I had no idea..........Processed Foods Make Up 70% of the U.S. Diet

[dixiegrrrrl]

“Nobody set out to dominate the American diet, to make everything we’re eating so highly processed and so highly technical — it was a gradual revolution,” said Melanie Warner, the author of the new book, ‘Pandora’s Lunchbox.’ “It basically started 100 years ago.”

"Warner said that there’s an estimated 5,000 different additives that are allowed to go into our food, but:
“The FDA doesn’t actually know how many additives are going into our food.
This is in part because regulations are not only self-regulatory — so the food industry is doing the testing — but it’s also voluntary,” she said. “The ingredient companies don’t actually have to tell the FDA about a new ingredient. If they choose to, they can simply just launch it into the market. The FDA doesn’t know about them, and nobody else really knows about them.”

( Basically the entire story at the link is the above excerpt...I was just stunned at the %)

http://www.mediachannel.org/processed-foods-make-up-70-of-the-u-s-diet/

[Le Taz Hot]

1. Gack!

Why????? What they lack in taste they make up for in sodium, fat and chemicals I can't pronounce. I like to think that, if my grandmother wouldn't recognize it, I won't eat it. Besides, cooking from scratch is MUCH cheaper and you get to control the ingredients.

[RevStPatrick]

2. Is that all?

I actually would have thought it was more than 70%.
I know people who have never eaten a piece of fruit in their lives.

[Warpy]

3. I'm not a bit surprised

When Dad's wages fell in the late 70s, Mom no longer had a choice and had to go to work to take up the slack so they could afford to feed, house and clothe the kids. Since Dad was fighting against doing any of that wimmen's work, something had to give. She couldn't scrimp on childcare, laundry, shopping, and a lot of cleaning. So she discovered processed foods and fast foods and that was it.

I'm glad to say the younger crop of males has improved a great deal over their dads and will pitch in with the home workload, but the lion's share of it still belongs to Mom and little cooking still gets done in a majority of households.

Now, in defense of the food industry, I'll say that some of the stuff is good enough and really does provide significant convenience. Pre made mayonnaise would fall into this category. However, too many people have never learned how to cook these days and there are even freaks out there who pride themselves on not being able to cook, like it's something best left to brown people in factories.

That's where that statistic came from, families that are pushed to the absolute edge by long hours at work and commuting and too few hours at home to do everything properly.

[frazzled]

8. Mayonnaise

Well, there's one I do buy pre-made. I will actually make my own mayonnaise on special occasions, and it's easy enough to do (and good!). But you can only make enough for a few days before it goes bad. Therefore, we buy a jar of mayonnaise for those quick lunchtime sandwiches.

None of us is wholly "from scratch," though I honestly rarely buy premade meals of any kind. Take that back: when my husband is out of town, I once in a while used to buy an Amy's (organic) Indian frozen vegetarian meal, so I don't have to cook. But then they changed the recipe, and what was once pretty good tastes like shit now (why did they do that?). So I usually just keep a piece of fish or boneless chicken and make some vegetables when he's gone. Dishes ...

[canoeist52]

4. That's why we shop arround the outer aisles of our market.

Only pick up paper goods and basic baking and cooking supplies in the inner aisles. Also love our summer and now winter farmer's markets. What we don't spend on processed food mostly makes up for the higher cost of the local organics.

[Demoiselle]

14. "The outer aisles of our market" is a great definition.

A lot of this is habit, conditioning from our families (my parents spent an enormous amount of energy planting their own vegetables, which at least gave me a taste for fresh produce, even if I buy it and don't plant it myself now) and the overwhelming pressures of working full time while raising (and feeding) a family. I used to daydream about setting up small shopping/cooking cooperatives for familes so they could share the burden. Seven families with shopping and cooking duties shared for seven dinners a week. Anybody have any bright ideas how to set such thing up?

[Arkansas Granny]

6. My daughter watched a show about the foods we eat and has been reading labels religiously

for the last few weeks. It seems that high fructose corn syrup is in virtually everything and many additives, like MSG, are hidden in products by renaming them to make them sound better. It takes a lot of study to find foods that aren't loaded down with these additives.

[Wednesdays]

11. Amen! HFCS is a scourge

Too often, when I watch trains go by, there's a caravan of dozens of huge tankers in a row among them. At first glance they appear to be oil tanker cars...but no, they’re all carting High Fructose Corn Syrup. Tens of thousands of gallons of the stuff.

