Ritz Crackers are Not Grain: They Aren’t Even Food!

Ritz towerIn a recent news report a woman was fined $10 for not sending a grain in her child’s lunch, even though it had fresh vegetables including potatoes and carrots. The child’s lunch was supplemented with Ritz Crackers, under the pretense of providing the child with a grain.

This story appalls me on many levels.

First why was THIS child’s lunch the focus of persecution? What about the kids with fruit roll-ups, aka, sugar and food colour!?!?

What about the kids with white bread (stripped of its nutrients), slathered in margarine or mayonnaise, (hydrogenated “edible” oils, not food, but edible) and cancer-causing processed meat? That such a sandwich qualifies as food and fits nicely into the food pyramid is ghastly!

What qualifies a Ritz cracker as a grain?

Let’s examine the ingredients in a Ritz cracker.

Wheat Flour, (some labels say “enriched wheat flour”) Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Soybean or Cottonseed), Sugar, Raising Agents (Ammonium and Sodium Bicarbonates, Disodium Diphosphate), Salt, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Soy Lecithin, Barley Malt Flour.

 

The main ingredient is wheat flour. It doesn’t say whole wheat so it means they’ve taken the whole grain, removed all

the nutritious parts and the fibre and left the starch. The law states they must replace some of the nutrients, namely niacin, iron, thiamin, riboflavin, folic acid. Sounds good until you realize that they add synthetic substances, and the body doesn’t necessarily use them in the same way as it does naturally occurring vitamins and minerals.

Grains in their whole state have fewer nutrients, pound for pound, than almost any whole food. Sure they have calories, but few of us have difficulties getting enough calories.

Our bodies need micronutrients like minerals and vitamins; we need fibre and proteins and healthy fats. Grains are not the best sources of any of these nutrients.

The next ingredient is vegetable oil (on some labels), soybean oil and cottonseed oils (on other labels). Soybean and cottonseed oils are most likely genetically modified, as 90% of North A

merican fields of these crops are GMO. GMOs have not been proven safe for human consumption and have been associated with severe environmental issues, including an increase in chemical usage, the creation of super weeds and super insects resistant to pesticides, destruction of soil ecology, and loss of biodiversity.

Ritz crackers info

In addition, the oil in a Ritz has been hydrogenated (adding hydrogen to convert liquid to solid) to give the food the right texture and mouth-feel and a significantly longer shelf life. Hydrogenation converts oil into a poison, as our bodies don’t know what to do with the resulting strange substance: trans fats.

Sugar is the next ingredient. Sugar is another poison in our food supply, contributing to over a hundred conditions and diseases. If it comes from sugar beet (as opposed to sugar cane) it is likely GMO and again, not proven safe for human consumption.

Then there’s baking powder and salt, and then more sugar, in the form of high fructose corn syrup, a sugar known to contribute to obesity and food addictions and usually GMO too. Food manufacturers often use several types of sugar so that they can list them separately and keep sugar from showing up first on all the labels. It’s a trick to keep us from realizing we are overdoing sugar.

About the only food value in a Ritz cracker is in the calories, which have been stripped of what little nutrients were in the grain and combined with unhealthy fat, sugar and salt.

What is really scary is that according to government-sponsored surveys, Ritz Crackers are the #1 perceived snack food in America.

If Ritz crackers are a staple in your diet, I suspect your body is starving. In North America we consume copious amounts of food but we are always hungry.

It’s because real food is so much more than calories or carbs, fat and protein. Real food is about the micronutrients that we can’t get from a processed food product like Ritz crackers.

After examining the evidence, what do you think?

Is a Ritz cracker a grain?

Is it even food?

Does it belong in your kid’s lunch?

My philosophy: Eat the Food, the Whole Food and Nothing but the Food.

Resources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/19/ritz-crackers-fine_n_4303073.html

http://www.snackworks.ca/en/products/Ritz.aspx

The Dirty Dozen 2013 Edition

DirtyDozenHave you heard of the Dirty Dozen? It’s the 1967 movie starring Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Charles Bronson, where a World War II US Army Major is assigned a dozen convicted murderers to train and lead into a mass assassination mission of German officers.

