I can accept that yogurt is probably going to contain high fructose corn syrup. I don't eat enough yogurt to care. Yet. ;)
But my friend Jeannie told me about all the weird stuff they do to milk. I'm not talking about the hormones, I'm talking about the stuff they do to process your milk and make it whole, 2%, 1%, or skim. Whole milk is just homogenized milk from the cow. With 2%, they take out some of the cream. But when you get to 1% or skim milk, they do a whole bunch of weird processing crap to the milk and you end up with something that is almost a Frankenfood. You might be able to Google it?
Sure, skim milk is fat free, but honestly, is the fat in your milk the devil? the culprit of obesity? I doubt it. Kids need fat in their diets to grow their brains, and things like fat and protein keep us sated. So I will keep eating my avocados because I believe that over time they will keep me more full than fat-free crackers. When I eat fat-free stuff I get hungry and want to eat more of it.
Anyway, apparently when they make skim/1% milk, they have to add stuff to the milk to make it whiter. That sounds a lot like sawdust in my food to me. I can't quite bring myself to drink a lot of whole milk because I've been drinking a LOT of milk lately and don't feel comfortable drinking that much fat personally, but I've switched from skim to 2%. Maybe that's why I drink so much more milk now than I used to - it actually tastes good!!! Skim milk tastes like cardboard!
Last November, I was shopping for something like sour cream at the grocery store. Since I had made my discoveries about peanut butter and ketchup, I decided to check the ingredient labels for the national and store brands. I don't even REMEMBER what was on the ingredient list for the store brand sour cream, but it was like twice as long as the more expensive natural brand, so I ponied up the extra 20 cents or whatever to buy the sour cream that had the ingredients "cream" and "enzymes" and not a bunch of other things I think they labeled "fillers" or "stabilizers" or something.
Part of me wonders if I can even trust ingredient labels anymore. Wasn't there a time where the HFCS producers wanted their product labeled just "sugar" because there's such a huge stigma associated with the name "high fructose corn syrup"? Well, yes, because high-fructose corn syrup is not C6H12O6. In fact, I'm not even sure "sugar" is still essentially C6H12O6. I can only hope. O.o Does anyone know?
Long story short? Check the ingredient labels again. When I buy Sugar Blasted Cocoa Bombs from the grocery store, I know what I'm getting. I know the chocolate syrup I buy for Carmen contains HFCS. But I was surprised when I found it in most of the ketchup at the store, and most of the applesauce, and ... and ... and. I was also surprised to see a long ingredient list for one brand of sour cream and not another. So get yourself informed and be mindful of what you're buying and eating, because all brands of types of food products are not necessarily similar. Sometimes they are food-like substances instead of food, even when you're not looking at something that is obviously processed.
One last thing: Use butter, not margarine, even though margarine is so cheap and tempting. ;)
I drink skim, or Silk original, unsweetened almond milk (soy tastes gross to me) because it's lower calorie, not because it's low fat. But if I weren't in the process of losing weight right now, I'd probably drink 2%. Whole is a little too thick for drinking for my taste. It's awesome for making yogurt though. Once I'm at my goal weight (seven more pounds!), and I'm moving on to the "maintaining" stage, then I may switch back. After drinking skim for so long though, it's what I'm used to.
ReplyDeleteIt's like that old story they tell about John Wayne (who knows if it's true):
Supposedly, even though he was wealthy enough to buy any whiskey he wanted, he'd drink this crappy whiskey. When someone finally asked him why, he said "it's what I'm used to." See, when he was filming Westerns in Mexico and stuff, they couldn't buy the good stuff, so they had to drink cheap whiskey if they wanted any.
But then, I don't drink alcohol unless it's good. Why waste the money or calories on cheap beer, or (insert whatever booze here) that doesn't even taste enjoyable?
I suppose though, the principle could be applied in reverse. Drink 2% long enough, and eventually THAT will be what I like.