Tag: bad choices

Boycott Florida’s Tomato

Previously, I wrote about a fascinating new study I read on NPR.com. The gist of the research claims organic tomatoes are stressed from natural pests, so they produce more nutrients.

The NPR article also included quoted disputes by Harry Klee, a tomato researcher from the University of Florida.

When I noticed he was from UFL, my very first thought was how can he possibly understand healthy tomato growth when his home-state produces tomatoes grown in sand by slave labor?

Klee’s current research (according to his UFL page) is improving conventional tomato flavor (or lack thereof), by studying the genetic and chemical make-up. Ugh! That’s just what we need. Another scientist wasting millions to “fix” a problem by changing genetics, instead of admitting that it’s actually distorted agricultural practices that caused the problem in the first place!

When will Big Food ever realize we already HAVE perfect tomatoes? They just aren’t supposed to grow on Florida factory farms.

Getting back to Florida, and why I boycott most of their produce.

Florida is the 2nd largest producer of tomatoes in the United States. But due to extremely poor soil, (*cough cough* sand), their fertilizer & pesticide use is through the roof.

Worse, Florida is tied to agricultural “slavery”. Human workers forced to live in poverty, earning next to nothing, while being exposed to dangerous levels of toxins from chemicals, used to grow tomatoes.

That’s why, months ago, I vowed to never knowingly purchase/eat another tomato from Florida again, organic or otherwise.

Change Is Good

Thankfully, since the public has become more aware of the horrors of tomato farming in Florida, there have been changes.

Large food buyers have promised to purchase tomatoes only from growers who agree to comply with the code of conduct. The buyers pledged to pay a penny-a-pound premium for every box of tomatoes they purchased from participating growers, who will hopefully pass the increase to their workers. This could mean that each worker will earn .80 (up from .50) for a box of tomatoes.

According to the Fair Food Program at CIW (Coalition of Immokalee Workers):

Yum Brands (2005), McDonald’s (2007), Burger King (2008), Subway (2008), Whole Foods Market (2008), Bon Appetit Management Company (2009), Compass Group (2009), Aramark (2010), Sodexo (2010), Trader Joe’s (2012), and Chipotle (2012) are participating in the Fair Food Program. All ten companies have agreed to pay a premium price for more fairly produced tomatoes, and to shift their Florida tomato purchases to growers who comply with the Fair Food Code of Conduct.

///What I want to know is why it took so long for Chipotle and Trader Joe’s to come on board??! Not cool!

See more at: The Other Side of the Tomato

Isn’t it crazy that we still need to worry about fair-wage (like “fair-trade”) standards in the United States!? How could something like this happen here?

Anyway, I’m glad situations are starting to change for Florida workers, but I still avoid purchasing most produce (strawberries, lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, etc) from Florida. Besides the extra fertilizer and pesticide load, I still don’t trust that all farms are doing the right thing when it comes to their farm workers.

If everyone stopped purchasing out-of-season produce from Florida, then our fractured food system would have to change! It’s the little steps that count. Vote with your fork!

Links:
Why supermarket tomatoes taste
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-09-02/opinions/35494934_1_florida-tomato-growers-tomato-industry-immokalee-workers
TomatoLand book from Amazon.com
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/26/139972669/the-unsavory-story-of-industrially-grown-tomatoes
http://www.theperennialplate.com/blog/2012/03/the-other-side-of-the-tomato/

Also check out the (heartbreaking) video over at Lupe Gonzalo: Episode 96 of The Perennial Plate from The Perennial Plate on Vimeo.

Hamburger Helper Stuffed Bellies

Just saw a TV commercial for Hamburger Helper.

The family is together, sitting at the dinner table and the dad is stuffed so he leans back and pats his belly, full to the brim.

He looks at his young daughter, they smile at each other and she imitates him, patting her belly as well. Camera pans out to show everyone is happy and laughing as they all pat their full bellies after dinner.

Their tagline: “Hamburger Helper Cheeseburger Macaroni – now even cheesier and tastier.”

So that’s the message of Big Food! Inspiring families to eat meals together, but eat until bellies are stuffed or better yet, over-stuffed!

Sigh

And THAT, in a nutshell, is what’s wrong with our dysfunctional eating habits. We don’t stop eating BEFORE we get to the point of busting our bellies! Our brains are broken, not connecting with our bellies to tell us to stop eating.

