I'm reading an interesting book about the way the French eat and why we're fat and they aren't despite a diet filled with butter, real cream, delicious breads and wine at lunch and dinner. The answer, according to the author, is that they eat real food while we stuff our faces with faux food filled with: artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, etc. Some pre-packaged foods aren't too bad. Take the Kellogs raisin bran I ate this morning. The ingredient list includes: whole grain wheat, raisins, wheat bran, sugar, brown sugar syrup and less than 2% salt and malt flavor. Compare that list to Post's Honey Bunches of Oats: corn, whole grain wheat, sugar, whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, rice, high oleic vegetable oil (canola or sunflower oil), whet flour malted barley flour, salt, corn syrup, whey (from milk), honey malted corn and barley syrup...here's where it gets interesting...caramel color, natural and artificial flavor, annato extract (color), BHT added to packaging material to preserve product freshness. Read more here....
Oh...and my kitchen smells heavenly!
ReplyDeleteMary Ann, I think we might be reading the same books. The books I am reading are the "Why French Women Do Not Get Fat" type of books. As a descendant of Phillip Kellog, who came over to this country in the 1600's and is also an ancestor of the founder of the Kellog cereal company, I say go for it. I wish, though, they and other good cereal makers would leave out all the brown sugar and let us put in our own. Most cereals are way too sweet for me.
ReplyDeleteBy the way in my last post, I was not making fun of heavy set women. As I get older, I too am fighting "the battle of the bulge", and I am small framed, so excessive weight is not good at all for me.
ReplyDeleteI hope you are pasturizing the milk. Listeria is real and dangerous!
ReplyDeleteYes, on that one I go with Louie Pasteur. I am not brave enough for raw milk. Ha! Ha!
ReplyDeleteI should clarify something. I do not have my own cow, so I will not be pasteurizing the milk myself self.
ReplyDeleteMy husband and I have been drinking raw, unpasteurized milk since we moved to the Shenandoah Valley ten years ago. It's legal to do so. We buy a share in the cow owned and milked by a Mennonite family who have several cows that they hand milk. The cows are mostly grass fed with hay supplements in the winter which the family harvests themselves. There is controversy on both sides of the raw milk divide. I don't push anyone to consume raw milk, but I have no fear of doing so. And isn't it a question of freedom of choice? It is certainly safer than the MAP which is available over the counter.
ReplyDeleteWe know the source of our milk and we've been to farm and even helped milk the cows. As for the safety, that all depends doesn't it?
http://www.realmilk.com/safety/safety-of-raw-milk/
I'm a big believer in knowing where your food comes from. We are buying as little prepared foods from the mega businesses as possible. Who needs all the preservatives and artificial colors and flavors anyway? So we buy fresh and local to the degree possible. It's one reason I love living in the country because fresh fruits and vegetables are easy to find.
I misread the comment April 6 at 8:16 PM about listeria and thought you posted it Mary Anne. Now I see it was another Anonymous besides me. Yes, we do need to avoid many things that have a lot of hormones, etc. injected into them.
ReplyDeleteJust an FYI....The French do not eat as much food quantity as we do nor do they consume GMO's as are in Kelloggs .
ReplyDeleteBreakfast consists of plain yogurt and fresh fruit in most countries or perhaps a piece of fresh daily made bread with butter and coffee.
Kelloggs is one of the biggest GMO brands in the stores. Kashi also sold out to the GMO grain suppliers too.
http://www.organicconsumers.org/kelloggs.cfm
Whole foods has had increasing requests for non GMO foods from their customer base.Note that most EU countries do not buy GMO products. The French in particular do not want to eat these foods!
Hungary and Peru burned GMO crop fields in their country.
http://planetsave.com/2011/07/21/hungary-destroys-all-monsanto-gmo-maize-fields/
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/15/us-france-environment-gmo-idUSBRE88E0E420120915
Well, darn! Good-bye Raisin Bran. This is exactly why we need GMO food labeling. Consumers have a right to know what they are eating.
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