A new AP article reveals that one out of every four shipments of seafood from China makes it through the ports without inspection. And the FDA is still under the impression that this is acceptable practice in keeping our food supply safe.
I'm telling you, when it comes to the food you eat and feed your loved ones, BUY AMERICAN! You can verify its origins easily enough through simple research, and if you can't, don't buy it! This method could save your life!
Until next time!
Laurie
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Progress ... slow but a start
In a bid to avoid government regulation over their advertisement practices, some of the biggest food companies in the U.S. - the likes of McDonald's, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola - have announced plans to cease ad campaigns aimed specifically at children under 12 years old.
A few companies, like Coca-Cola, already started withdrawing its ads, while others (i.e., cereal manufacturer General Mills) said they plan to to pull their campaigns "over the next year, or so." (Like the caption above says, slow, but progress nonetheless.)
See this article for more details.
Later, kids!
Laurie
A few companies, like Coca-Cola, already started withdrawing its ads, while others (i.e., cereal manufacturer General Mills) said they plan to to pull their campaigns "over the next year, or so." (Like the caption above says, slow, but progress nonetheless.)
See this article for more details.
Later, kids!
Laurie
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Another reason to buy organic
In an article in yesterday's New York Times, I read that organic fruits and vegetables have more of the nutrients touted to reduce certain illnesses (like the flavinoids in tomatoes that protect against heart disease).
One theory that the authors of the scientific study, which was published in The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, suggested was that organic produce contained more of their healthful ingredients because the fertile soil they're grown in accumulates organic matter over time. Organic farmers use natural fertilizers like compost and manure.
In other words, farmers put those Rocky Mountain oysters to good use.
Until next time!
Laurie
One theory that the authors of the scientific study, which was published in The Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, suggested was that organic produce contained more of their healthful ingredients because the fertile soil they're grown in accumulates organic matter over time. Organic farmers use natural fertilizers like compost and manure.
In other words, farmers put those Rocky Mountain oysters to good use.
Until next time!
Laurie
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
More on food safety
Apparently lawmakers are finally waking up to the dangers of having only 1 percent of our edible imports inspected for tainted and/or deliberately tampered with food. I'm glad they're taking the time to earn their salaries for a change!
To check out the article I read, click here.
I know this is a short post today, but I thought I'd give you a break! (LOL!)
Take care,
Laurie
To check out the article I read, click here.
I know this is a short post today, but I thought I'd give you a break! (LOL!)
Take care,
Laurie
Monday, July 16, 2007
The temptations around us
I took the weekend off, as you can see. But now I'm back. Today's topic will cover the food surrounding us on a daily basis ... and how it isn't necessarily good for us.
My office sponsors a "bagel Monday" for everyone as a company perk and a way to welcome us back from the weekend. (My favorite is the cinnamon raisin slathered with about a tablespoon of butter, by the way.) This is a nice thing for breakfast ... if you're not trying to limit the refined white flour in your diet. And, yes, I'm trying to do just that. Refined white flour has very little nutritional value. By the time you see it in it's paper sack in the grocery store, it's had just about every bit of fiber and most all nutrients removed from it.
My problem? When everyone's done with bagels, and the leftovers are sitting in their paper bags on the counter at lunchtime, I can't help myself from taking another one. There are approximately 195 calories in each cinnamon raisin bagel (with, if I'm lucky, 3 grams of fiber). Each tablespoon of butter has about 101 calories (and 14 grams of fat!)
Yes, folks, I'm now completely disgusted with myself.
Anyway ... to go on to healthier topics - because this blog is all about me breaking my bad habits (as well as expounding on food topics that I find interesting) ... did you know that the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fiber per day for average adults is 35 grams?
To give you an idea of how difficult it is to reach this target, I found a high-fiber cereal (because most are not, with just 2 grams of fiber or less per serving) that contains 7 grams per serving. The highest I've seen is 11 grams, but it didn't look very palatable (and that's key to sticking with it). Think about it. In order to get the RDA of fiber, you have to work fairly hard at it. Most cereals and baked goods many of us buy have so little fiber content that I highly doubt a great many Americans are meeting that 35-gram goal. (Hence that Metamucil bottle on your mom's countertop.) If I had a bowl of the high-fiber cereal with a medium banana sliced over it, I would have 10 grams of fiber (7 for the cereal, 3 for the banana and none for the milk - milk and meats don't contain fiber unless it's added ... which sounds kind of scary, if you ask me).
Okay, so 10 grams is a good start for the day. But now what? Lunch, if it consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich with lettuce, a medium apple and diet cola, would likely only contain 11or so grams of fiber, if you use the right bread: 7 grams of fiber for two slices of high-bran "health" bread (compared with only 1.9 grams for two slices of white, refined flour bread ... oh the wonder of Wonder Bread!), none for the ham and cheese (meat and dairy = no fiber), lettuce gives a very small amount of fiber as 1 cup of boston leaf has .8 grams of fiber in it (and how many people put a cup of lettuce on a sandwich?), and 4 grams of fiber for the apple. (If you're looking for fiber in your diet cola, you have more problems than I can help you solve.)
