Spinoff on shrinking food packages

[stamphappy]

Originally Posted by marinemomtatt

I've noticed that along with the smaller sizes the amount/number of 'fillers' has increased.

During WWII Germany added sawdust to flour as a filler. It was cheaper than flour as it was a free byproduct of industry, it filled up the people, it wasn’t harmful, and it just passed through their systems. I heard about this first in the book The Patriots and then researched it a bit online.

In the near future (or now), do we need to be on the lookout in the ingredients listed on foods we purchase? What might they call it to make it sound better? Organic plant product?

Or is it already in the food we purchase? What is the 'filler' manufacturers are already adding to their products? What's the filler in a hot dog?

Yet another reason to produce and preserve your own food.

[Pink_Carnation]

Some of the high fiber products use stuff like that already.

[suitcase_sally]

Back in the 80's sawdust was added to bread for "fiber".

Originally Posted by stamphappy

What's the filler in a hot dog?

Lips, tails, ears. Dry milk. No joke. I forgot snouts.

[ne prairiemama]

don't forget cigarette butts... really the workers there thought it was funny...

Thanks for the reminder to keep an eye out for the amount of fillers!

[stamphappy]

Originally Posted by suitcase_sally

Back in the 80's sawdust was added to bread for "fiber".

I did not know that; very interesting and now I need to go read about that. Was that done by industry standards, or due to a crisis or something else?

Originally Posted by suitcase_sally

Lips, tails, ears. Dry milk. No joke. I forgot snouts.

ewwwwww...so The Great Outdoors movie quote with the racoons talking about "lips and a**h*les" is correct...ewwwww once again! But I wonder why dry milk-that is an expensive filler isn't it?

[Ernie]

Originally Posted by stamphappy

ewwwwww...so The Great Outdoors movie quote with the racoons talking about "lips and a**h*les" is correct...ewwwww once again! But I wonder why dry milk-that is an expensive filler isn't it?

They are using a grade of milk that they never would have been able to sell through normal consumer channels. Same with cheese. Any product you have that contains cheese ended up with the absolute lowest grade of milk that they could legally obtain.

Want good food that won't kill you? Produce it yourself.

[ryanthomas]

Many processed foods today have fillers in them. Maltodextrin is a pseudo-starch ingredient used in combination with others to add bulk to food at low cost. It's made from corn, but that doesn't mean it's food. There are so many substances used in manufactured "food" these days that it's hard to keep up. I second producing your own, or at least buying actual food that grows in the earth, or that eats what grows in the earth.

[goatlady]

Many of the "diet" bread products contain "cellulose" as listed on the labels which = sawdust. Cheap way to extend/expand the weight of the product. Have you read the label on the Morton Salt "box" it contains sugar and has for a long time. Enhances the salt taste and uses less salt per box with a cheap sweetener. Label reading is an adventure these days and you practically have to know another "language" to understand what they say.

[Ernie]

You can dang near lay poor diet at the feet of almost every typical American health problem.

In another thread (or maybe this one) recently someone pointed out that there wasn't a food problem in America since our biggest problem is fat Americans. I couldn't disagree more.

You just can't hardly get fat on real food. It's hard to do. You would have to be eating something almost 24 hours a day, and even then you're not going to reach the morbidly obese level that so many people do on the typical American diet. What's making people so fat is the enormous amount of corn byproducts and sugars in their food. It's in everything. You can't even go buy bratwurst without "corn syrup" being the #2 ingredient. As I sit here and type this I'm drinking instant cappucino that has corn syrup solids in it. The Kahlua I add for flavor has corn syrup in it. Every packaged food, every industrially manufactured ingredient ... derived from corn. Our entire grocery store has turned into one big shrine to corn.

In doing the research for the book I'm writing now I've been looking at ancient "primitive" diets a lot. What did people eat around the world PRIOR to the modern agri-industrial complex taking over? When you look at those diets, and how relatively HEALTHY they were, you start wondering how in the heck we ever let this happen. Scientists and historians have convinced us that the 18th century was a terrible time to live because of the short life expectancy. That was simply because they averaged in the deaths due to childhood illnesses and the folks who got their heads split open in bloody warfare. If you look at the overall health of the ones who managed to avoid either of those fates, they fared pretty well. They lived as long or longer than we do today, AND they stayed healthy right up to the end. Yeah, modern medicine may have tacked on an extra 6-8 years to the average lifespan in the past century, but you'll spend that time laying in pools of your own filth in a nursing home.

The Lord gave us a real blessing about 5 years ago. One of our sons developed an enormously problematic food allergy to CORN. We were forced to start reading food labels. Even the stuff that didn't have corn listed as an ingredient would end up having corn as an ingredient, usually buried in "natural flavors" and protected by law as a trade secret. As a result, we completely rearchitected our diet. Everything going to feed the family is made from scratch. You want potato soup ... start with potatoes. It was the absolute only way we could be safe. Through this I also learned that I was severely allergic to wheat gluten. I can't even have a little bit. Oatmeal produced in a mill where they had wheat DUST in the air is enough to set me off. It screws up my digestion for days and causes me to have terrible mood swings.

Very little grains come into our household at this point. Rice and beans constitutes our only flours. My wife makes these wonderful chocolate cupcakes out of chocolate, a little sugar, and a can of black beans. Five years into this major change in diet, I see it as the blessing it is.

There's worse things in the world than not being able to eat processed food.

[ladybug]

Tuna fish now has added "vegetable broth" which is soybeans + other stuff. If you've noticed Satrkist is now extra salty that is why.

[stamphappy]

My goodness! Is there any book or DVD that I can read/watch to help educate me on this?

We garden and I've been learning how to can produce I get from the farms near here. I make a most dinners from scratch but I will admit that we have PLENTY in our pantry that is canned/frozen 'pre'pared food such as chili, frozen pizza, boxed mac-n-cheese, etc...

[thesedays]

Originally Posted by ne prairiemama

don't forget cigarette butts... really the workers there thought it was funny...

Thanks for the reminder to keep an eye out for the amount of fillers!

There used to be (maybe still is) an Old El Paso salsa cannery in my area. I once worked with a woman who had worked there herself, and she told about a guy who got fired because as a joke, he would toss extra "heat" into the milder sauces. When she told us about this, I thought she was talking about a state fair or some other kind of cook-off, but no, it was at a factory.

"How It's Made" has a program where they go to one of those cheapo hot dog factories, and yes, those wieners contained high fructose corn syrup.

I'm assuming the canned black beans contain no corn or wheat gluten? Someone was telling me about eating some brownies at his parents' house, and could tell something wasn't "normal" about them. He asked his mom, and she said they were from a Weight Watchers recipe and you guessed it - black beans.

[navygirl]

A few books I liked.... Nourishing Traditions, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Wild Fermentation. And a "jumping-off point" website... http://www.westonaprice.org/.
The deeper you research this stuff, the more amazed you'll be. I'd like to say I've completely changed the way we eat, but I still have a hard time not eating out. I'm just so wiped out after working all day and trying to keep the farm going... But we do sprout our wheat, dehydrate it and grind it. Makes great bread.

[Truckinguy]

In doing the research for the book I'm writing now I've been looking at ancient "primitive" diets a lot. What did people eat around the world PRIOR to the modern agri-industrial complex taking over? When you look at those diets, and how relatively HEALTHY they were, you start wondering how in the heck we ever let this happen. Scientists and historians have convinced us that the 18th century was a terrible time to live because of the short life expectancy. That was simply because they averaged in the deaths due to childhood illnesses and the folks who got their heads split open in bloody warfare. If you look at the overall health of the ones who managed to avoid either of those fates, they fared pretty well. They lived as long or longer than we do today, AND they stayed healthy right up to the end. Yeah, modern medicine may have tacked on an extra 6-8 years to the average lifespan in the past century, but you'll spend that time laying in pools of your own filth in a nursing home.

Absolutely true!

There was a guy in the late 1800's or early 1900's (sorry, I"m falling asleep over the keyboard here so I can't look it up) who traveled the world studying various cultures and he found that the people with the least amount of contact with "modern" civilization were the healthiest and happiest people. Their teeth were in excellent condition, little or no evidence of arthritis and heart disease and lived healthy lives right into old age, which was as long or longer then the average 'civilized" person.

[Spinner]

Here's a list of ingredients, figure out what product it is:

Durum and Enriched wheat flour
niacin
errous sulfate
thiamine
monoitrate
riboflavin
folic acid
maltodextrin
enriched wheat flour
wheat flour
niacin
reduced iron
thiamine mononitrate
riboflavin
folic acid
whey salt
natural flavor
partially hydrogenated soybean oil
food starch-modified
calcium carbonate
disodium phosphate
cheddar cheese
pasteurized milk
cheese cultures
salt
enzymes
citric acid
autolyzed yeast extract
yellow 5
yellow 6
less than 2% silicon dioxide

I can't even pronounce some of those things. I wonder what they all are? Why are some ingredients listed more than once?

I was taught that ingredients are listed in the order of most to least. So there is more Durum and Enriched wheat flour than there is errous sulfate. What is errous sulfate?

If you haven't figured out what this is, scroll down to find out.
















Aldi brand Macaroni & Cheese

[manygoatsnmore]

I got it, I got it - well, I didn't know it was Aldi brand, but I knew it was boxed mac and cheese.

[Ernie]

Originally Posted by Truckinguy

Absolutely true!

There was a guy in the late 1800's or early 1900's (sorry, I"m falling asleep over the keyboard here so I can't look it up) who traveled the world studying various cultures and he found that the people with the least amount of contact with "modern" civilization were the healthiest and happiest people. Their teeth were in excellent condition, little or no evidence of arthritis and heart disease and lived healthy lives right into old age, which was as long or longer then the average 'civilized" person.

That is Doctor Weston Price. If you go to the website of his foundation you will discover many interesting things.

http://www.westonaprice.org/

There are many hard labors approaching you. Only REAL food shall sustain you in those labors. All else is weak bread that will cause your strength to fail and in the end will rob you of the health needed.

Would you build a home out of crumbling stone? Soft and weak timbers? Would you live in that home? Your body is built from FOOD! Choose wisely. Would you put water in your gas tank? Corn syrup? No! You use gasoline because it is the fuel the manufacturer intended. So it is also with FOOD! Your body's energies are fueled by food.

You say to me, "But Ernie, I just don't have the TIME to cook good food."

Of course you do. Make the time! It is the most important thing you can do for your family.

Right now I have an enormous pot slowly coming to a boil on the stove. This morning I put rice in it to boil and added tomatoes, garlic, and onions. I filled that pot to the very top. A little chicken broth for flavor and here later I will add some frozen shrimp that I had on hand and a couple of cans of smoked oysters. If there's any catfish filets left I'll drop one or two of those in there.

It's a big pot. That's 3 days food and it gets better each day. Day three it's a little more liquid than I like, so I'll cut up some potatoes and drop them in the pot for filler. Good food, made from scratch. And the pot will be sitting on the warmer for the next three days straight, so anytime anyone is hungry they only have to dip a ladle in. You can't get any more convenient than that!

This is an issue I'm very passionate about. Bad food weakens our bodies so that we cannot work and destroys our health, robbing us of the joyful times in later life.

[Cyngbaeld]

I can't agree more, Ernie.

[thesedays]

Originally Posted by Ernie

They are using a grade of milk that they never would have been able to sell through normal consumer channels. Same with cheese. Any product you have that contains cheese ended up with the absolute lowest grade of milk that they could legally obtain.

Want good food that won't kill you? Produce it yourself.

Commercial chili, even the name brands, use a grade of meat that is just above that used in pet food.

[Trixters_muse]

Ernie: Slight thread drift, any chance of getting that cupcake recipe? My daughter has decided to become a vegetarian, she would love this recipe.

Back on topic... I no use longer prepared mixes and packaged food. I used to keep boxed mac and cheese for quick fixes but I even quit doing that and my son's skin cleared up! He had been battling with this acne for a couple of years and when I quit buying a couple of food products I always bought we noticed his skin cleared up. Tried using them again and his skin broke back out. Not sure what ingredient caused the problem but he has no more troubles with it now thanks to scratch cooking. Wish I had all that money we spent on acne products, prescriptions and Dermatologist co-pays!