THE WELLNESS BITCH WROTE TODAY ABOUT PEOPLE using the perceived high cost of groceries as a reason (dare I say “excuse”) not to buy healthier food. And, oh, I’m with her all right: this is a huge pet peeve of…
Author Archive for cat
Why to avoid processed food
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RECENTLY, AN ACQUAINTANCE TOLD ME she gives her kid Pop-Tarts for breakfast because “isn’t it better he eats something rather than nothing?†Quite frankly, I’m not so sure. Processed foods shouldn’t make up the main dish of any meal. Really, they shouldn’t…
Why Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is destined to succeed
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LAST WEEK I TALKED ABOUT WHY Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution can’t change our country’s eating habits. This week, I’m in a more optimistic mood. KFC’s Double Down and crappy USDA school lunch guidelines aside, here are three reasons I think…
Booklist: Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System
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by Raj Patel In this book, Patel looks at the food system from a global standpoint and how decisions made in corporate offices have far-reaching consequences — both intentional and unintentional. For anyone who is, or is considering becoming, a…
Why Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is destined to fail
by cat • • 3 Comments
JAMIE OLIVER”S FOOD REVOLUTION IS INSPIRING, and I surely want him to succeed, but I have to wonder if he can have any real impact. Educate people about healthy food? Yeah! Teach people better eating habits? Sure! Improving our abysmal…
The dysfunctional relationship of Marketing and Nutrition
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The relationship between marketing and nutrition is inversely proportional. A good rule of thumb:Â The more marketing dollars spent on a food product, the less frequently you should eat it.
Pop-Tarts marketing contains 2% or less of reality
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I SAW THIS AD YESTERDAY and my BS meter went crazy. Then I noticed the asterisk and saw this at the bottom: WHAT THE HECK DOES “EQUAL TO 10% FRUIT” MEAN? I checked the ingredients and found that out of 29…
Cat’s grocery bag exposed
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AFTER ALL THAT RANTING ABOUT “KID FOOD” EARLIER THIS WEEK, what did I come home with? Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, I also came home with graham crackers, although not little animal shaped ones just full sized regular…
Spend less and eat better: stop buying special kid food
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I was in Whole Foods, but unnecessary kid food products can be found in any grocery store. Organic Jammy Sammy’s are just Uncrustables for the organic set. Five Reasons to Stop Buying Kid Food: Food companies have done a great job…
Booklist: Fast Food Nation
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By Eric Schlosser In Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser delves deep into the world of fast food, discussing every aspect of the business — the way food is made, the way employees are treated, and the way the business is…
3 Really good reasons to avoid high fructose corn syrup
by cat • • 2 Comments
WE’VE ALL HEARD THAT HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYYRUP (HFCS) IS EVIL, but is it really? The jury is still out. Meanwhile, it’s best to avoid it. Here are three good reasons why: 1. It’s in highly processed foods, which aren’t healthy.…
Booklist: The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
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By Michael Pollan In The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan takes four meals and dissects where they come from. He dives into industrial farming and corn, organics and grass farms, and ends with a fully foraged meal. Pamela Kaufman from Food…
With a name like Smuckers…
by cat • • 1 Comment
… you have to read the ingredients. Both jams and jellies are made from fruit. The main difference is  jelly has the pulp filtered out while jam contains some fruit and seeds. The FDA  specifies that jams and preserves are…
3 Trader Joes products no one needs to buy
by cat • • 14 Comments
Browsing in Trader Joe’s today, I saw some great products. These are most definitely not three of them. Trader Joe’s Vegetable Melange in Butter Sauce This is frozen mixed vegetables in a butter sauce. It’s the “sauce” part that kills…
HVP Recall: What you need to know
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The FDA recently issued a recall for HVP manufactured in paste and powder form and distributed by Basic Food Flavors, Inc. This large recall is especially concerning because the contaminated product was shipped to food manufacturers for use in a…
Notes on Food Culture: What are we teaching our kids about how to eat?
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AN INTERESTING PIECE IN Â TIME Magazine talks about how France uses the school lunch program to teach children about its food culture. From a young age, children are fed five course formal meals, with no repeats for a month. Each…
Egg labels: what egg-zactly do they mean?
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ON A RECENT TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE, my brain became scrambled, if you will, at the task of buying eggs. Each dozen was littered with phrases touting reasons to buy it. (My personal favorite: “hand fed and watered with…
Walmart vs. Wholefoods: the battle for the locavore
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Walmart has entered the contest to grab consumers looking for organics and local produce. But how does it compare to Whole Foods, the arguable leader of the segment? Cory Krummer writes an interesting piece in the Atlantic about Walmart’s entry…
Imitation is in the eye of the beholder
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According to the FDA web site, a food must be labeled as imitation if it “resembles a traditional food and is a substitute for the traditional food [and] if the new food contains less protein or a lesser amount of…
Red Dye 40 and it’s colorful friends
by cat • • 4 Comments
Reading the ingredients of Fruit Roll-Ups got me thinking about something I read regarding food dyes and how some food manufacturers stopped using them in their UK products because the dyes are believed to be harmful to children. So how is…