[closeupready]

7. People are stupid - they eat crap, and then wonder

why they develop health problems. I mean, what can you say.

The media also fails in doing its job insofar as they are supposed to inform citizens of facts and truth, not food industry propaganda. That's not news to most here, though.

[SoCalDem]

18. Media relies on advertising..who advertises?

Mega corporations who OWN pseudo-food companies as part of their empire..

Media will NOT bite the hand that feeds it.

[Doremus]

20. +1000 Among other things, this is why virtually every TV show is one giant commercial.

The line between "content" and "paid advertising" has gradually blurred to the extent that it's basically non-existent today.

Watch virtually any show and they're either blatantly selling products (themed tables full of one product after another, while the host goes down the line extolling the virtues of them all), or more subtly selling products (use of products written into the story line).

Competing products often force hapless producers to allow glaring inconsistencies in content (one day beef is detrimental, the next it's nutritious and delicious -- and other similar faux pas).

It's no wonder the average person doesn't have even a basic understanding of nutrition. They are bombarded by contradictory messages 24/7.

[FarCenter]

9. It is all processed

Fruits and vegetables are picked.

Grains are harvested.

Animals are butchered.

Cows are milked.

[closeupready]

10. But of course it is! Which brings me to another point:

The other day, there was a headline about 'processed meats' being somehow bad for one's health.

What a stupid headline. Obviously, it's the additives (like nitrites), but since there is a huge industry in food additives, the media throws us softballs.

[Stuart G]

12. Is bottled milk..that you buy in the story considered a processed food??

Just wondering..thanks for answer...I suspect no. but there are some additives. oops..found out that I was wrong..again..


Opps...found this on the net..at ...about.com

http://nutrition.about.com/od/askyournutritionist/f/processedfoods.htm

"We tend to think of them as bad, like most high-fat, high-calorie snack foods or even those prepackaged meals you fix in a skillet, but it turns out that some of these foods are not bad for your health at all. For example, milk would be considered a processed food because it's pasteurized to kill bacteria and homogenized to keep fats from separating. Some people prefer raw milk, but it can lead to lead to food-borne illness, so most of us are happy to consume the healthy processed milk we find in our grocery stores. "

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. You make an excellent point about the definition of "processed"

I tend to think in terms of 'additives" more than in terms of processed
and read labels conscientiously.
I go by the rule of thumb that if a package lists more than 5 ingredients, I probably don't want it.

[SoCalDem]

19. If there are words in the ingredients than an adult in 1950 would not recognize

pass on it

[Stuart G]

17. In front of me now..I got a processed food...probably not too bad for you..

The food is..Triscuit, Hint of salt...here are the ingrediants:

1. Whole grain soft winter wheat
2. Soybean Oil
3. Salt...50 mg per serving.. (each serving is 6 crackers)...

now regular Triscuits are 150 mg per serving..but these are much less
......It is a processed food, but much better than most...anyway..there are a few processed foods that are very low..in stuff..but,

they don't usually taste as good as those with lots of stuff......

[Bluenorthwest]

13. I'm a local,organic advocate, but this article is filled with misinformation. Food additives are not

industry tested and voluntarily acknowledged. There is a huge process for getting new ingredients or additives approved, it can take years and the regulations are not 'self regulatory'. We have many serious food problems in the US, but this is just not factual at all.

[cliffordu]

16. Not mine.

I like raw fish and broccoli.

and ethanol.

[Stuart G]

21. A food in a jar, with one, just one ingredient..says no addictives.

just look it is there...in most foodstores.. peanut butter ...some if you look, have no sugar, no salt.no mono glutinate..

just... peanuts ..but you gotta look for that kind....enuf from me...oh if you add a little salt..tastes like.........

peanut butter..or no salt...ok???

[Matariki]

22. Is there an official definition of what makes something 'processed food'?

Just curious.

For instance is bread processed food, or does it depend on what's added to it? And if so, what's the baseline for 'it' - meaning 'real' bread?

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. That question opens the can of worms around how "organic" is defined.

"we" used to know what organic meant, but the corporations took the word and bent it to their use, thus effectively nullifying our meaning.

The other word they twisted is .."natural"