Do You Know What’s In The Food You Eat?
Artificial ingredients
Calories, sodium, additives, trans fats. Do you pay attention? Do you count them?
Do you avoid certain foods and ingredients?
How about organic fruits and vegetables or farm raised meat and poultry? Do you insist on them? Or is it too expensive to pay the premium prices often required?
TNGG wants to know how much you pay attention to the foods and ingredients that go into your body.
photo by: Waldo Jaquith
I shop at Whole Foods whenever I can. It really kills my bank account, but at the same time I’m not entirely comfortable getting chicken for $.70/lb. The more I learn about food, meat in particular, the more I feel it’s worth paying a little more for. It’s not really a question of “quality,” I think that word obscures the issue, it’s about good food and bad food. I put off learning about food for a long time, because I knew that once I learned I wouldn’t be able to un-learn–and McDonalds is so convenient sometimes. Well, not anymore.
I try to watch sodium and sugar, though this is sort of hard to stay consistent with. Rather than reading ingredients I deal with it by trying to make my own food instead of using anything pre-made. For meat and other things I have brands I trust and typically buy organic when I can. Not just for the pesticide free/ hormone free food, or even locally grown–though these are all good–but also because organic farms are typically just plain ethical, and that means a lot to me.
No. I probably should though.
Chemicals (in food) are awesome though and are welcome in my body at anytime.
In short, yes.
I never used to be that person that always checked ingredients or nutrition information, now I check everything. It happened when I was still in highschool, I used to be the kind of person to eat anything, and I was always trying to save money, refusing to spend money on food if I could avoid it. But at the same time, I was miserable, in constant pain, and unhealthy.
My dad found some (sketchy) article on the internet about how soy was essentially the most unhealthy/poisonous food, as a result, my dad threw out all the soy in our house. It turns out, that I am allergic/sensitive to soy (more so than the rest of my family) and I was suddenly a normal, healthy person. Ever since then, to avoid soy, I’ve had to read all my labels, so I shop at whole foods and all other natural/organic stores I can find. Over the years, I have also found other things that I am allergic or sensitive to.
For example, I have to avoid all non-organic meat and dairy (specifically I look for something to have no added hormones, or else I won’t touch it, because i will get migraines). When I look up the foods I have to avoid (everything except for shrimp) I have found that all of it (including soy) has commercial processing issues that make it more unhealthy than it would otherwise be.
Full List of things I avoid:
Carrageen
Soy (and everything that could possibly be derived from it)
Non-organic meat and dairy
Anything that might be GMO (I don’t avoid this as much as I should)
The end result is, there isn’t a lot of prepared foods that I can buy/eat regularly, so I have begun to purchase every small kitchen appliance so that I can make myself things like, marshmallows and french fries.
A neat side effect to being so sensitive to food, is that now I support organic farming and sustainable farming for my health and for the planet’s health. So I can feel good spiritually and physically.
To be honest, not really. I have seen “Super Size Me” and I’ve been handed those horrifying pamphlets about animal cruelty, but my bank account whines louder than activists do. I truly wish I could eat organic and I feel incredibly guilty that I don’t, but it just costs so much more.
However, I’m learning to listen to my body. McDonald’s always makes me feel like crap afterward, so I try not to eat there anymore. I don’t eat a lot of junk food because it makes me feel lethargic and I hate that. There must be something in those foods that makes me feel that way, but I have no clue what it is.
I am deathly afraid of trans fats (and no, that’s not an exaggeration.) Even if trans fats aren’t listed on the nutrition facts, partially hydrogrenated oils are often listed in the ingredients lists (manufacturers don’t have to say there are trans fats if the amounts is less then .5 grams/ serving.) I try to eat as much fresh produce as possible, and attempt to stick to the general rule that the shorter the ingredients list, the better. There are many times though when I find myself quite apathetic towards the amount of chemicals I’ve consumed over 20 years and just kind of accept it as part of the culture.
I tend to not really look at the ingredients since I was always an athlete and not concerned with weight gain. Being that my dad was diabetic, I should probably be more careful. I just cant bring myself to turn down a brownie icecream sundae just because it’s not healthy. It tastes so good and for now, that’s all I care about.
When I grocery shop I look at the labels and compare the whole wheat/whole grain/whole whatever items because sometimes they’re not exactly whole wheat. I bought organic produce for a little bit but the price just isn’t worth it.
I live at the top of Beacon Hill near Whole Foods but I’ve found that it makes more sense to rent a hybrid from Zipcar ($7 an hour!) and shop at Market Basket or someplace cheaper. That way I can stock up for the month and don’t have to carry everything by hand.
Yes I look. But only for preservatives and calories. The calories stop me from buying some stuff, but not so for the preservatives. The problem I find is that I’m not sure what half of it means. I rather buy organic, but I don’t have time to cook. Plus, the good stuff (fruit and veggies) go bad; frozen meals don’t. Not a great trade off.
I try and eat as much produce I can! Produce are the most expensive of the groceries I buy, so whenever I can afford a great fruit salad, or rice and veggies, I love it! If not…I am usually purchasing canned veggies and yes, frozen dinners as a substitute. I love those steamfresh veggie bags!
I won’t buy a food item without first checking its calories, fat, protein and fiber content. I try to not eat foods with any trans fats and lots of saturated fat. In addition to checking nutritional content, I also look at the ingredients to steer clear of foods with any partially hydrogenated oils and to make sure, for example, that something ‘whole-wheat’ is not just enriched flour. I try to avoid overly processed ‘sugar-free’ and ‘lite’ foods, which usually means I’m eating more calories or sugar. But in my opinion, it’s the healthier choice.
In terms of free-range meat and chicken, I don’t really care. Organic doesn’t matter much to me either, because it’s a very loaded word and can have several different meanings. I do, however, care about whether food is locally produced.
God, I sound like a freak. Let me add that despite all this seemingly ‘health-nut’ behavior, I rarely eat vegetables and don’t eat any fruit. Shit, that doesn’t really make me any less of a freak now, does it?