My friend Norene, found this terrific article The Seven Foods Experts Won't Eat. I'm not sure I can actually follow all of them, and I'm wondering about you.Here's my take on the Seven Deadlies....
1. No canned tomatoes...something about the tins themselves that are linked to horrible diseases. They suggest buying tomatoes in glass jars. I don't know about you, but other than in sauces or pickled, I've never found jarred tomatoes....and I don't think I'm going to spend too much time looking either.
2. No corn fed beef....I do try to find grass fed beef, but not always available at local supermarkets and the price is usually a lot more. The taste of the meat is also different, so it does take some getting used to. An easy start is to find the grass-fed beef producer at your local farmers market and go for stewing meat and ground beef for braises, chilis and stews.
3. No microwaved popcorn...again chemicals in the bags. Not really a big popcorn eater, so not really an issue for me. Any thoughts?
4. Non-organic potatoes...being root vegetables they not only absorb nutrients from the soil, but pesticides etc., as well. Hmmmmm, I never thought of that. So I'll be on a hunt. I wonder how easy/hard it will be to find. I wonder if I'll even remember this the next time I hunt for potatoes.
5. Farmed Salmon...too gross to repeat here, and apparently here on the East Coast, there is no commercial wild salmon fishing. Since salmon is high in Omega 3s and important for eye and heart health, I think this needs more research for me as to the quality of fish farms here in the east before I totally boycott them.
6. Milk produced with artificial hormones....another thing I never thought about....just checked my milk carton and, of course it doesn't say anything. Big sigh....apparently now I have to look for Check labels for rBGH-free, rBST-free products. Given I don't drink a lot of milk, (I'm pretending cheese doesn't count) I won't worry.
7. Regular apples...too many pesticides. Look for organic or at least wash & peel. I think I'll go that route.
That said, I do think we can get carried away and sometimes, I choose not to look too closely. What's your take on all of this? Which ones matter and which will you ignore?
6 comments:
Organic is definitely the way to go. Rent "Food, Inc." for a real education. Slowly making the move, even though it is more expensive.
I did see Food Inc and even wrote about it. http://onceuponafeast.blogspot.com/2009/08/two-more-reasons-to-eat-local.html Quite the eye opener.
Thanks for dropping by.
I read the article a couple of days too, and was thinking about it. My take on it: the beef and the salmon don't matter to me because I don't eat meat and seafood, and I already only buy organic milk. I don't eat microwave popcorn.
The potatoes and apples are something I will definitely look for organic varieties of from now on. The canned tomatoes are one thing that I use a lot of, and I think I'll continue to. I'll take my chances with this one.
Hmmm. I'm awful at choosing my foods, I guess. I used canned tomatoes - Contadina brand - and like the flavor. I have no idea where to get grass fed beef. We use microwave popcorn in our house. When I get a produce share from the organic coop I"m in, and it has potatoes and/or apples, I'll have those. But usually I get regular. Milk - never thought about it either. And salmon - well, there's one I'll always be able to follow. We never eat salmon. Never. And if we have fish, it's fish that Don caught himself in the ocean or at Lake Mead. Interesting - I clearly don't care too much about what I eat, do I?!
Nupur, Cyndi, thanks for your points of view. I must admit,the article did have me thinking, but I don't think I'm going to change many of my current habits. I will look into salmon farms though - we do eat lots of salmon.
It is interesting and I like you have never seen tomatoes in a jar unless we have canned them ourselves. The vote is still out on farmed salmon here on the West Coast. The big concern is that they use antibiotics when their fish are sick which leeches out into the ocean. Farmed salmon is our largest export here on the West Coast.
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