The bigger problem is, overly-processed foods like Hamburger Helper are never going to satiate us, so we have to keep eating, and eating, and eating, until it’s too late and our bellies are beyond stuffed.

So, good ole Betty Crocker is taking advantage of our dysfunction by feeding us more of their processed crap, that tastes really, really good, but doesn’t do anything to really NOURISH us.

Stuffing your belly, until it hurts, with white pasta drowned in dried cheeses is not healthy, even if mom makes it at home, and all family members eat it together at the dinner table!

Just in case you were wondering, here is the list of ingredients for Hamburger Cheeseburger Macaroni. It’s funny, in comparison to their older ingredients (found online), they weren’t lying when they said it was now “cheesier” – they’ve added a lot of dried cheeses:

Enriched Macaroni, Corn Starch, Salt, Enriched flour, Sugar, Dried Ricotta cheese, Dried Tomato, MSG, Natural flavor, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Paprika, Spice, Colors (Yellow Lake 5&6 and Yellow 5&6), Monoglycerides, Dried Cheddar Cheese, Dried Cheddar cheese, Dried Whey, Dried Buttermilk, Dried Blue cheese, Enzyme modified blue cheese, Silicon Dioxide, Sodium Phosphate, Enzyme modified cheddar cheese

Pink Fuel For the Cure From Connecticut’s Standard Oil

Okay, it’s bad enough that Yoplait has a pink ribbon campaign, but I was shocked to see a Connecticut oil company started promoting “Fuel For the Cure” with a pink oil truck.

Come on!

From Standard Oil’s web site:

Standard Oil has pledged $3 for every delivery The Pink Truck makes for the next 12 months. It is our plan to make somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 deliveries with The Pink Truck and make a donation of approximately $20,000

Hmm, why is it that companies can’t just make a freakin’ donation if they believe in the cause so much? No, they need to drum up sales first, then make a donation. It’s sickening.

And more importantly, how do we really know for sure that the oil refineries aren’t ultimately causing breast cancer?

Yeah, it looks like it has a hand in causing certain blood cancers, along with damaging our kidneys, liver, nervous system and causing blood pressure and blood clotting issues. And if that’s not enough, it’s poisoning our environment.

So, keep up the good work, Standard Oil.

And add one more “pink ribbon” fiasco to the Susan G. Komen organization. Maybe someday you’ll actually find a CURE for cancer with all that money that floats your way! Nah, I doubt it.

Links:
http://jezebel.com/5840564/the-breast-cancer-charity-scam

Windex Mini Concentrated Refill Toxins

We watched the CBS This Morning show and they showcased the “best new consumer products” from Better Homes & Gardens.

I had to laugh because one of their recommendations was the Windex Mini Concentrated Refill Pouch – they touted it as better for the environment because there was less waste in the packaging. Huh?

windex mini concentrated refillable pouches

Okay, saving the environment with smaller packaging, but perhaps ruining our lungs, soil, and water supply with toxic chemicals inside the smaller package. That makes no sense!

Wouldn’t it be refreshing if Better Homes and Gardens really did try to make our homes and gardens better by recommending natural products that weren’t poisoning our lungs and environment; but I guess their big corporate advertisers like Johnson & Johnson wouldn’t like that too much, would they?

Here’s the list of ingredients:

  1. Water
  2. Cleaning Agents: Ammonium Hydroxide, Ethoxylated Alcohol, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
  3. Fragrance
  4. Preservative: Benzoisothiazolinone
  5. Dye Liquitint® Sky Blue Dye
  6. pH Adjuster: Citric Acid

Yeah, Johnson & Johnson claim to be transparent with their list of ingredients; they really try hard to convince us that there is no danger with the chemicals they use, but truthfully, ammonia is toxic for our lungs, skin and our earth no matter how hard they try to spin it otherwise.

And sorry, I am not stupid, I don’t need blue dye in my cleaning products to “help me see where I applied the product and when a product is used up.”

There is also absolutely no need for “fragrance” but unfortunately the public equates clean with a strong chemical smell. It’s really very troubling.

