Living-Deliberately.com

Scanning People mag (Jenny McCarthy cover) this weekend I saw a one page story on the dangers of microwave popcorn. Huh? Come again? I hate the stuff…it “waterproofs” my tongue. Sounds crazy I guess but I’m also a popcorn purist: I eat organic YELLOW popcorn popped on the stovetop in olive oil and doused with REAL melted butter and sea salt at least 4x a week. And I don’t own a microwave. But dangerous?

A little homework bore out the truth: “popcorn lung” is an all-too-real condition. And it’s important to note: popcorn is not the culprit…the ADDITIVES are. Specifically, the additive DIACETYL.

Diacetyl occurrs naturally in the fermentation process and adds a “smooth” texture to beer and wine. It also creates a “buttery” flavor, leading to it becoming a chemical flavor additive in foods needing a fake butter-flavor assimilation. This is what happens, after all, when the public has become convinced of a natural-food’s evils through massive ad and info campaigns but still hanker for the flavor of the real thing. See Nasty Food of the Month: Margarine for more fake butter sin.

So microwave popcorn, which is offered for “butter lovers” and “movie theater butter” (oh don’t even get me started there….) full of additives much greater than the simple convenience of microwave heat needs (see: how to make your own microwave popcorn), comes full of diacetyl, which is very harmful when heated and most especially: when those hot fumes are inhaled.

Can you believe it? The scent of freshly popped corn is snack nirvana! It comes out hot and what do people do? Well duh…they inhale! It’s warm. It’s good. It makes us think happy thoughts of fun movies and friends. But popcorn-lung, or “bronchiolitis obliterans” is a potentially deadly disease and has greatly harmed popcorn factory workers and snack aficanados alike.

Diacetyl is also added to cake mixes and frozen foods. And…isn’t this mahvelous and oh-so-typical…it’s not necessarily labeled on the foods that contain it, as there is not currently any regulation requiring as much. The major makers are vague about when they will actually remove it from their product. What is super nasty to me is that the people mag article stressed that the food itself is safe, “once poured into a bowl”. Gee…are we idiots? Do we bathe our food in poisous gas on purpose and then assume that it’s safe to eat, without trace of the fumes into the food? Anyone wanna try it with cyanide or gasoline?

The damage, thankfully, seems often reversable. You know…it takes me about 3.5 minutes to make a batch of REAL food buttery popcorn; 5 if I’m making drinks and being a little slow. A microwaved batch takes about the same time; wanna switch?

More reading on the subject: From the NY Times, sixwise.com, and an osha study. Image from stiffnecklife.org.

Oh. My. Word. I believe this youtube video story because I’ve seen for myself McDonald’s hamburgers at the bottom of my minivan months after they were purchased…completely unchanged.  Even a week later would be too long …. watch it , but beware…if you share a fear of clowns with me,  there are two very scary images! And if you  share a fear of plastic food, watch it and pass it on.

Consider it a bonus: two nasty food  posts in the same month!

And how nasty it is!

Carrageenan is seaweed you know? So it’s natural, right? Ha! About as “natural” as MSG (which comes from rice), Splenda (which comes from sugar…kinda), and Aspertame (comes from oil). One finds it in processed foods: milk, ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt, frosting, cheese spreads, baby formula….the list is quite long.

Long ago I started weeding out and avoiding foods that contained Carrageenan for the simple reason that it is an additive used to replace fat and gelatin qualties in foods that I preferred to have in their whole state. For instance, I think MILK should be MILK…pasturize it if you must but adding crap and homogenizing it is officially taking a whole food and making it a processed food in my opinion. Until recently I couldn’t/wouldn’t afford good, unhomgenized milk, but I had avoided Carrgeenan in ice cream, cottage cheese, yogurt…I make our frostings from scratch, we don’t eat cheese spreads, I breastfed the babies, etc.

But beyond just messing with something whole and making it a “recipe”, it turns out Carrgageen, and most especially the solvents used to process it, is a highly antagonistic additive. Consider some of these quotes:

Some folks can eat just about anything. Some people might
have no problem producing a tall glass of homemade soymilk,
then converting it to chocolate milk by adding the
following ingredients: Three teaspoons of sugar. One
teaspoon of chocolate powder. Two tablespoons of Vaseline
petroleum jelly. The Vaseline might produce gastric
distress, and the soymilk drinkers would erroneously
conclude that they are “allergic” to soy. Some people
do not experience gastric discomfort caused by the
Vaseline-like food additive, carrageenan. Many people do.Carrageenan is a commonly used food additive that is
extracted from red seaweed by using powerful alkali
solvents. These solvents would remove the tissues
and skin from your hands as readily as would any acid.

