What is in your food?

“How do the ingredients in my food have anything to do with being elegant?” you might ask. Simple, the food you eat impacts your health, the amount of food you eat impacts your weight. Its simple calories in versus calories expended in activity, no magic.

The ingredients in your food are very important. Have you look at a label lately? Depending on the food and how processed it is you need a PhD to decipher what really is in there.

We are all in a hurry these days and cooking food as close to how it came from the farm can be hard, but well worth it in the long run. All of these ingredients that we can’t pronounce – how many times have they been processed and what ingredients were added during the process.

New York City is trying to ban salt, or at least lower the amounts we consume. Take a look at the condiments in your fridge – look at the salt content in ketchup, mustard even hot sauce. Want a TV dinner – beware of the salt. We know the health implications of to much salt and trying to control how much we take in if were not cooking the food ourselves is very difficult.

What prompted this posting? Watching Food Network I was this commercial by the Corn Refiners Association, touting that high fructose corn syrup isn’t bad as long as it’s in moderation. I have two issues with the commercial. The first is; HFCS is in so much of the food we eat, how can we eat it in moderation? Secondly, they make the people who are saying “Don’t eat HFCS” look like idiots. This people when questioned as to why not consume HFCS can’t answer the question. I can, how about this, yes it is corn when it started its life but now it’s closer to Frankenstein then corn. HFCS is a way of sweetening food, a very cheap way. Have you ever had Coke from Mexico or one of the boutique sodas? These sodas use pure cane sugar and the flavor of these sodas is amazing in comparison to the Coke in the cans in America. Do you know why HFCS can be labeled ‘natural’ ? Because there is nothing synthetic in it, but I’ve never seen a HFCS plant, I do know what cane sugar looks like. One more thing, don’t confuse corn syrup you cook with, with this HFCS. Our world is controlled by marketing firms. We must be aware as to who is behind our commercials and news stories. We must look out for ourselves and not let someone in an office or conference rooms in NYC or LA tell us what we should eat, wear or think.
We have been taught that cheaper food is better, to expect big portions, portions that are 2 – 3 times more then should be consumed. We think we are getting our moneys worth. This just isn’t true. Ever see the portions of food we should be eating? Food, when left on its own has flavors that are so satisfying and our digestion systems knows what it is and what to do with it.

Controlling our portions and being aware of what we are consuming will help in controlling our weight and help those who are trying to lose weight. Again, calories in versus calories expended.

I believe in better living thru science, except when it comes to the ingredients in my food.