Food Journey and Confusion
I get confused. I am trying to change the way my family and I eat. This has been, and still is, hard. I am still trying to figure the best way and make that way work for my family. I know we make many mistakes. I know I can’t control what my teens eat outside of the house. I know school lunches are not the healthiest meals. (Some day I will post about what the school calls turkey.)
What is a person to do?
What is best?
I had to figure some guidelines. I know there is a lot of preservatives, additives, chemicals, and whatnot that food companies have added to foods to extend the shelf life of the food as well as improve taste. One of my biggest struggles is with sugar. I know I need to cut my sugar intake waaay down. Food companies do not help this struggle when they add “high-powered” artificial sweeteners to foods that do not need them. In turn, we crave those foods more because they have these sweeteners in the food that create a chemical effect in our bodies to fuel those cravings and make us want the food. Then we wonder why we gain weight.
The first rule I learned and am still trying to put into practice is: Do Not Eat Ingredients You Can Not Pronounce.
The second rule I learned is: Even If You Can Pronounce It, Do You Know What That Ingredient Is and Where It Came From?
The third rule I am working on is: Can This Food Be Made By Me?
The fourth rule is: Buy Your Meat Locally. Know Where Your Meat Came From.
One product I am going to pick on to illustrate rules one and two is McCormick’s Seasoned Meat Tenderizer.
This product has no nutritional value to speak of. A quarter teaspoon yields 300 mg of sodium. The makers of this product recommend a teaspoon of tenderizer per pound of meat. The list of ingredients look like this:
Salt
Monosodium Glutamate (Flavor Enhancer)
MSG is obtained by the fermentation of carbohydrates with a nitrogen source, using bacterial or yeast species from genera such as Brevibacterium, Arthrobacter, Microbacterium, Micrococcusand Corynebacterium. (Look up those bacteria. You might never want to eat MSG again.)
Dextrose
A form of glucose which is a simple sugar.
Onion
Paprika
Annatto (Color)
Annatto, sometimes called roucou or achiote, is a derivative of the achiote trees of tropical regions of the Americas, used to produce a yellow to orange food coloring and also as a flavoring…you need to keep reading under precautions. This will make those with food allergies think a little more.
Spice
(Which spices?)
Garlic
Calcium Silicate (Added To Make Free Flowing)
Bromelain (Tenderizer)
Well, I don’t want this on my meat! Yikes! The monosodium glutamate would be enough for me not to buy it. The fact that salt is listed first and MSG is listed second with dextrose listed as third. Why do you need sugar in a meat tenderizer? You don’t. The only seasonings in this are salt, onion, paprika, garlic and some mystery spices. You can mix that up at home. You can soak the meat in vinegar to tenderize the meat.
I buy my meat locally from the meat locker and from farmers. I like the fact I know where my meat is from and that the meat did not go through a lot of machine processing. I would not want to taint my meat by adding chemicals when I paid good money for locally produced meat. So no commercial meat tenderizer will touch my meat!
Think about what you eat and hopefully my guidelines will help you in your food journey and possible confusion over food choices!
This post is linked to the Living Well Blog Hop!
Have a good day and thanks for reading!
2 thoughts on “Food Journey and Confusion”
Eating "real" is so worth it, but it is a process and it doesn't happen overnight. One of the things I do is to make my own seasoning mixes, because you're so right they add all kinds of extra,unnecessary things to the pre-made ones.
· Tea
· Espresso
· Colas
· Hot foods
· Liquor
· Chocolate
· Medications with caffeine
· Refined starches – like treats, cakes, doughnuts, sweet breads
· Additives
· Foods prone to cause gas/swelling, similar to: beans, cucumbers, greasy/fiery foods
· Foods actually high in protein, similar to hamburger, can hinder rest by obstructing the blend of serotonin, which thus makes us feel progressively alert.
· MSG (monosodium glutamate, regularly found in oriental food.
grigliareduro