So, breakfast and lunch now equals 21 grams. Where can I come up with another 14 grams for dinner? I'd have to eat fiber-rich foods to make up for the deficit. I could have a serving of beans for dinner (2/3 of a cup of cooked lentils has 5.5 grams of fiber), chicken (no fiber, sorry), a cup of raw spinach salad (3.5 grams of fiber for the spinach, a big 0 for the dressing), and a half-cup of summer squash (2 grams of fiber) for a grand total of 11 grams.
Hmm. I'm still missing the target by about 3 grams of fiber, but it's close enough. However, see how much work that takes? I don't have time in my day for much else besides work and sleep, and now I have to figure out a daily eating plan. *le sigh* This is probably why I'm always on a diet.
By the way, many thanks to Continuum Health Partners, Inc. for the very informative web site (www.wehealny.org/healthinfo/dietaryfiber/index.html), which enabled me to plan out the above.
See you next time!
Laurie
My office sponsors a "bagel Monday" for everyone as a company perk and a way to welcome us back from the weekend. (My favorite is the cinnamon raisin slathered with about a tablespoon of butter, by the way.) This is a nice thing for breakfast ... if you're not trying to limit the refined white flour in your diet. And, yes, I'm trying to do just that. Refined white flour has very little nutritional value. By the time you see it in it's paper sack in the grocery store, it's had just about every bit of fiber and most all nutrients removed from it.
My problem? When everyone's done with bagels, and the leftovers are sitting in their paper bags on the counter at lunchtime, I can't help myself from taking another one. There are approximately 195 calories in each cinnamon raisin bagel (with, if I'm lucky, 3 grams of fiber). Each tablespoon of butter has about 101 calories (and 14 grams of fat!)
Yes, folks, I'm now completely disgusted with myself.
Anyway ... to go on to healthier topics - because this blog is all about me breaking my bad habits (as well as expounding on food topics that I find interesting) ... did you know that the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of fiber per day for average adults is 35 grams?
To give you an idea of how difficult it is to reach this target, I found a high-fiber cereal (because most are not, with just 2 grams of fiber or less per serving) that contains 7 grams per serving. The highest I've seen is 11 grams, but it didn't look very palatable (and that's key to sticking with it). Think about it. In order to get the RDA of fiber, you have to work fairly hard at it. Most cereals and baked goods many of us buy have so little fiber content that I highly doubt a great many Americans are meeting that 35-gram goal. (Hence that Metamucil bottle on your mom's countertop.) If I had a bowl of the high-fiber cereal with a medium banana sliced over it, I would have 10 grams of fiber (7 for the cereal, 3 for the banana and none for the milk - milk and meats don't contain fiber unless it's added ... which sounds kind of scary, if you ask me).
Okay, so 10 grams is a good start for the day. But now what? Lunch, if it consisted of a ham and cheese sandwich with lettuce, a medium apple and diet cola, would likely only contain 11or so grams of fiber, if you use the right bread: 7 grams of fiber for two slices of high-bran "health" bread (compared with only 1.9 grams for two slices of white, refined flour bread ... oh the wonder of Wonder Bread!), none for the ham and cheese (meat and dairy = no fiber), lettuce gives a very small amount of fiber as 1 cup of boston leaf has .8 grams of fiber in it (and how many people put a cup of lettuce on a sandwich?), and 4 grams of fiber for the apple. (If you're looking for fiber in your diet cola, you have more problems than I can help you solve.)
So, breakfast and lunch now equals 21 grams. Where can I come up with another 14 grams for dinner? I'd have to eat fiber-rich foods to make up for the deficit. I could have a serving of beans for dinner (2/3 of a cup of cooked lentils has 5.5 grams of fiber), chicken (no fiber, sorry), a cup of raw spinach salad (3.5 grams of fiber for the spinach, a big 0 for the dressing), and a half-cup of summer squash (2 grams of fiber) for a grand total of 11 grams.
Hmm. I'm still missing the target by about 3 grams of fiber, but it's close enough. However, see how much work that takes? I don't have time in my day for much else besides work and sleep, and now I have to figure out a daily eating plan. *le sigh* This is probably why I'm always on a diet.
By the way, many thanks to Continuum Health Partners, Inc. for the very informative web site (www.wehealny.org/healthinfo/dietaryfiber/index.html), which enabled me to plan out the above.
See you next time!
