side the packaging, trying to fool the consumer into believing that the product is healthier than it actually is.

For consumers the idea of eating whole foods such as WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS is to eat minimally processed foods. A basic formulation of rolled oats is processed to a small degree – oats on the plant are not flat. Health conscious consumers want minimally processed foods. In contrast, a manufacturer wants to increase market share by having more consumers purchase their product and by having the dedicated customer buy more of the product. These two different agendas do not have to be in opposition but overarching greed is enough incentive for a manufacturer to take advantage of the relationship between producer and consumer.

The usual method for increasing sales is not price. Price is a one-shot proposal for coupon-cutting budgeteers. Increasing sales on a broader scale usually means adding salt, fat and sugar. Notice that sugar is second and salt is fourth on the Quaker Oats listing of ingredients. However, there is another powerful weapon for promoting appetite for a product: monosodium glutamate otherwise known as MSG. MSG is flavor and it is addictive. There are four ingredients on the label that definitely contain MSG and a fifth that probably does. The four definite items are natural flavor, artificial flavor, guar gum and caramel color. The probable fifth is salt. MSG is intimately connected to significant and sustained weight gain.

The first and largest ingredient in my granola is oats, and already the recipe is landmine for the unwary. By choosing the wrong manufacturer, you lose nutrition and you gain weight. A bag or a box of ROLLED OATS should be just one ingredient, rolled oats.

Next Episode: Salt Ain’t What It Used To Be

Lessons from Granola 2

Re: Gluten Free misdirection

Members of my family have food intolerances that include wheat and corn. They have tested negative for Celiac Disease, meaning that they do not have a wheat allergy, or precisely, a gluten allergy. People with symptoms such as inflammation across the body, belly bloat, and unusual weight gain (such as 2, 3 or 4 pounds in a twenty-four hour period) have a greater probability of having an intolerance of some sort rather than a gluten allergy. A simple blood test of Celiac Disease can sort out the truth. My family members have intolerances but the question is what substance or substances can their bodies not tolerate?

Gluten Free is a meaningless term for people with food intolerances. It is not the gluten in and of itself.

The issue may be the preferred processes of large scale monoculture agribusiness. Two weeks before the harvest of wheat, corn and soybeans, farmers are instructed to spray their fields with herbicide, typically Roundup©. By killing the plants at the root and drying up the plant, sophisticated combine harvesters need less maintenance and repairs. My family may be more sensitive to herbicides.

Others have mentioned pesticides and fungicides used during the growing season, although these substances usually run off earlier in the growing season, causing other sorts of environmental damage. More often, purists point to manufactured fertilizers. When Egypt built the Aswan dam, replacing the annual flooding of the Nile River, their agriculture changed in fundamental ways. The flooding had brought nutrients from the center of the continent to naturally fertilize the land. The Egyptian government responded to the loss by building synthetic fertilizer factories. The taste of the vegetables changed dramatically, giving off a metallic or aluminum flavor that replaced the more organic flavonoids. I was unable to locate any studies on the increase or diminishment of the nutritional content of Egyptian produce after the placement of the Aswan dam. There are no studies on the rise of environmental ailments either.

In the United States, the ORGANIC label means herbicides are tightly controlled. The Federal Regulation on Organics reads: “Herbicides, soap-based—for use in farmstead maintenance (roadways, ditches, right of ways, building perimeters) and ornamental crops.” Crops are harvested differently than the large-scale agribusiness crops; the plants are more likely to be alive at the time of harvest. Herbicides cannot be used on the crops themselves, only in the adjacent areas used for keeping the farm up and running and farmers cannot use harsher chemicals.

I wish this was the end of the story, a tale of virtuous farmers producing a better food for us to eat. This is only the beginning, however. Most of us do not purchase our grain products directly from the farm. This granola is gluten free because the recipe is oats and buckwheat but, alas, in the American food market, even the simplest ingredients can trip the unwary.

Next Episode: Aren’t Oats Good For You?

Lessons on Granola #1

Please find the recipe below. The lessons and reasoning in choosing these ingredients will follow in #2 and if necessary #3.

Glenn’s Granola

2 sets of ingredients: the grain (Dry) and the glue (Wet)

Prep time: 1 hour

The Grain (all raw)

  1. 8 cups rolled oats
  2. 1 cup kasha (buckwheat whole oats)
  3. 1 cup sunflower seeds
  4. ½ cup pumpkin seeds
  5. 1 cup chopped almonds
  6. 1 cup chopped (choose) Cashews, pecans, walnuts, and/or macadamia

 The Glue

  1.  ½ cup brown sugar
  2. ¼ cup maple syrup
  3. 2 Tbs honey
  4. ¼ cup molasses (unsulfured is better)
  5. 1 cup oil (I use olive)
  6. 1.5 tsp salt
  7. 2 Tbs cinnamon
  8. 1 Tbs ginger
  9. 1 Tbs vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix all the grain ingredients in an over-sized bowl.

Add all the glue ingredients to a sauce pot set on medium. If brown sugar is hardened, press down on chunks as the mixture heats. Stir occasionally. Allow mixture to foam once and immediately turn off heat. Stir. Entire process takes five minutes.

Pour glue into grain mixture and stir until thoroughly coated. Use wire rimmed baking pans or parchment paper on top of cookie sheets. Spread mixture on pan evenly. Place pans in center of oven.

Total Bake Time is 30 minutes. At 15 minute mark, swap places and turn around the pan for even baking. Let granola cool in pan or on paper.

12 servings. Granola will last a week (hah!) in plastic-ware on counter.

