Food entry #4: Looking at more ingredients

Back to the original topic.


It's not just peanut butter that's weird.  I can only find one brand of ketchup that doesn't contain high fructose corn syrup.  Maybe I should call these Frankeningredients, if I've got Frankenfoods.  Did you know they didn't introduce HFCS into foods until the 90's?  And when did the obesity epidemic start?  Could that correlation possibly mean anything ...?  I don't know, but I have a really hard time believing most of the population of the United States suddenly became gluttons and lost control of their appetites.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that the foods we're eating aren't the same foods we were eating as recently as the 80's.  Now we've got wussy tomatoes and laboratory-produced sugar and oils.  Oh joy, I know this can only end well!

A friend recommended the book In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  I bet this book will talk about a lot of the issues I'm kind of skimming over.  This is part of how she described it: This new one is about nutritional science and how it has driven our food choices for decades and brought us to the point where the grocery stores are full of "food like substances" instead of real food, and when we use vitamin and mineral supplements to get what we need instead of food.  Remember when the nutritionalists told us to eat oat bran, then not so much oat bran, then no carbs, then more carbs, then no meat, then more meat, then wheat, then no wheat, blah, blah blah.  The whole history of that is in this book, told in a fascinating way.  I've got it on hold at the library, and I. Can't. Wait.

By the way, the ketchup brand is Hunt's.  The grocery store still hasn't figured out how to make non-HFCS ketchup.

Edit: I had to buy more ketchup earlier this week, and it looks like the grocery store has started carrying plain ol' ketchup, too!!  Woohoo, way to respond to consumer demand!!

On Saturday, Mark and I decided we wanted to buy some applesauce to get more fruit in our diets.  Mark is allergic to a TON of fruits (we think it's like all pitted fruits with arsenic in the seeds ... apples, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, plums, apricots, etc. but not strawberries, other berries, citrus, bananas, etc.) but not when they're cooked or canned (? why are canned peaches, dried cherries, and apple pies okay?) so I figured applesauce is a good fruity thing we can all eat.  We were trying to decide between brands of applesauce when we thought, hey, we should look at the ingredient labels!  And guess what?  HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.  EVERYWHERE.  Except in the "no sugar added" applesauce, which is .5 cents more per ounce, but only contains apples, water, and ascorbic acid.  Luckily the grocery store HAS figured out how to make applesauce out of apples, so we don't have to pay a brand-name premium for it.

Another thing you wouldn't expect to contain HFCS?  Soy Sauce.  I think Kikkoman's is the only brand we know of that doesn't contain it.  Costco carries Kikkoman soy sauce.  You can make stir-fry every day!  And teriyaki sauce is just made of soy sauce and other ingredients.  Save money and make your own teriyaki sauce.

Did you know that just about every brand of ranch dressing contains MSG?  Even the ranch spice packets have MSG in them.  I think Newman's Own ranch dressing doesn't contain MSG, but I have a hard time finding it at the grocery store and I think it's kind of gross.  So I haven't had ranch dressing in a long time (good for dipping carrots and celery ... it's been a while since I've had those plain, too.)  I've switched to vinaigrette dressings, because salad dressing (or dip) is the ONLY way I will eat lettuce.  And celery. And carrots.  I used to get depressed reading stuff online about how lots of salad dressing ruins the low-calorie thing about vegetables.  Then I realized, you know what?  Who cares about how may calories are in the salad dressing?  IT'S GOT YOU EATING VEGETABLES.  Because, you know, if I'm not eating a salad, I'm going to be eating Oreos.  True story.