Absynthia's Journal, 13 June 2014

Great post Absynthia! I confess I'm less than perfect....but I'm MUCH better than I was with foods - and getting better each day. One thing I've noticed too is the stuff in grocery flyers. I look at them each week. I flip thru them and think "good gravy, there's very little REAL food here. Of an 8 page flyer, there's usually maybe 1 or 2 pages devoted to fresh produce and unprocessed meat.  

Exactly, if that much!! Most of every grocery store is not whole good for you foods. Most is processed crud. Amazes me how little real food is in huge grocery stores and how much real food is in some of the small natural food or ethnic food stores.  

Yes, you are so right. You see people setting themselves up for failure because of lack of information on nutrition and a trust in Big Companies that will sell us anything and don't give a crap about our health.  

If you took out all of the crap out of the grocery store today, it would be almost bare. When I look at a loaf of bread and see about 30 ingredients, and 25 I can't pronounce, I worry! Bread takes water, yeast, salt, flour, butter - the rest most of the time) are food additives, etc. I feel very strongly about all of this... I've been looking into nutrition for a heck of a long time.  

Yup the big companies are looking after their profits. It actually isn't their job to educate any of us in nutrition. Their job is to make money for their shareholders, pay their employees, and make profit for the company. It's each individuals job to educate themselves in what matters to them. Sorry, I work for a large financial company in customer service. People are forever telling me that it is our job to educate them in investing, taxes, record keeping. All sorts of things. No it isn't, though we do a lot of that. That is their job or that of their financial advisor/planner. Same thing with the food companies. They aren't forcing you to buy their product, it's your decision. It is YOUR responsibility to decide if that product is healthy or you. YOUR responsibility to decide if you want to purchase it, YOUR responsibility.... YOU are responsible!!! For YOU!!!  

I make bread almost every week. The ingredients of MY bread are water, yeast, stone ground whole wheat flour, ground flax seeds, garbanzo bean flour, chopped sunflower seeds, and 1/3 cup of brown sugar. I've found without the sugar whole grain breads are pretty heavy and don't rise well, so I prefer using some sugar. Nothing that is hard to understand. My bread is a complete protein and dang good for you (unless gluten intolerant), it also tastes really really good.  

@Wholefood - did I hit a nerve? It might be my responsibility, however, I can't follow farmers and find out if they're giving antibiotics, or medication for animals to fatten them up more quickly so they can be slaughtered faster, for them to turn a profit. I can't know that they are taking the gene of a fish and putting it into another species to have it act a certain way. That's not on the label. When it comes to food, our government is suppose to protect us and reign in on the cupidity of companies. But that's not what happens. Yes, I have a responsibility, but I can only be so vigilant. The rest I have no control. I don't think your comparison is valid. People have to eat, but investing is not a basic life necessity. And if I go to the supermarket, do I know need a certificate in chemistry to shop. Must I take magnifying glass to read all the labels, or should I not have a sense that what's being offered is healthy and good for me. You know, some documentary compared big companies to psychopaths. They are only there to make money, that's the DNA of a company. Nothing else. No matter who it kills, pollutes, whatever. Just look at my favorite MCDonalds, who fattened up a generation and polluted left right and center with their Styrofoam containers. I apologize, this site is not about that. And I'm way off topic. But the caps!! YOU are responsible FOR YOU!!! gave me a little jolt.  

No nerve, just it's person's own responsibility to purchase what they want and to make sure it fits their life plan. It IS their responsibility to decide what and where they want to purchase from. Big food companies, even smaller ones, their focus is the bottom line. It would be nice if the food companies supplied all sorts of information on each purchase. It will not happen mostly because of how our supply chains work unless you buy directly from the grower. I live in farm country, previously outside of a small town of less than 200. With many friends who are farmers. This is how it works: So you take a meat distributor: they buy lots of cattle from the stockyard. Say on one day they bid on and purchase cattle from 6 different farmers all raising cattle fitting their method. Farmer #1 farmer feeds his cattle all organic grass and grains from free range over 160acres that never have chemicals applied and does not use growth hormones, farmer #2 feeds his cattle on land that also has grass and grains available free range but applies heavy weed killers on a periodic basis ; farmer # 3 let's his cattle rang free on good grass with Little to no pesticides but injects he's hard with synthetic growth hormones; farmer # 4 raises his cattle on pasture heavily laden with pesticides and gives his cattle growth hormones; farmer #5 raises his cattle in pens feed with grains and pasture hay with no hormones:3; farmer #6 raises his cattle in pens with grains and hay that have had lots of chemical pesticides and gives his cattle growth hormones. All 6 herds are purchased by the same slaughter house. These cattle are all processed in that same slaughterhouse and marketed to the same grocery stores. How do you know which meat you are purchasing? How would that meat company be able to tell you which meat you were purchasing? You can choose to purchase supermarket beef, you can choose to purchase direct from the farmer (I used to when I lived in the country), you can choose to spend the extra $$ and buy organic. It is your choice. Your responsibility to purchase products you want to buy. The big companies are cannot force you to purchase from them.  

same goes for grain, harvest time for wheat. farmers load all their grain into trucks. those trucks go to town, line up at the grain elevator sometimes the lines are miles long. the grain is purchased up loaded into that elevator, mixed with other famer's grains who may or may not farm the same way. these grains are in turn mixed into even more farmer's grains as they are loaded into railroads cars and transported to a mill. there they are mixed with even more grains from different areas.  

@Wholefoodnut / thanks for taking the time to explain. However, I have some questions that remain, that will, unfortunately, the explanation has given rise to some questions, but is not the place. Suffice it to say though that I've read most of your answers/posts and as a general rule, agree 100% with them. So, we do have some common lines of thinking. We may not totally agree on the big company thing, but I think both of us vouch for the importance of what we put in our bodies. I'd have more to say, because I can be long winded, but I'll spare you and wish you a great day. FYI - I've never stepped on farmland. It's a treat for me when I drive through.  

Please low fat doesn't make it better eat low cal like 1300 a day you'll lose major weight. 

Maunikml, I definitely think it's important for our health what we put in our bodies. I was on the organic food bandwagon beginning in 1970. When I lived in the country and my kids were growing up I had a 3/4 acre organic garden that supplied almost all of our produce for the year. I canned hundreds of jars of veggies and would have one 22 cubic foot freezer full of veggies, and also lots of veggies and herbs dried by the end of the growing season. We bought milk, meat, eggs from farmers we knew and knew how their animals were raised. We had a 2nd 22 cubic foot freezer for meat and game (deer, pheasant, quail). Farmers I knew gave me buckets of grains at harvest time, they though it was funny that actually cooked with the whole grains. What I did not grow or get from local farmers I bought through a food co-op that was all organic. I always felt what I did re: food was my responsibility to educate myself, including knowing how our food supply chain works. I now live in the city, just me so the ways of my past with a growing family are different now. I still grow an organic garden, I still am very careful where my food comes from. I still eat as close to the earth as I possibly can. For example if I buy Italian sausage, a favorite treat, I know the butcher that makes it, and have watched him make it at times. I know their meat comes from a farm south of the city not from a huge slaughterhouse or feedlot. I will spend the extra $$ to buy meat from him.  

I totally agree with you Absynthia - great info and insight :)