The worst part is because the product is ultra concentrated, these ingredients are super strong compared to regular bottled windex. I can’t even imagine this product being accidentally ingested by children or pets, or spilled on your skin or down the drain.

Take a peek at Windex’s Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) (link opens to a pdf file) and it should scare the crap out of you!

Please keep products like Windex out of your home!

Try a mixture of plain white vinegar and water in a spray bottle; it’s 100% non-toxic! I use vinegar & water to clean my counters, sink, and even my produce. It works great!

Paula Deen Diabetes Announcement – Just Take Your Medicine, Ya’all

As predicted, Paula Deen made the official announcement that she is diabetic. Even though she was diagnosed 3 years ago, her reason for coming forward now is that she wants to help others.

In reality, she’s coming forward with a profitable new partnership with drug maker Novo Nordisk, marketing a new “helpful” web site called Diabetes in a New Light, which should really be called “pulling the wool over your diabetic eyes so you can’t see the true light.”

Let’s Turn Off the “Diabetes in a New Light”

So I checked out the Diabetes in a New Light web site, and uh, seriously, someone should turn off that light before it hurts someone. :(

  1. The site is financed by Novo Nordisk, a Diabetes DRUG company, so right there, that’s a HUGE conflict of interest.
  2. There is nothing on the site that mentions PREVENTION of diabetes, only what to do if you’ve already diagnosed. Hmm, why prevent diabetes when there is so much money to be made.
  3. There’s nothing about trying to reverse it with diet/exercise. Again, Big Pharma can’t make millions if we can reverse it on our own with natural means. (Novo Nordisk’s drug Victoza, had global sales of $734 million in their first 3 quarters of 2011)
  4. Victoza’s list of scary cautions & warnings on every page should be enough to make anyone think twice about taking this drug.

Basically all the web site accomplishes is regurgitating common-sense diabetes advice while tricking you into giving them your personal information in order to sign up for a newsletter. Why do they need your mailing address for an email newsletter?

hmm….the answer is at the bottom of the form, Novo Nordisk want your permission to bombard you with marketing materials from them and their “affiliates or vendors.” What do you get in return? Oh some delicious, diabetic-friendly recipes. Worth it, right?

SHAMEFUL!

If Paula Deen truly cared about people then she would be giving her re-worked recipes and tips for free, without making you sign away your privacy to a drug company!

It’s Just Entertainment, Ya’all

I watched the Paula Deen interview on the Today show, and she tried so hard to convince us that all she wants to do is help people, but at the same time she skirts around the question if she’ll change the way she cooks and eats.

Her eventual answer was that she NEVER ate like that every day, it’s just entertainment, ya’all, and that she’s always been about moderation. Since when, Paula?

Perhaps she should have mentioned more about moderation during her “butter is beautiful” or “add another cup o’ sugar” shows on Food Network. Ugh. Yeah, what a great role model. It’s just for entertainment!

Wouldn’t it have been refreshing if Paula came forward and admitted that she was wrong, and that she made a lot of big mistakes with her health?

There’s no money in mistakes. Don’t change your life, just take some meds.

Farms Don’t Pay For Endorsements

This situation angers me the most because she didn’t go public with her illness until she secured a lucrative deal, and since the local farm-fresh industry is not paying for endorsements, why promote a change in lifestyle for free, when a top-bidding Big Pharma company will pay you millions to promote their drugs!

And the topper is Novo Nordisk is actually claiming that when they came to her to be a partner, they didn’t know she was diagnosed with diabetes. wink wink. Yeah, the National Enquirer knew, but no one else did? Makes me sick. I think I’ll eat some butter.

More links:
mercurynews.com/celebrities/

Yoplait Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer Scam

yoplait yogurt pink lid breast cancer scam

It drives me crazy every October when I see the Yoplait Yogurt ads for their “Pink Ribbon/Lids Breast Cancer” marketing ploy.

My biggest problem with Yoplait’s Pink Lid promotion, besides the obvious trick to gain more sales, is that highly processed, highly sugary food products like Yoplait Yogurt could possibly be one of the factors that increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer in the first place!

So to reiterate, they want you to buy (and consume) more of their sugary, chemical laden yogurts, just so they can send out (up to) $2 million for a cure for the same cancer that they possibly could be causing! It makes me crazy when I think about it!