Published
Categorized as Health Tagged

Wine and Cheese – How To

Once in a while, a learned student will step back from his/her life and work to create an accessible lesson of what they have learned. Wine and cheese are wonderful treats but few of us have time or the ability to pair the two to enjoy the most out of both. Bon Apetit!

cheese and wine pairingWhen you are done enjoying this visually rich chart on the pairing of cheese and wine, step back and consider how this teacher chose to present the subject. Most of us would have been content with a spreadsheet or even an how-to booklet. I count at least four or five chapters of a book in this chart yet in this case, the making of a book is unnecessary. How often to do we fail to recognize the genius of teaching subject matter?

Reading Food Labels – MSG

With the blessing of the Department of Agriculture, food manufacturers must list MSG as an ingredient only if it is added as a separate and unique item. If another processed ingredient in the product already contains MSG, no matter the quantity of the chemical, the manufacturer does not have to list MSG as an ingredient. Also, the manufacturer may list the process of creating the food product (i.e. ultra-pasteurized) that includes adding MSG without listing MSG. The “short list” of 58 ingredients containing quantities of MSG is as follows:

  1. Carrageenan,
  2. Wheat, rice, corn, or oat protein,
  3. Protein Fortified Milk,
  4. Whey Protein or Whey,
  5. Anything enriched or vitamin enriched,
  6. Annatto,
  7. Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
  8. Protein fortified “anything”,
  9. Spice,
  10. Pectin,
  11. Enzyme modified proteins,
  12. Gums (guar and vegetable),
  13. Protease,
  14. Ultra-pasteurized dairy products,
  15. Dough Conditioners,
  16. Malted Barley (flavor),
  17. Natural Flavors,
  18. Flavors, Flavoring,
  19. Modified food starch,
  20. Barley malt,
  21. Reaction Flavors,
  22. Rice syrup or brown rice syrup,
  23. Malt Extract or Flavoring,
  24. Maltodextrin,
  25. dextrose,
  26. dextrates,
  27. Soy Sauce or Extract,
  28. “Low” or “No Fat” items,
  29. Caramel Flavoring (coloring),
  30. Soy Protein,
  31. Corn syrup and corn syrup solids,
  32. high fructose corn syrup,
  33. Stock,
  34. Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
  35. Citric Acid (when processed from corn),
  36. Malt Extract or Flavoring,
  37. Natural Chicken, Beef, or Pork, Flavoring “Seasonings” (Most assume this means salt, pepper, or spices and herbs, which sometimes it is.)
  38. Lipolyzed butter fat,
  39. Protease enzymes,
  40. Fermented proteins,
  41. Yeast Nutrients,
  42. Lecithin,
  43. Gluten and gluten flour,
  44. Protein powders: whey, soy, oat, rice (as in protein bars shakes and body building drinks),
  45. Amino acids (as in Bragg’s liquid amino acids and chelated to vitamins),
  46. Algae,
  47. phytoplankton,
  48. sea vegetable,
  49. wheat/ barley grass powders, Stock,
  50. Soy Protein Isolate or Concentrate,
  51. Citric Acid (when processed from corn),
  52. Broth,
  53. Cornstarch fructose (made from corn),
  54. Milk Powder,
  55. Bouillon,
  56. Flowing Agents,
  57. Dry Milk Solids.
  58. “Ultra-pasteurized” anything.
Published
Categorized as Food Tagged ,

Deciphering food ads

Cheap food is usually advertized with lots of adjectives. The eggs are fluffy and syrup is sweet. Often the verbal cues will veer into the language of drugs such as “This sauce is addictive.”

Fancy foods or higher end restaurants do not use adjectives. They simply list the ingredients because the assumption is that the food is quality. There is no need to say fresh lettuce when the quality guarantees that all ingredients are fresh.

Expensive food is also not spoken of using drug metaphors. Ad copyists and food critics prefer sex metaphors for quality food. Think chocolate – good chocolate is sexy.

All of the above notes come from American linguists. The only insight I can offer is if you are in any establishment that refers to its food as “product” or “food product”, then leave as fast as you can. Eww.

Honey is not so sweet anymore

The Honey lobby is lobbying Congress for stricter definitions of what is honey. According to an article published in The Atlantic, the regulations of what constitutes honey are so loose that the product on the shelves may not contain any pollen. What are consumers buying?

Some honey is corn syrup flavored as honey. Some is rice syrup, which is already the same color as honey. The more sophisticated faux honey is the product of bees force fed corn syrup. One cannot determine by price or by label the quality of honey that is for purchase in American stores.

Needless to say, the big honey labels in the United States are protesting against new definitions of honey and further regulations. Honey is just another example of highly-processed food stuffs in the American market. The lack of specific labeling allows faux food to be passed off as a legitimate food substance, in this case honey from bees. Corn syrup is inexpensive and honey prices are quite high.

Unless you know someone with beehives who is willing to share, the probability that you are consuming a partially faux honey product is remarkably high.

While the state of honey in the jar may be legal, there is a moral corruption here. While food processors have the right to produce processed foods, many of the products are clearly identified as highly processed by the list of ingredients. I also have the right not to purchase these processed foods. By hiding the content of honey, my rights are undermined – legal though the mechanism be. The very fact that companies have to hide ingredients, even lobbying regulatory agencies to make sure that ingredients remain hidden, should be a warning that these products are ultimately undesirable.

We are what we eat. Suddenly, that aphorism is a scary proposition.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/the-honey-lobby-is-demanding-that-the-government-defines-honey/380994/