Don't Play With Our Food

Maybe it’s because I’m a Mom and feel there is a certain expectation that I know exactly what my family is ingesting. Honestly, my children would be perfectly happy to be raised on canned Spaghetti O’s, hot dogs and chips, but I just can’t see that kind of diet giving them enough nutrients to get though the next growth spurt.

Then there is trying to make sure my husband and I stave off a heart attack long enough to see them through high school. With four boys and two girls, I am sure the teen age years will give us enough cause for a coronary assault without the aid of high cholesterol.

So I try to stock the healthy stuff. Resort to stealth when it comes to getting them ( husband included) to eat anything made with whole grain. I read the food labels and research what makes for a healthy intake and what to avoid. After all this research I am left with a “heart-burning” question. Why do they keep messing with our food?

They could have stopped with seedless watermelon and grapes, and I wouldn’t have cared. I know there’s something not quite right there, but I can overlook it. The Nectarine, cross between a peach and a plum , although not my favorite, has it’s merits. Personal sized melons, although the taste is a little dull compared to the full size variety, I can see the marketing behind it. (They were developed to appeal to women shoppers who are insecure about their breast size. True stuff.)

Now a really bright idea someone has come up with, growing watermelons in boxes to force them into a square shape. Anyone who has gritted their teeth on the way home from the grocery store as a large round watermelon rolls and thuds in the car trunk can appreciate.

That kind of stuff I can handle. It’s the stuff they add in and change that you don’t know that bugs me. Due to what they consider to be an unfair marketing advantage, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture is stopping dairies from putting “rGBH free” or “hormone free” on its milk labels. Ohio is considering the same. Despite other countries banning it, the FDA has been saying for years now that rGBH( Bovine growth Hormone) is safe , but really are you going to trust them? The FDA is opening a new facility with money donated from pharmaceutical companies. I’ve heard of strange bedfellows before but shouldn’t this be more like “The War of the Roses”?

Quite frankly, I want to know what’s in my food. I want to know where it’s been, who it’s been seeing recently. I know this isn’t dating, but I find ingestion a somewhat intimate act. The additives for instance. Potassium Sorbate, Dipotassium phosphate, and my personal favorite, Monosodium glutamate. Sounds yummy . If you are what you eat, wouldn’t you want it to be something you can pronounce or at least spell? Reading food labels requires a dictionary.

I used to wonder why those prepackaged, individually wrapped “cheese “slices came in a particular shade of orange not commonly found in nature, until I took a closer look at the package. Technically it’s not cheese, it is in fact “process cheese food”. It’s been through the wringer so much that they really can’t call it “cheese” anymore. My breakfast cereal now comes with more vitamin C added. It shows how much we over process our food when we need to add the vitamins back in.

My local grocery store has a whole aisle , six shelves high and 20 ft long, devoted to juice. Start reading the labels and you might find about five brands that contain 100% juice. Even some of the better name brands,( which shall remain shameless- I mean nameless), might have between 5% and 25% actual juice in them. With grocery prices are on the rise I am not paying close to $4 bucks a gallon for 5% juice, water, natural and artificial flavoring and coloring.

Recently, I read an article on how companies are trying to cash in on the “organic” food market and discovered the some of the chicken is being injected with broth and salt water, up to 15%. One company’s excuse is people prefer seasoned chicken. . Last time I knew “chicken of the sea “ wasn’t chicken and came in a can. It’s bad enough they want me to pay for salt water by the pound but then they have the nerve to want to be able to call it “all natural” too.

It’s the genetically altered foods that make me nervous. Is it really necessary to start messing with on the DNA level? I would like to imagine some one in one of those pristine , starched white lab coats. Sweating, hands slightly shaking as they attempt to replace the correct protein in the DNA strand. Not how it’s done.

The initial process has been described as similar to loading a high powered riffle with genetic buckshot and blasting the hell out of the chromosomes. Then you look to see if anything stuck. Where in the chain the DNA is altered is extremely important to what you get for results, so the random “ let the chips fall where the may” experimenting leaves me a little insecure. I can’t help it. I keep thinking of those corny old horror movies , like “Attack of The Killer Tomatoes”.

There are some in the scientific community that are starting to wonder if , despite the FDA seal of approval, some of these altered foods might be responsible for the rise in food allergies and illnesses. Unfortunately there has not been enough data gathered to make that kind of finding yet. Considering that decades ago peanut, wheat and milk allergies where rare compared to today, maybe they’re on to something.

Eating as close to nature as possible is still highly recommended as the healthiest diet no matter what age or stage of life you are at. Besides ,didn’t Mom always say not to play with your food ?