Yoplait, why don’t you keep that $2 million and IMPROVE your own products so they are not loaded with sweeteners (including artificial) and unpronounceable chemicals and other highly processed junk!

It’s food products from companies like Yoplait that are making American’s obese and ill! When are we going to open our eyes to these huge marketing scams and just SAY NO!

Confessions of a Compulsive Eater – 141.8

Okay, confession time.

This summer was brutal. While on our vacations, I ate a lot lot lot of sugary foods, & it seems like it made my “compulsive” eating issues come alive a little bit. It was getting harder and harder to say “no” to foods that I shouldn’t be eating.

This weekend, I didn’t think twice about grabbing a couple of processed store-bought cookies & a small bag of buttered/salted popcorn that was offered at a local hardware store’s grand re-opening. ugh.

I never had trouble refusing gross processed cookies in the past, so I know there’s a problem.

I mean, I always felt that if I was going to treat myself, it would have to be something special and really delicious. Not some store bought oreos, chips ahoy, or fig newtons! sigh.

Bottom line, I have been slowly gaining back a little weight. Not a lot, but I’m up to 141.8! I think the gain is a combination of my eating habits and my messed up peri-menopausal system, but either way, I’ve got to do better with my food choices.

I’ve officially adjusted my profile weight up to 141.8 at MyFitnessPal.

I adjusted my daily calories from 1800 to 1650, and posted my confession on my MyFitnessPal newsfeed! What a marvelous wonderful group of supportive friends I have on MFP.

Yes yes yes, I know I can do it!

  • I don’t want to ignore this problem, that’s how I ended up at 200 pounds in the first place!
  • I’m trying to be accountable
  • I’m admitting that I’m doing something wrong and I want to change!

I should add that 140 is actually a “normal” weight for someone at my height of 5’8″ but I feel “normal” at around 138ish.

Dastardly Donut

Ugh, the dastardly donut got me today at lunch. I was visiting DH and we ate lunch together in his work lunchroom, and there was a box of Dunkin Donuts that another co-worker brought in that morning. Of course, DH had to open it, and there were just a few left, all jelly filled. I couldn’t resist. Darn! I think this is the first day, in a long time, that I really felt guilty about something I ate!

Darn Dastardly Donut!

And then when I looked up the calories in one of those suckas, yikes! 290 calories! That’s criminal! I won’t be doing that again, so I suppose it’s a good thing then. Anytime you learn a lesson, it’s good. And yes, I learned!

#1, look up foods like donuts BEFORE you eat them, that way you can judge if the cost of calories is worth the “cheat treat”

#2, It was a good donut, but really not worth 300 calories!

Pretzels

This is why I don’t buy pretzels and other non nutritious snacks. I can’t stop eating them!

We’ve been on vacation this week, and we stopped for a snack after ATVing and against my better judgement, I was coerced into buying a 1 lb bag of pretzel sticks.

Let me tell you these things are really difficult to stop eating once you start! Most people think pretzels are a healthy snack, but truthfully they offer no nutritional value so they do not satisfy!

And because they don’t fill you up, you keep eating and eating and eating! They are addictive! I don’t like feeling out of control, and pretzel sticks make me eat uncontrollably!

No, Nutella Hazelnut Chocolate Spread Is NOT a Health or Healthy Food!

Those TV commercials for Nutella Hazelnut Chocolate Spread drive me crazy! They try to convey that it’s the greatest health food since brown rice! And that it’s such a good choice for your kids!

Well it’s not!

Here is the commercial I’ve been seeing over and over:

Ingredients and Nutritional Data from the Nutella USA website

nutella jar

sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skim milk, reduced minerals whey (milk), lecithin as emulsifier (soy), vanillin: an artificial flavor.

Serving size: 2 tbsp (37 g)
Calories 200
Calories from Fat 100
Total Fat 11 g
Saturated Fat 3.5 g
Sodium 15 mg
Total Carbohydrate 22 g
Dietary Fiber 1 g
Sugars 21 g
Protein 3 g
Calcium 4%
Iron 4%

How About Some Sugar For Breakfast

Whoa, 21 grams of sugar!!! Duh, no surprise, of course that’s why kids love Nutella! You might as well melt half a Snickers candy bar on top of some whole wheat toast! Does a candy bar sound like a healthy choice for your kids’ breakfast? No? Well, then why is Nutella considered as healthy? It’s sort of like the cereal companies touting that because their product contains whole grains, it’s healthy, but it’s still loaded with refined sugar!