The modern mass assassination is even more insidious than in that old film, largely because the target is the most innocent among us: people who eat whole, real food in the form of fruits and vegetables. We know they’re good for us. Our grandmothers told us they were and the produce our grandmothers fed us WAS good for us. Usually it was grown in soils teeming with life and vital nutrients and bereft of toxic substances.

Modern agriculture has changed all that and rendered many of our most nutritious foods into enemies, largely through the application of chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. Unfortunately not all the pesticides used to kill bugs, grubs, or fungus on the factory farm wash off under the tap at home. Government tests show that many fruits and vegetables have a pesticide residue, even after washing.

Some pesticides are bred into the plant. An example is the insecticide Bt, which works by irritating insects’ stomachs. Bt is now bred into corn and there is evidence that humans may suffer from stomach ailments after eating Bt corn. A study of pigs fed GMO corn found they all suffered excess inflammation in their stomachs.

One alternative is to seek and eat organic foods but they are often appreciably more expensive than conventional produce. A good solution is to avoid the worst offenders or select organic and then buy regular versions of other produce.

Exposure to pesticides can be reduced by as much as 80% by avoiding the most contaminated foods in the grocery store, the modern Dirty Dozen, as revealed by the Environmental Working Group. Since 1995, the organization has identified which produce items have the most chemicals.

The EWG couldn’t pick just 12 so the Dirty “Dozen” is 14 for 2013.

1. Apples: In 2013, apples take the number one spot. In Michael Pollan’s book, The Botany of Desire, he explains that because we’ve lost much of the genetic diversity of apples they are disease and pest prone so the use of chemicals on them is deemed necessary. Up to 42 different chemicals are found in apples.

2. Celery: with up to 64 chemicals. Organic celery is often no more expensive than conventionally grown celery and in my experience it is far more flavourful. When I can get it on sale, I buy extra, chop it up and store it in bags in the freezer and use it in recipes where I would cook it anyway, like soups and casseroles.

3. Cherry Tomatoes: these are new on the list. It’s so unnecessary to spray tomatoes. They are among the easiest crops to grow in most climates.

4. Cucumbers: also new on the list. Also easy to grow without chemicals.

5. Grapes: 
Imported grapes (grown outside USA and Canada) make the 2013 Dirty Dozen list. Vineyards can be sprayed with pesticides during different growth periods and no amount of washing or peeling will eliminate contamination. Remember, wine is made from grapes, which testing shows can harbor as many as 34 different pesticides.

6. Hot peppers: Peppers have thin skins that don’t offer much of a barrier to pesticides.

7. Nectarines (imported): Up to 33 different chemicals are found on soft-skinned nectarines, making them among the dirtiest tree fruit.

8. Peaches: up to 62 chemicals. Their soft skins make them susceptible to chemical penetration.

9. Potatoes: The Botany of Desire exposes the growing methods of potatoes and reveals that our demand for the perfectly elongated French fry is largely responsible for the monoculture that leads to the poisonous growing condition of potatoes.  Potatoes can easily be grown in your home garden without chemicals.

10. Spinach: Spinach can be laced with as many as 48 different pesticides, making it one of the most contaminated green leafy vegetables.

11. Strawberries: up to 59 chemicals, especially out of season, when they’re most likely imported from countries that have less-stringent regulations for pesticide use. When organic strawberries are in season, they are often as cheap as the chemical-laden ones and their flavour is far superior.

12: Sweet Bell Peppers: May contain up to 49 different chemicals. Also thin-skinned and susceptible to absorbing chemicals.

+ Kale /collard Greens: Traditionally, kale is known as a hardier vegetable that rarely suffers from pests and disease, but it was found to have residues of organophosphates and other risky pesticides. That’s why they are on the Plus list for 2013.

+ Summer squash, domestically grown: tests found that some domestically-grown summer squash – zucchini and yellow crookneck squash — contained residues of harmful organochlorine pesticides that were phased out of agriculture in the 1970s and 1980s but that linger on some farm fields.

Incidentally, the Clean 15TM, according to the Environmental Working Group, the least contaminated produce items are Asparagus, Avocado, Cabbage, Cantaloupe, Sweet Corn, eggplant, grapefruit, Kiwi Fruit, Mango, Mushrooms, Onions, Papaya, Pineapples, Sweet Peas (Frozen), sweet potatoes.