Carrageenan is a thickening agent. It’s the vegetarian
equivalent of casein, the same protein that is isolated
from milk and used to thicken foods. Casein is also
used to produce paints, and is the glue used to hold
a label to a bottle of beer. Carrageenan is the magic
ingredient used to de-ice frozen airplanes sitting on
tarmacs during winter storms.

And from the same website, which is notmilk.com:

Carrageenan is a gel. It coats the insides of a stomach,
like gooey honey or massage oil. Digestive problems often
ensue. Quite often, soy eaters or soymilk drinkers react
negatively to carrageenen, and blame their discomforting
stomachaches on the soy.

Studies have been done that link Carrageenan to colonic cancer and gastro issues…hmmm, inflammatory bowel syndrome anyone? Here in our household we have well (ha haa) documented gastro issues of the rather pungent kind when nasty ice cream like Mayfield, containing Carrageenan, is consumed. Out here in our county, along with no wine, one also can not buy a brand of ice cream that does NOT contain Carrageenan. So we gave some a shot recently. BAD IDEA. On a much more serious note, our son Wheaton had an as-of-yet undiagnosed metabolic disorder as an infant and was not growing. The doctors surgically installed a g-tube in his belly and force fed him forumla containing high amounts of Carrageenan (not that they cared; it was the scientifically engineered nutrient content they were after). The more they insisted we pump through him, the sicker he became, the more mucous his body produced, and he nearly died. Rapid improvement occurred when we stoped feeding him the formula under a new doctor’s care, who wanted him breastfed and self-selecting his diet (which was all whole foods) while his gut healed. It was then that we started looking into food additives, most of which trigger our boys’ gastro-reflex issues.

During the latter half of the twentieth century, inflammatory bowel disease and gastrointestinal malignancy have been major causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States. Even with improvements in treatment and cancer screening, colorectal cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer mortality in the United States. The Western diet has been considered a possible source of inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal malignancy, and intensive efforts have been undertaken to study the impact of specific constituents of the Western diet, such as fiber and fat (1-3).

In addition to food additive uses, carrageenan has been used in cosmetics, pesticides, and pharmaceuticals, as well as in toothpaste and room deodorizers. It has been used as a treatment of ulcers and as an emulsifier in mineral oil laxatives, liquid petrolatum, and cod liver oil. However, its predominant role has been in food preparations, in which it is used across a wide variety of food groups because of its ability to substitute for fat and its ability to combine easily with milk proteins to increase solubility and improve texture. Hence, it is used in low-calorie formulations of dietetic beverages, infant formula, processed low-fat meats, whipped cream, cottage cheese, ice cream, and yogurt, as well as in other products. From its original use several centuries ago as a thickener in Irish pudding and its incorporation into blancmange, the food additive use has extended widely and cuts across both low-fat and high-fat diets. It is often combined with other gums, such as locust bean gum, to improve the texture of foods (12-14,22,41,42).

Inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal malignancy represent major sources of morbidity and mortality in the United States. A possible factor in the etiology of these pathologies is exposure to carrageenan.

The potential role of carrageenan in the development of gastrointestinal malignancy and inflammatory bowel disease requires careful reconsideration of the advisability of its continued use as a food additive.

Read the whole study here.

So my bottom line? My body was made to process FOOD. That is what I should feed it; not manufactured substitutes. Real fat is more digestable than some slimy chemical added to replace the fat, never mind all the nutritional and health BENEFITS from fat! Ice Cream should be Ice CREAM, not Ice CANCER-SLIME. Makes a real treat too, rather than a motivating force to run for the bathroom.

Image from bigoven.com

I don’t think I ever understood the appeal of margarine. Greasy and weird tasting… ick. It seemed weird to me that the stuff never aged, never grew mold. But there’s a lot of positive press for it, when research is spun to isolate one element and then create a product that addresses that one element, and then science enters in, and the audience already eats a host of non-foods anyway….

My instinct tells me that no matter what the latest research says, when faced between a real food and a non-food, my body will always know what to do better with the real food.

The book Nourishing Traditions, which honestly changed my food life more than any other book I’ve read on the subject, has this to say about the globby-perpetually-yellow- I-can’t-believe-people-eat-this-stuff…..