Palm Oil

I don’t like their use of palm oil. I mean, come on! It’s 2nd on the ingredients list, before hazelnuts!

Now, I’m not knocking palm oil necessarily. I need to do some additional research on its benefits and possibly how it’s destroying the rain forests, but nutritionally, it seems similar to coconut oil. I am constantly cooking with coconut oil, which is a highly saturated fat food product. I’m not afraid of plant-based saturated fats, but I AM afraid of processed foods containing them.

Unless it’s virgin or extra-virgin, coconut oil can be very unhealthy, due to the way it’s processed/refined. As I said, I’m just beginning to research on palm oil, and I haven’t been able to find out exactly how it’s processed, but I’m assuming that the palm oil in Nutella is highly refined and nowhere close to virgin.

Which is it? Palm Oil or Modified Palm Oil?

It is very strange, but Nutella used to list palm oil as “modified palm oil” on their list of ingredients.

So, I did some googling and found this article from treehugger.com

They quote directly from the Nutella web site:

Is the modified palm oil in Nutella® hydrogenated?
No. The modified palm oil is a mix of the liquid and solid oil naturally extracted from the fruit of the palm. The mix is adjusted to assure the best consistency for easy spreading. The process also reduces the level of saturated fat. Per serving Nutella® has 0 gram transfat

This is what Nutella’s web site FAQ states now:

Is the Palm Oil in Nutella® a hydrogenated oil?
No. The palm oil is naturally extracted from the fruit of the palm. This palm oil is adjusted to assure the best consistency for easy spreading by reducing the level of saturated fat.

It still sounds like they “modified” the oil, doesn’t it? ADJUSTED to assure the best consistency? And notice the phrase “naturally extracted” – I don’t believe the word “natural” has any concrete meaning when it comes to food, in fact, it’s probably the most misused misleading word on a label!

I’ve been trying to find anything online that explains the sudden change in ingredient wording, but have come up empty. I have to assume it’s a slight change in their manufacturing process allowed them to remove the word “modified”.

Is Palm Oil a Sustainable Responsible Choice?

There is a lot of information online claiming that palm oil refinement is destroying the rain forests. I don’t want to start listing the specifics, but it does seem like it’s a food product that should be avoided.

What does Nutella say about it?

Does Ferrero support responsible palm oil use?
Yes. As a member of the RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil), Ferrero only uses palm oil which is extracted from controlled plantations in Malaysia.

Now, if you believe the treehugger.com article, then it’s doubtful that the “RSPO” is even a legitimate environmental group.

From Treehugger:

Many organizations no longer recognize the RSPO as being legitimate. In November, 80 organizations from 31 countries sent an open letter that included the following:

Destructive oil palm plantations have been certified in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and the same greenwashing exercise has started in Colombia, Thailand and Ghana.

We are deeply concerned that RSPO certification is being used to legitimise an expansion in the demand for palm oil and thus in oil palm plantation, and it serves to greenwash the disastrous social and environmental impacts of the palm oil industry. The RSPO standards do not exclude clear cutting of many natural forests, the destruction of other important ecosystems, nor plantings on peat. The RSPO certifies plantations which impact on the livelihoods of local communities and their environments. The problems are exacerbated by the in-built conflict of interest in the system under which a company wanting to be certified commissions another company to carry our the assessment.

So similar to Perdue Chickens bogus USDA Process Verification! haha!

Bottom line, it sounds like we should be steering clear of palm oil and products containing palm oil!

Nothing Artificial Except Some Flavoring!

I love how they clearly brag about no added artificial colors or preservatives, but they have the nerve to include artificial vanilla flavoring! How silly sneaky is that!

Don’t Believe the Nutella Marketing Hype

Please don’t believe the Nutella marketing! It’s not at all healthy! It’s a poor sugar-laden choice for breakfast! And it’s not good for the environment! Avoid, avoid avoid!

Instead, try some homemade oatmeal or toast topped with nut butter (no sugar, oils added) or how about making your own healthy version of chocolate nut butter! Recipes are found all over online!

Other web resources: