Friday, October 18, 2013
What is in/on our food?
Since moving here, we have noticed over and over again how local and fresh the food is here (yippee!) and thus how quickly it goes bad (bummer). Most produce, meats, cheeses, and breads are from the UK. Not shipped from S Europe or elsewhere like the MI grocers shipping in from Mexico, S America, CA and FL. The grocers have bakeries with real bread without preservatives and sugar too! Oh, and high fructose corn syrup doesn't seem to exist here (corn in other forms than actual corn seems to be a N American obsession). These foods are fresh, say they should be eaten within 4 days, and actually go bad if left for longer. Everything from cheese and whipping cream to raspberries and potatoes to bread and rolls to jams and juices. Really. This situation has made us wonder...what is it that is on/in the foods in the US that cause it to NOT go bad? What sorts of chemicals are being sprayed? What sort of unripe condition are foods being harvested in? What sorts of preservatives are being used? And, what do these practices mean for the nutrition and flavor we experience? What might the potential cultural and health side effects be? All-in-all, it has given us pause and caused us to re-evaluate our needs and wants related to food. Do we want food that lasts 2 weeks so that we only have to shop that often? What are the trade offs? Food for thought!
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Yikes! That's creeptastic. I've heard about the green slime in fast food - in *everything*. A hamburger on bun from the golden arches was left out in zip Iock as an experiment, and it looked the same after a year...
ReplyDeleteIsn't everything here in the States all about the busy and convenience?
Although it sure makes me wonder what goes on to keep our organic produce good for a week.
There was just a bit about this on NPR about how some trans fats and preservatives in hard products (mac n cheese, cookies etc.) are being removed from products due to consumer pressure (although only in some lines of products, it seems that no company is abandoning the recipes for all their options). This results in products having to have closer (lesser?) expiration dates since most non-natural flavors and additives were put in to increase the shelf life of the products. In America we have these HUGE houses with massive pantry's (compared of course to the rest of the world) and so with that infrastructure, it makes sense for us to buy foods in bulk for cheap and keep them around until we need them...which seems so backwards then the way food should be, like when we want something, we should go pick it, shoot it or trade for it!
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