We are What We Eat!

September 27, 2013 by Let's CUT the Crap! 68 Comments

Really? In that case I’m afraid. I don’t plan to talk about steroids or food fads. I want to talk about staying alive.

Aren’t we told to read ingredient labels of food we buy? Isn’t it true the words you cannot pronounce on these labels are really preservatives?  Remember the caution to cut back on processed food because it is loaded with salt?

Have I a story about a home experiment. About three or so months ago, I made from-scratch hamburgers for my grandkids but not home-baked buns. Who thinks about making their own buns? No biggie, right? All’s normal. Everybody buys buns.

The kids and their Mom enjoyed the meal and I was pleased to see everyone happy. The next day, I had another burger for lunch and another the day after. Two buns remained on my kitchen island in the plastic bag they’d come in. Another day went by and it occurred to me the buns should be thrown out because surely they were hard and moldy by now. Wrong. I poked my finger at a bun but it sprang back as if fresh. I scratched my head. A week had evolved but not these buns.

I decided to keep an eye on the bag. Another week crawled by. Still, the buns hadn’t cracked nor lost their elasticity. Remember your school-day science experiments with moldy bread? No mold had taken up residence in the moist plastic environment in my kitchen.

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• Ingredients: enriched wheat flour, water, sugar/glucose-fructose, yeast, soybean and/or canola oil, salt, wheat gluten, calcium propionate, monoglycerides, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate
• On the front of the bag: Cholesterol-free / 100% vegetable oil (but doesn’t the ingredient list say soybean and/or canola?)

I kept moving the bag because it gave me the creeps—from one counter to another. Bread is supposed to develop mold under the right conditions and grow hard and crusty. Almost four months later, here I sit without a clue what’s kept this product from walking away on its own. Instead, we are both stuck in the Twilight Zone. Today, the buns are harder on the bottom but the tops, although this much later, still spring back. This is not normal. You would think by now my finger should poke a hole through the crust, but no crust yet.

Even if I say so myself, I know I am well preserved, but that’s from the family gene pool. Why the heck do I need or want help from (food) preservatives from someone I don’t even know, from who knows where? After this experiment, who can I trust?

Do you know what’s in your food?

And then there are eggs—but that’s for another day. I’m worn out; its stressful stumbling about in the land of One Step Beyond.