The Things They Do to the Food We Eat.

[sybian]

This post is inspired by the process system ,done to our food that we eat...And Miss Tanya, for simply asking.
These are just opinions, and your more than welcome to disagree...I'm not an educated man, but I do have a lifetime of practical knowledge in the food production industry.

Sea Salt versus Rock Salt.....Sea Salt can contain pollutants, depending on it's source, and the filtration and disinfectant system it is put through.
Rock Salt, although containing added Iodine, is harvested from the ground in vast deposits by machinery, which can pollute the material, but under the pressure that created it is pretty much pure,..and cheap.
Some countries add Talc, so it slides easier to load...Talc is another natural product made from stone.

Nitrates...Nitrates are added to meat protein to act as both a perservative, and a glue....Those Toupee hams shaped like a football are made from gelled pork protein, in a giant machine...Nitrates and other shit that isn't good for you is added as a binder, then it is puked into electrified heated cylinders that give it it's shape....Nitrates are suspected of deteriorization of the filter before the brain, possibly causing dementia, later in life.
If your going to buy ham....It should look like a ham, and not a football...A good rule of thumb is, if it has a bone inside, the further processing is at a minimum...And the cheaper the ham, the less thats been done to it.

Chicken....I buy mine from a backyard producer that uses vegetable grains, and no drugs or anti-biotics.
First ..Steroid use is illegal here...Anti-biotics are given at a low dose in Commercial Factory farms, and the product is called Coxidio-Stat.
This product keeps the bacterias at a minumum to allow the bird to grow at a maximum rate, allowing us to feed our nation.
Second...Most processing plants can kill and process 10,000 birds an hour.
Most use a hot water bath before plucking to loosen the feathers..This bath is a Salmonella hazard ,as this bacteria is present naturally in the birds intestine. There are some plants that have gone to the steam vapour in it's processing, and common sense tells me that it would be more sanitary.
Another new process is air chilling...This makes the meat far more tender and your not paying for water..Although they are cleaned in a 10% Salt Water solution for cell absorbtion....Pure profit.
There is a reason Sushi joints don't serve raw chicken....All chicken has Salmonella contamination....But it's kept at a low level by some of the highest standards in the world.
There is a new Salmonella in the U.S. that [I think] is called Heidelberg Salmonella, that has adapted to the low level anti-biotics due to how they are raised...W.H.O., and CFIA is watching this very close, and Anti-biotic egg spraying by hatcheries is being questioned as well.
A test was done for one year with a No Spray Policy before hatchers were loaded...Mortality went up 20% in the first week..The policy was resumed in 2015 on a pure profit basis.
Beef....Don't even get me started....I have a very biased opinion, and I won't bore you with the facts.
My only advice is....Buy naturally aged Canadian beef..Costco sends an electric shock through the carcass ,to release the aging enzyme. This means Costco doesn't need the 80 acre cooler to age the product, it has a longer shelf life, and can age inside the packaging....
If you look hard enough, you can find grass fed natural beef in the Interior of BC...Natural Beef is cheaper than Organic, and the rancher uses no Chemicals or Hormones.....But, under this label he is allowed to use chemical fertilizer on his fields...
Here we look for the disease,or micro-organism BSE...It occurs naturally within 1 out of every 1 million animals...If you look for it, you will find it.

 

[badbadboy]

I am a huge fan of using Maldon Sea Salt Flakes.

From their website, this is how they "purify" their product.


http://www.maldonsalt.co.uk/The-Story-How-Maldon-Salt-is-made.html

How Maldon Salt is Made

Harvesting sea salt the traditional way

You could contend that Maldon Salt is really made by nature, with just a little helping hand from man to release it from the clutches of the environment. Certainly the ‘process’, if you can call it that, is about as natural as these things can be.

Seawater is filtered and boiled which, reassuringly, removes any impurities, and then heated until the salt crystallises. If this sounds easy, there’s an art in temperature and timing and in particular, the traditional ‘drawing’ of the salt by hand from the pans, that confounds anyone without a saltmaker’s skills.

The result, for those with the know-how is the pure white crisp clean crystals that can only be Maldon salt.

I have also on occasion used this product from France that is hand harvested from their own salt 'farm' by the coast.

http://www.saunierdecamargue.fr/thousand-year-old-expertise.html

Their website indicates they have using the same method employed by the Roman's.

The Salin and Salt Farmers, Tradition and
Know-How
Salt harvest in Aigues-Mortes dates back to antiquity (400 BC). Peccius, the Roman engineer, was entrusted with organising the production of salt there at the beginning of the Christian era. At the end of the 12th century, seventeen small salt pans were operating in the Peccais enclosure. They belonged to various owners who, after serious flooding in 1842, joined forces with a merchant from Montpellier and in 1856 established the Salin d’Aigues-Mortes as we know it today.

The Salin stretches over 18 km from north to south and is 13 km wide from east to west. Over 340 km of roads and paths criss-cross its thousands of hectares in all directions, covering an area similar in size to the city of Paris.

The name of Aigues-Mortes comes from the wetlands and brine lagoons that surround the village: Aquae Mortuae (1248 in Latin, Aigas Mòrtas in Occitan), meaning dead, i.e. stagnant water.

 

[Cami Parker]

I just got back from visiting my bestie in Dallas, Texas and the food monstrosities I saw there would horrify you. They will bread and deep fry litterally anything... Whole burgers (lettuce, tomato, bun, mayo everything...), tacos, cheesecake,Corn on the cob, Pumpkin spice Oreos... They even found a way to deep fry beer, kool aid and sweet tea (they blend it into a custard, which then gets breaded and fried) they eat the most disgusting things, it's crazy! They have every kind of fake flavoured holiday m&m's you can imagine... Pumpkin spice latte m&m's, caramel apple m&m's, white candy corn m&m's... A bajillion insane flavours of coffee creamers... It was really crazy the amount of fake foods people consume and don't either know or care how unhealthy it is for them...

 

[sdw]

I became very interested in the food industry years ago when I was having my own health issues(before I found out I had a severe gluten intolerance) plus when I was working as a cashier at Safeway for a time I noticed the correlation between heath & what people had in their carts. I had physical assessment training in college but very little nutrition training. Canada's health care industry is all about pushing drugs for Big Pharma... I remember being shocked at how much money was being spent on drugs when I saw the receipts from pharmacy delivery meanwhile most hospitals and long term care facilities are constantly tightening the food budget, buying the cheapest crappiest garbage to serve to the patients. Common sense to me is by improving food quality less money would be spent on medications because many illnesses will clear up or atleast become more manageable on a healthy clean whole-foods diet.

The problem is that we simply can't produce enough food to feed the world's population with traditional methods. If we compare yield on good farmland in 1900 to yield on good farmland in 2015, we find that one farmer could feed 19 people in 1900 and one farmer can feed 155 people in 2015.

http://animalsmart.org/animals-and-the-environment/comparing-agriculture-of-the-past-with-today
http://www.farmersfeedingtheworld.org/farming-matters/

This includes Organic Farming http://www.worldwatch.org/node/4060

The above numbers are for what is called mixed farming or truck farming and a ratio of 1 to 155 is simply not enough. That's why most of the world's people are fed with what is known as monoculture farming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture

An agrifood monoculture operation that is of optimum size can feed up to 3000 people with a single farmer. It varies according to the crop. Wheat and Corn feed a lot of people per farmer, leafy vegetables don't feed as many people per farmer.

The problem with monoculture farming is that it creates poor land out of good land in a few years. In fact, there is less damage if poor land is used for monoculture farming from the start. Additional problems are that pests are able to adapt because they only have to figure out how to infect one crop, the big agricorps have control of the seeds for the main crops and biodiversity is lost.

 

[badbadboy]

I just got back from visiting my bestie in Dallas, Texas and the food monstrosities I saw there would horrify you. They will bread and deep fry litterally anything... Whole burgers (lettuce, tomato, bun, mayo everything...), tacos, cheesecake,Corn on the cob, Pumpkin spice Oreos... They even found a way to deep fry beer, kool aid and sweet tea (they blend it into a custard, which then gets breaded and fried) they eat the most disgusting things, it's crazy! They have every kind of fake flavoured holiday m&m's you can imagine... Pumpkin spice latte m&m's, caramel apple m&m's, white candy corn m&m's... A bajillion insane flavours of coffee creamers... It was really crazy the amount of fake foods people consume and don't either know or care how unhealthy it is for them...

I call that the Elvis Diet and look what happened to him

I travel to the USA on biz at least 6 - 8 times a year. Always the engineers will choose some place like Applebee's and it's just gross with all the sweet sauces and garbage they put on their meals. I believe I have made myself unhungry at the thought of it.

I will say that SoCal is doing well to adapt to a healthier diet. Even fast food Mexican places have healthy options now. And tasty too.

 

[sybian]

Gm foods scare the shit outta me as well..The "Scientists" who defend it, are subsidized by the very industry that create the product.
They say we have been genetically altering food products for thousands of years, to defend their industry.....This Rancher says ...Yes thats very true, but common sense tells me that we crossed cows with other cows, or birds with different birds, to create a suitable or more sustainable product..We never crossed an apple with a salmon to create Frankenfood.
When we step too far from the borders of mother nature and cross animals that are too far from each other, like a Donkey and a Horse...The animal that is born is "Mute" or infertile, bringing an end to furthering the flawed genetic lines....We have now found a way around that through Science....And they expect us to eat it.

Just like when plastic was introduced into the food container industry...The data just was never there. With plastic we now know it creates more female infants...There are small communities that are right next to large plastic plants, and the infant mortality rate is double. When they do survive they are 90% infertile..If a boy is born, they are always infertile.
The norm for sperm count has been reduced world wide by 40%..They believe it is due to using plastic for food storage, and it's effects have never been tested for human food use.
W.H.O. has never reported the decline because.....Listen to this......The normal sperm count has dropped at a consistent rate over the last 40 or 50 years...Since the introduction of plastic containers...The sperm count ratio has become the new baseline for our population, and does not require reporting...The count has been dropping on a consistent basis , and continues.
There are some Scientists who say "It could be an extinction factor"..Although that may be Doomsday talk, and perhaps is not credible.

 

[MichaelP]

About GMO, check these two podcasts in Star Talk with Bill Nye who used to be anti-GMO but, based on evidence, he switched his position regarding GMOs.

http://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-gmos-with-bill-nye-part-1/
http://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-gmos-with-bill-nye-part-2/

I hope nobody here is a follower of the Food Babe...

Regarding allergies and similar, in my experience, it could be one of these three: actual allergy, intolerance or being picky. I know people who claim are gluten intolerant and then you see them eaten a bowl of pasta for dinner. If you really have an allergy or mild case of intolerance, sure, I will give you a pass. But, saying you are "allergic" because of a fad, it is just being silly.

 

[sybian]

I should make this clear about salt....I have only been exposed to sea salt as a gift from a friend.
He brings it back from Mexico ..They let the sun evaporate it in trays, then sell it too tourists. Grey mystery stuff ,sand, and insects are throughout it.
I accept it as a gift every year, but because it's not boiled or distilled, I use it too soften the water when I wash out my barn floors.
I know nothing about the source or quality of the Himaliyan Salt.
I just prefer salt thats mined from natural sources deep underground.

 

[sdw]

Because of the high-tech food industry humanity will likely be in for a huge dose of natural selection in the not so distant future..


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-smith/genetically-modified-soy_b_544575.html

GM foods first went on the market in the early 90's. We're being used as lab rats for the biotechnology industry.. Wonder what the multi-generational effects in humans are ? I have a feeling it won't be pretty

All I know is myself & my kids aren't volunteering ourselves for the experiment...

Sybian has already talked about the effect of the food we eat on fertility. He also mentioned plastic containers, but we have hidden plastic containers. Tin Cans are called that because they used to have to use Tin to plate the inside of the can. Then, they discovered that they could just spray on some plastic to stop the can from corroding. They also started making cans out of Aluminum, which has it's own set of unwanted side effects. http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/produ...ion/household-menagers/cook-cuisinier-eng.php

... Canadians normally take in about 10 milligrams of aluminum daily, mostly from food. Aluminum pots and pans provide only one or two milligrams of the total. While aluminum has been associated with Alzheimer's disease, there is no definite link proven. The World Health Organization estimates that adults can consume more than 50 milligrams of aluminum daily without harm.

During cooking, aluminum dissolves most easily from worn or pitted pots and pans. The longer food is cooked or stored in aluminum, the greater the amount that gets into food. Leafy vegetables and acidic foods, such as tomatoes and citrus products, absorb the most aluminum. ...

... For cooking and storing food, plastic is lightweight and nearly unbreakable. Many containers have been made for use in microwave ovens, where metal cookware is not suitable.

Using plastic containers and wrap for anything other than their original purpose can cause health problems. With wrap, the concern is that food may absorb some of the plasticiser, the material that helps make it flexible. This is most likely to happen at high temperatures, when microwaving, or with fatty or oily foods such as cheese and meat.

Nonstick coatings are applied to metal utensils to prevent food from sticking and to protect cookware surfaces. An independent science review panel in the US has recommended that perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts (PFOA) be considered "likely to be carcinogenic" based on laboratory studies in rats. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also determined that PFOA is 'likely' to cause cancer in rats. However, this does not necessarily mean that PFOA causes cancer in humans. PFOA is widely used in the manufacture of non-stick coatings. PFOA does not remain in cookware or other products after manufacture, but it has spread throughout the natural environment worldwide. In 2006, the chemical industry voluntarily agreed to a U.S. EPA plan to reduce and eventually eliminate the release of PFOA into the environment and to reduce and eliminate any PFOA content in products. ...

... Minimizing your risk

Do not cook or store food for long periods of time in aluminum cookware.
Do not use badly scratched or un-coated copper cookware to cook or store food. If you do have some older tin or nickelcoated cookware, use it for decorative purposes only. Do not scour coated copper cookware.
If you know you are allergic to nickel, do not use nickel-plated cookware.
If you are sensitive to nickel and are having difficulty managing your allergy, discuss options with your doctor. Foods known to contain higher levels of nickel include oats and oat products, peas, beans, lentils and cocoa products, such as chocolate, particularly dark chocolate.
Do not store foods that are highly acidic, such as stewed rhubarb or stewed tomatoes, in stainless steel containers.
If you bring in glazed ceramic cookware from abroad, be aware that it may not meet Canadian permitted levels for lead and cadmium. Do not use it to serve or store food. Use it for decoration only.
Don't use plastic bowls or wrap in the microwave unless they are labelled as microwave safe.
If you reuse plastic items for storage, such as dairy product containers, let the food cool before storing, then refrigerate it immediately. Avoid visibly damaged, stained or unpleasant smelling plastics and containers. Never heat or store food in plastic containers that were not intended for food.

We poison ourselves every day when we "nuke" a meal in plastic instead of using glass or corning ware. It's not really safe to eat canned Tomatoes, the acid makes the container leach toxins into the food fairly quickly. Tomatoes stored in glass are much safer.

When I was a child/teen Autism was practically unknown, Senility/Alzheimer's was known - but not especially prevalent, people didn't have to use extreme methods in order to have children. When I was a child/teen people cooked in Iron or Tinned pots, they canned in glass jars, there were no microwave ovens. Now - Autism is common, Alzheimer's is common, we have fertility clinics. In Canada, we control or try to anyway, the hormones given to our Cattle. Therefore, I'm willing to argue that much of the cause is due to storage and cooking and not the food itself.

When there is a recall of food, it just about always is due to a processing problem or a storage problem. The food itself was OK until the processor tried to save a few bucks by circumventing sanitation or storage regulations.

Recently, it was discovered that major chain stores were "recycling" old meat that was past it's "good before date" by grinding it in with newer meat and repackaging it. That kind of thinking is more of a problem than GMOs are.

 

[sybian]

The plastic liners in tin cans would leach toxins into the food in the canning process, due to the heat used,...Never mind the year it sits inside before it's consumed.
I just go buy a cheap cast iron frying pan, throw it in red hot coals and turn it glowing red, then when it cools a little, I'll just spread vegetable oil on it till it stops smoking.
Nothing sticks to it, and if a food I'm cooking does, I'll just throw some water in it, and boil it clean.

 

[MichaelP]

I do follow Food Babe. You can tell just by looking at her she knows her shit!! Science Babe tries to discredit her but compare the 2. Look at their pics. It's obvious which one knows about healthy living!!

I can take a lot of cheap shots based on the arguments above but will skip it. That said, two additional links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_hoax
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemophobia

 

[MichaelP]

I wasn't throwing cheap shots. I was only saying Vani Hari is my age. & she's smoking hot now. Have you seen her before pictures?
Chemophobia lol. I've also been told by random people I fall under the orthorexia nervosa diagnosis ...

Let me try again: I could take cheap shot based on your perception of beauty of the Food Babe is the reason why others ought to believe her. But, looks aside, look at their background. One has a degree in Computer Science, the other has a degree in actual science (Forensics but you get the idea).

I am not saying celiac is not a real disease. I have friends who have specific allergies and have seen their reaction when they come into contact with it. If you know what is good/bad for you, I believe you. However, the key detail here is that people such as Vani Hari gives dubious advice, quite often these won't pass any rigorous peer testing. For example, there is an Internet cached article she wrote about flying (which she has deleted): http://www.freezepage.com/1415667665TBMRBWICKU . And, of course, depending on your stance on vaccination, http://foodbabe.com/2011/10/04/should-i-get-the-flu-shot/ . Make informed decisions, not because somebody is popular or is "good looking".

 

[sdw]

It's easy to tell Vani Hari is healthy...her skin is glowing, eyes bright, hair shiny, proper weight. In school we were taught first step in physical assessment is looking for those qualities...

My stance on Vaccination is it's a great idea in theory but I feel money and greed trumps safety to the companies trusted to manufacture them. The safety issues re: vaccination and pharmaceuticals is a huge reason why I decided not to return to nursing. I used to inject that garbage into people while many of my co-workers would refuse them. If flu shots were really safe and effective there wouldn't be legal fights trying to force mandatory vaccination amongst health care workers. Dr's and nurses would be smart enough to just take them..no force necessary but that's not how it is...

Legally there's supposed to be informed consent with any invasive medical procedure but IMO it's not happening with vaccinations.. Drs & nurses run the risk of losing their licences if they speak the truth..

I'm not going to argue that Flu Shots are 100% safe or 100% effective, many people are allergic to eggs and the Flu Vaccine is a best attempt to hit a moving target. Sometimes the people that determine which strains of Flu will be targeted get it right, other times the vaccine is ineffective because it's targeted at the wrong strain of Flu.

However, Vaccination has saved a great many lives. I grew up when Polio was prevalent, we don't have people dying of Polio anymore. The same is true of many other diseases like Small Pox. Here's a .pdf of how effective vaccination is for various diseases: http://www.immunizebc.ca/sites/default/files/docs/ICPages13and14.pdf

 

[sybian]

Miss T...I don't care who you are..Parallel parking a full sized diesel pick-up in Richmond is almost impossible....And what is with all the indoor parking lots ,that only have 6 foot 6 inches of clearance?
I'd bang my head on the clearance board riding a scooter.

Congrats on getting your Drivers Licsence

 

[Bridge]

If anyone gets the chance they should read "Fast Food Nation"

 

[vancity_cowboy]

Vaccination has saved lives but vaccines aren't as safe as the makers claim them to be. Theres serious risks and side effects people aren't being made aware of prior to receiving them. With money and effort they could be made a lot safer. And I think they should just be reserved for serious diseases. Polio and tetanus yes those are needed but with ones like chicken pox and hpv i feel the risks outweigh the benefits.
And I say it wouldn't hurt to spread the children's vaccination schedule out a bit.. the way it is now is a heavy load on the immune system of such young little bodies.

i'm going to have to differ with you on this tanya. dr. andrew wakefield's linking of the mmr vaccine to autism and crohn's disease in 1998 was debunked as fraudulent research by several investigators in 2004. it turned out that wakefield was trying to get the mmr vaccine banned, because he was instead promoting the use of his own vaccine

the following wikipedia article gives a good summary of wakefield's transgressions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy

 

[sybian]

I'm no Doctor or Nurse, and I'd have to agree that over use of a killed virus can be a scary thing.
I've watched in the Agriculture industry the over use of Anti-biotics, Hormones, and every medication on the planet pumped into animals that don't need them.
All for the sake of profit......In most cases it's not needed, but it's a cheap way to keep everything alive to get to market....
The underlying thing nobody brings up is, in the pursuit of money ,and to feed the world, the animals are kept in a unatural environment, then medication is used to control disease..or prevent it..And because it's cheap,and put in the hands of people who are not educated in the product, overuse can be a huge problem.
I'm talking about producers that have been sold a product, by a slick salesman, and told .."This is the dosage, and don't worry it's been tested ,and perfectly safe...." The same thing happens in the Health Care Industry, when perscribing medications to people by the Doctors.
Havng said that. Nobody really knows how many human lives have been saved, by using a killed virus to prevent disease....It is an effective way to prevent disease worldwide, in a cost effective ,managable way.