I will try to keep the grossness factor to a bare minimum here but a recent article published by Mother Nature Network exposes some little-known facts about what we eat, especially if it comes from the US. They flipped through the Food and Drug Administration’s rules and found that some of them are pretty darn loosey-goosey when it comes to stuff you or I would find unpalatable. It’s even more reason to make sure your purchase is packed in Canada. It all started with pink slime which you’ve no doubt heard about. It’s the ammonia-infused beef waste that’s added to ground beef as filler. Fortunately, because we now know this process is routine, many major grocery and fast-food chains have already stopped dealing with beef producers who bloat their product this way and three of the biggest pink slime plants in the US have closed down and slithered away. Good riddance.
We also know about hormones in meat but what about in cans? Years ago canning companies began lining their tins with a preservative that began its life as a hormone intended to assist in healthy pregnancies. We now know that chemical as BPA and it’s been linked to all sorts of health issues. The good news here is that factories are switching to BPA-free containers thanks to the increased knowledge about this additive.
MNN has made other icky discoveries about the food we consume. This is enough to convince me to freeze my own fresh fruit. Under FDA guidelines 60% of frozen fruit is allowed to have mold on it. The frozen berries we buy are apparently the just-about-to-turn fruit that companies salvage via fast freeze. In cans the limit is 15%. If we detect mold on our fresh fruit what do we do? Toss it out! Definitely something to think about if that easy-to-reseal bag of frozen strawberries comes from south of the border.
Less than 2% of shrimp imported into the States is inspected. Foreign shrimpers use chemicals that are banned here. There are more disgusting details that I will withhold but I’ll be checking the label on my next shrimp ring much more carefully.
I love instant oatmeal but I think I’ll go back to making the good old fashioned variety. Testing on 55 varieties found high fructose corn syrup containing three times the level of mercury considered safe for a woman to consume in a day.
There are so many other tidbits about disgusting things in our foods – canned, processed and imported – that it’s enough to make you sit in the garden and wait for a fresh tomato to grow. Or move to the woods and harvest your own high-fibre bark chips. You can’t keep everything harmful and icky out of your life but you can buy your own berries and toss out the ones with mold on them, that’s for sure.
Crap, I use frozen fruits & veggies all the time, especially in the winter. Now I want to go home & clean out the fridge & freezer. Good thing I had FRESH fruit this morning. *gag*
But for the love of Libby’s, be sure to put on a Broad Spectrum UVA/UVB sunscreen when you sit in your garden waitin’ on yer tomatoes, Miss Lisa! I am SO glad you’re keeping an eye on things that matter a lot to all of us, but which are discussed only a little, by a few. You rock. xo E