Thoughts from the porch swing…food

As I was working on tonight’s supper a text message came through that sparked some though. From a classmate in Green Bay, he sent me the nutrition label from a loaf of “keto friendly” bread. Now I’m not much of one to follow diets or how any of that works so I’ve definitely taken time to listen to him as he has and is doing that work. I will say that I could read and I knew what the ingredients were without having to go on a quick google search but the amount of “to retain freshness” ingredients was slightly alarming. This, in my opinion, is the current problem. It isn’t the food, it’s the amount of processing that goes into some thing that used to be as simple as flour, yeast, water and a little sugar and oil.

All this processing is just a want for convenience but is it healthy? And while we are at it, is that the grand scheme of things? Feed the people quick and empty foods that satisfy their hunger craving at the moment but also create an ill and addicted being. Let’s also take affordability away from nutrient dense whole foods and offer these cheap over processed, throw some filler foodstuffs in it items for the masses to eat. Let’s face it we are all addicts in that sense, addicted to sugars, convenience and ease. Oh and let’s make the packaging flashy and colorful and put it eye level to sweet addicted children. This way we can breed the illnesses that allow them to control the food and drug supply. If we feed them unhealthy they will need medical care to stay “healthy”…see where I’m going here. Lack of good nutrition ends up leading to pharmaceuticals and that is a big chunk of cash lining some pockets.

It is also a huge marketing game. Following fad diets and whatever else may drive the consumer to try the next thing. My biggest pet peeve is the marketing behind the term “organic”. I cringe anytime someone asks me if I am because I’ve watched the term organic be used so vaguely on products. Now yes, some people do the effort to get certified and all that jazz but I’ve already killed enough trees between school papers and loan papers in the last year I should plant a forest. I could go on for terms like natural, cage free, even the coveted term grass fed. I’ve done a lot of digging in what is “grass fed” and I don’t think the general public has a clue. Grass fed beef can be fed grain several weeks before they are sent to slaughter. As long as majority of their life has been spent on a grass diet. True grass fed, meaning the animal was raised solely on grasses is better called grass finished. This will yield a leaner animal at a young age or if you keep them a little longer they will eventually put on fat. I prefer my grass finished now because when I want a steak or a burger I actually want to have meat on my plate. Not cook off the fat and end up with half the size of the original piece that I thawed from the freezer. I also like the flavor better in grass finished and you can’t get much more back to the way they were intended to live than being raised that way.

Enough of that now, I guess, back to my original thought. What happens per say if we no longer had access to these heavily processed foods? Would we see obesity go down? Cancers? Any other illness, because let’s face it almost everything is tied to the micro biome in your gut. If we get that healthy again does the body find that perfect homeostasis? I know if I eat convenience food I function but not at the level that I do eating unprocessed foods. I’m in a much better state after a meal that came from my gardens or pastures than I am if I grab something quick from the gas station. It’s also hard for me personally to look into that much because my over all healthy is pretty top notch. I’m active and eat well. I guess I good do a McDonald’s trial for a week but that already sounds disgusting. I’d love to hear feed back from people who have actually done it, have went from convenience foods to homemade meals made from scratch, grown in the soil or maybe purchased from a farmer you trust. Let me know how your diet makes you feel.

Oh and one more thing on the organic term, what really grinds me is people that call Venison organic. It’s not like that deer didn’t eat out of a corn field that was sprayed with chemicals *cough* round up *cough* all year before it ended up in your freezer.

I’m going to get off my soap box now