Laurie
Thursday, July 12, 2007
The food we eat and who makes sure it's safe
I didn't intend to make political commentaries when I started this blog. There are plenty of those around anyway, so who needs more? And I'll try to be unbiased in this post, though it involves the safety of something we all rely upon for survival - rich and poor (and those in between) alike - the U.S. food supply. This is something we should all consider when we're trolling the aisles to replenish our pantries, especially in these interesting times that we live in.
Did you know that less than 5 percent of all the cargo imported into the U.S. (edibles included) is inspected? Seriously, did you know this? Many of you might, considering the recent spat over the now-defunct bid for control of our seaports by a Dubai-based company. Yes, the deal was shot down, but the fact remains that very few cargo containers are checked.
Do you remember the brilliant (and, yes, sarcasm is a frequently used device of mine) statement made by former Health and Human Services Department Chief Tommy Thompson about his surprise that terrorists hadn't already targeted our vulnerable food supply? (Way to go, Einstein. Sure we'll vote you in for the next pres. Dumbass!)
Now let's turn our attention, for a moment, to the recent melamine contamination in our pet food supply. Thousands of pets were injured or killed by ingesting food made with the tainted product. (By the way, that shipment was considered safe for human consumption. Did you know that?) It came out, months after the epidemic was uncovered, that the Chinese exporter intentionally added the melamine to the wheat gluten to pump up the protein level and get more money by taking a shortcut. Awesome! You know what's scarier? The FDA, for all it's blustering over taking China to task for the fiasco, still says it can't inspect EVERY import headed for American tables.
And that brings me to the point I touched on at the end of my post yesterday. The U.S. started out as a country whose economy was based on agriculture. Yes, folks, farming. Our country's founders grew cotton, corn, tobacco (okay, admittedly not a healthy example ... but still a historically important crop), etc. As the Industrial Revolution dawned, farming declined and technology increased. Eventually, there were less people willing to work as farmhands than there were office staffers and the like.
The U.S. government began paying farmers subsidies not to grow crops because it was less expensive to import them from other countries. But the FDA can't control the growing conditions in those other countries. And, apparently, they have no time to inspect them when they get here. The result? Our food supply is largely dependent on foreign countries and the people who work there, many times at very small wages and in poor conditions.
Meanwhile, many of the technology jobs are being offshored to these other countries as well, and we have a farming community dependent on illegal immigrant day laborers to do the work because many farmers can't afford, or maybe just don't want, to pay the U.S. minimum wage to American workers. Yet the government still thinks it's a great idea to import foods from other countries. (And China's not the only country to screw with our food supply. Read the article in today's New York Times.)
Perhaps I've condensed this all into a simplistic view of what's going on, but the facts are screaming the story for themselves. Many think the movement toward organic, locally grown/produced foods is just another extension of a trendy movement - costly and unnecessary. (Ah, let's skimp on the price we pay for the food we eat that keeps us healthy and get that big-screen TV we've had our eye on instead).
But I say, can you really afford to be so flippant with your family's food supply? Maybe now, as you browse through your supermarket or grocery store, you'll look a bit closer at the labels and see just how much of your fare actually comes from a far off land.
Just something to think about.
Laurie
Did you know that less than 5 percent of all the cargo imported into the U.S. (edibles included) is inspected? Seriously, did you know this? Many of you might, considering the recent spat over the now-defunct bid for control of our seaports by a Dubai-based company. Yes, the deal was shot down, but the fact remains that very few cargo containers are checked.
Do you remember the brilliant (and, yes, sarcasm is a frequently used device of mine) statement made by former Health and Human Services Department Chief Tommy Thompson about his surprise that terrorists hadn't already targeted our vulnerable food supply? (Way to go, Einstein. Sure we'll vote you in for the next pres. Dumbass!)
Now let's turn our attention, for a moment, to the recent melamine contamination in our pet food supply. Thousands of pets were injured or killed by ingesting food made with the tainted product. (By the way, that shipment was considered safe for human consumption. Did you know that?) It came out, months after the epidemic was uncovered, that the Chinese exporter intentionally added the melamine to the wheat gluten to pump up the protein level and get more money by taking a shortcut. Awesome! You know what's scarier? The FDA, for all it's blustering over taking China to task for the fiasco, still says it can't inspect EVERY import headed for American tables.
And that brings me to the point I touched on at the end of my post yesterday. The U.S. started out as a country whose economy was based on agriculture. Yes, folks, farming. Our country's founders grew cotton, corn, tobacco (okay, admittedly not a healthy example ... but still a historically important crop), etc. As the Industrial Revolution dawned, farming declined and technology increased. Eventually, there were less people willing to work as farmhands than there were office staffers and the like.
The U.S. government began paying farmers subsidies not to grow crops because it was less expensive to import them from other countries. But the FDA can't control the growing conditions in those other countries. And, apparently, they have no time to inspect them when they get here. The result? Our food supply is largely dependent on foreign countries and the people who work there, many times at very small wages and in poor conditions.
Meanwhile, many of the technology jobs are being offshored to these other countries as well, and we have a farming community dependent on illegal immigrant day laborers to do the work because many farmers can't afford, or maybe just don't want, to pay the U.S. minimum wage to American workers. Yet the government still thinks it's a great idea to import foods from other countries. (And China's not the only country to screw with our food supply. Read the article in today's New York Times.)
Perhaps I've condensed this all into a simplistic view of what's going on, but the facts are screaming the story for themselves. Many think the movement toward organic, locally grown/produced foods is just another extension of a trendy movement - costly and unnecessary. (Ah, let's skimp on the price we pay for the food we eat that keeps us healthy and get that big-screen TV we've had our eye on instead).
But I say, can you really afford to be so flippant with your family's food supply? Maybe now, as you browse through your supermarket or grocery store, you'll look a bit closer at the labels and see just how much of your fare actually comes from a far off land.
Just something to think about.
Laurie
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Let's get started!
Where do I begin? LOL!
I don't expect to become famous - or infamous, for that matter - with this blog. I won't be regaling anyone with celebrity sightings, or gossip, etc. And I'm sure I won't be garnering a mountain of readers and/or comments on the posts.
Why the hell am I writing this then? Because I feel I have something to say, and if you don't want to listen no one's keeping you here. (How's that for starting things off on the right note?)
This blog is going to be about food - yes, I know you've probably figured it out, but some people don't pay attention to silly little things like titles, so I thought I'd simplify matters and spell it all out for you. It's about everyday life, eating and all the things that go into trying to fit a decent day's sustenance into a hectic schedule.
I am an average woman, rapidly approaching middle age - holy crap, where did those years go? (Look, young'uns: we all age. The alternative is death, so which would you rather? I was your age once, you know. And if you're lucky, you'll reach my age and hopefully beyond. So pipe down. And if middle age is too old for you to be reading what I'm writing, take a hike.) I work a full-time job in NYC (living in a New Jersey suburb makes commuting a way of life), which can hinder efforts to prepare and eat healthy meals. My husband also commutes to work (he drives, while I take public transportation - but we both eat on the run too often).
What I hope to do with this blog is chronicle my efforts to take better care of my (and his) nutrition ... and maybe share some ideas with others who find themselves in a similar predicament. If I get readers to share their own ideas with me, so much the better. If not, it's not going to keep me from writing. (Yes, that was a threat! LOL!)
Anyway, I hope some of you decide to join me on this challenging path, or at least stick around to see some of the things that I come out with. (I might be entertaining, you know! The first entry doesn't count!)
Coming up in my next post, I'll rant about a few things that piss me off about the availability of a safe food supply here in the U.S. Preview question: Why the hell do we pay our farmers NOT to grow things for us, and then turn around and buy imports from China, of all places? OF COURSE they're selling tainted products! Why do you THINK they're so cheap?
Food for thought.
Later,
Laurie
I don't expect to become famous - or infamous, for that matter - with this blog. I won't be regaling anyone with celebrity sightings, or gossip, etc. And I'm sure I won't be garnering a mountain of readers and/or comments on the posts.
Why the hell am I writing this then? Because I feel I have something to say, and if you don't want to listen no one's keeping you here. (How's that for starting things off on the right note?)
This blog is going to be about food - yes, I know you've probably figured it out, but some people don't pay attention to silly little things like titles, so I thought I'd simplify matters and spell it all out for you. It's about everyday life, eating and all the things that go into trying to fit a decent day's sustenance into a hectic schedule.
I am an average woman, rapidly approaching middle age - holy crap, where did those years go? (Look, young'uns: we all age. The alternative is death, so which would you rather? I was your age once, you know. And if you're lucky, you'll reach my age and hopefully beyond. So pipe down. And if middle age is too old for you to be reading what I'm writing, take a hike.) I work a full-time job in NYC (living in a New Jersey suburb makes commuting a way of life), which can hinder efforts to prepare and eat healthy meals. My husband also commutes to work (he drives, while I take public transportation - but we both eat on the run too often).
What I hope to do with this blog is chronicle my efforts to take better care of my (and his) nutrition ... and maybe share some ideas with others who find themselves in a similar predicament. If I get readers to share their own ideas with me, so much the better. If not, it's not going to keep me from writing. (Yes, that was a threat! LOL!)
Anyway, I hope some of you decide to join me on this challenging path, or at least stick around to see some of the things that I come out with. (I might be entertaining, you know! The first entry doesn't count!)
Coming up in my next post, I'll rant about a few things that piss me off about the availability of a safe food supply here in the U.S. Preview question: Why the hell do we pay our farmers NOT to grow things for us, and then turn around and buy imports from China, of all places? OF COURSE they're selling tainted products! Why do you THINK they're so cheap?
Food for thought.
Later,
Laurie
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