“Hydrongenation is the process that turns polyunsaturates, normally liquid at room temperature, into fats that are solid at room temperature–margarine and shortening. To produce them, manufacturers begin with the cheapest oils–soy, corn, cottonseed or canola, already rancid from the extraction process–and mix them with tiny metal particles–usually nickel oxide. The oil with it’s nickel catalyst is then subjected to hydrogen gas at a high pressure, hig-temperature reactor. Next, soap-like emuslifiers and starch are squeezed into the mixture to give it a better consistency; the oil is yet again subjected to high temperatures when it is steamed cleaned. This removes it’s unpleasant odor. Margarine’s natural color, an unappetizing grey, is removed by bleach. Dyes and strong flavors must then be added to make it resemble butter. Finally, the mixture is compressed and packaged in blocks or tubs and sold as a health food.”

from another page:

” Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease, immune system dysfunction, damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs, digestive disorders, depressed learning ability, impaired growth, and weight gain.”

“One of the reasons the polyunsaturates cause so many health problems is that they tend to become oxidized or rancid when subjected to heat, oxygen and moisture as in cooking and processing. Rancid oils are characterized by free radicals–that is, single atoms or clusters with an impaired electron in an outer orbit. These compounds are extremely reactive chemically.”

And aw gee, free radicals are badies of the kind where the info about them is widely available. Want more facts and research documentation? It’s in the book. But really….my largest selling point against margarine and in favor of butter is how good it tastes, how real it is, (organic bodies can deal with organic foods much easier than plastic…common sense!), and good I FEEL. Saturated fat is necessary for learning, concentration, emotional stability, growth, and health. Butter doesn’t need to go through a huge process and then have nutrition and taste added in because it’s already, quite naturally, there!

One more nasty on margarine:

“I put a cube of margarine, the kind I had been selling, on a saucer and placed the saucer on the window sill in the back room of my store. I reasoned that if I made it readily available and if it was real food, insects and microoraganisms would invite themselves to the feast. Flies and ants and mold would be all over it just as if it were butter. That cube of margarine became infamous. I left it sitting on the windowsill for about two years. Nobody ever saw an insect of any description go near it. Not one spect of mold ever grew on it. All that ever happened was that it kind of half-puddled down from the heat of the sun beating through the windowpane, and it got dusty….”

New feature around here: each month I’ll highlight a food product that is nasty for it’s nature…it’s additives, it’s mis-labeling, it’s participation in a lie about what is good to eat.

Do I sound a little hostile today? That’s because I’m steamed about Mayfield’s “whole” milk Buttermilk and even more steamed about the company’s “liar, liar, pants-on-fire” blog about it.

First of all, let’s start with the product as it’s presented in the grocery store: Mayfield Cultured Whole Milk Buttermilk.  Since converting to a Nourishing Traditions  (see book link in sidebar) lifestyle, I reach for whole milk products over those with the fat lessened or removed. And, true to dairy practices in this country, it’s true that milk with the fat removed often has powdered milk added back in to make it creamy. That leads to a host of other stuff that has to be in there to stabalize the messed-with product. And, I’m of the opinion that messing with food is ONE thing….messing with it and presenting it as a WHOLE food is WRONG and MISLEADING.

Enter in Mayfield’s Buttermilk. I was in a hurry and the store was out of the kind I normally buy so I grabbed it. Around here Mayfield is “local” so it gets a certain respect (undesevered imo). Their ice cream is popular and one of only two brands my country grocery store even carries and it’s loaded with crappy additives.  We go through a lot of pancakes and waffles around here so buttermilk is a weekly purchase; I knew I wasn’t buying “well” but as it was “whole” and I was in a hurry, I grabbed and didn’t read the back.

My priest’s wife is the one who alerted me to it’s list of ingredients. And here’s where steam started coming out of Tia’s ears….

“Cultured non-fat milk, cream, salt, food starch–modified, locust bean gum, mono and diglycerides, carrageenan, dextrose, sodium citrate, vitamin A palmitate, vitamin D3″.

Does that sound WHOLE to you?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Worse, I found this at Mayfield’s site:

“Today, we simply add pure strains of cultures to pasteurized low-fat or whole milk.  We incubate the milk at 70 – 72 º F for 14 – 18 hours until the lactic acid and Buttermilk flavor develops just right. ”

LIARS!!!

“Whole” should mean whole. In this case, I’m almost positive they get away with it because when they’re done screwin’ around with it the total fat content equals what unadulterated buttermilk would contain.

I’m tellin’ ya people….don’t assume your “milk” is really just pasturized product from a cow. Don’t assume “cheese” is just cultured milk.  Things need to change but until they do, it’s up to us  to READ THE LABEL. And when you’re in the store, steer clear of Mayfield’s products. They lie to consumers, present a “wholesome” image that is bunk,  and meanwhile we loose control over what is available to nourish our families with. I don’t feed my kids “carrageenan” and I don’t want “locust bean gum” in my MILK.