 

Sources for this article include:

Environmental Working Group: http://www.ewg.org

Dirty Dozen Methodology: http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/methodology.php

http://www.NaturalNews.com

http://www.Organic.org

The Botany of Desire, by Michael Pollan

Book Review: Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser edited Aug 2013

fastfoodnation“What the All-American Meal is doing to the World”

Fast Food Nation is a shocking expose’ on the various players in our food supply system

A glaring problem is that a handful of gigantic corporations control most of the links of our food chain, from seed grain to fertilizers and pesticides to feedlots to meat processing plants.

The book closely examines the relationship between big food companies like McDonald’s and their suppliers. The author also explores the large government regulators like USDA and FDA and their influence on the nutrition and safety of the food in the USA

McDonald’s corporation is the largest customer of beef and potatoes. Therefore they heavily influence their suppliers as well as government agencies.

As with all publicly traded companies, fast food companies are motivated by quarterly profits and immediate Return on Investment. Pressure is always on to improve efficiency and lower costs.

That leads to many problems, among them compromised animal rights, human rights, and the health of consumers.

The system is geared to churn profits and can’t seem to slow down to ensure the health of farm and plant workers who are routinely exposed to harmful chemicals, hazardous conditions, risking limbs and ultimately their lives.

The most powerful statement in the book comes at the end of a section on meat.  After examining several e-coli outbreaks, why they happened and how the industry reacted the author concludes that the bottom line is “There’s shit in the meat.”

Not to mention human body parts and rats. Some will claim “bullshit!”  I say, “Exactly!”

I believe it’s true. I once worked in a supermarket. The ladies who worked in the meat department never bought the hamburger. They always bought chuck or blade roasts and ground them into ground beef. They obviously knew something.

For several years I have purchased beef directly from a farmer I know. When I’m out of “good” meat and I’m forced to buy it in the store, I can hardly stand to cook the hamburger, never mind eat it. It stinks!

The book tells how conditions in packing plants are often inhumane both to animals and humans. The big processing companies pay politicians to pass laws so they can police themselves. Since this book was published, laws have been proposed to make it a criminal offense for journalists or anybody else to take photographs of or report on the conditions on factory farms and at processing facilities.

The cry of the big industry players is “We’ll police ourselves. Don’t worry!  But you can’t check up on us. Trust us!” And their friends in government say “okay” and turn a blind eye.

What are the solutions?

I’ve long agonized over the sources of food for my family. I grew up on a mixed farm where we raised our own beef, pork, chicken, goose, duck, turkey, eggs, vegetables and berries, in addition to the grain we grew to feed our animals and for sale. We ate nothing from a package.

When you grow up eating whole real food, factory food doesn’t taste right. Several years ago I learned to make my own salad dressings. Now I can’t eat dressing from a bottle. It tastes like chemicals. I find most restaurant food too salty, too greasy and tasting like chemicals.

It’s not feasible for us all to have our own sources of all the foods we enjoy. But there are ways we can get back control over our food.

The best is to grow your own food. When you plant, weed, water and harvest before you wash, slice and cook and eat it, you have a real connection to and vested interest in your food.

Granted, gardening isn’t for everyone but if you have a patch of grass in your yard, it’s easy to dig it up and throw in a few potatoes, tomatoes, salad stuff, green beans, beets, carrots, zucchini etc. Most of these vegetables practically grow themselves. It’s a small step towards controlling your food.

Learn how to prepare your own whole, real food and keep it simple. I am astounded by the hoards of people who are helpless when it comes to feeding themselves; that’s why there is a market for factory food.

Another option is to seek relationships with local growers, especially for meat, since we can’t have chickens or a steer in our city backyards. You might find local growers online or at farmer’s markets, although most of our markets are not populated with local farmers but the same wholesalers that supply the supermarkets. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) groups are popping up all over the continent.

Choose organic options wherever possible. It’s tough to do. Big industrial food companies regularly buy out small organic producers so they can get in on the growth of the organic sector. Unfortunately, they industrialize them, bastardizing organic principles and misleading their customers.

For example a recent report by the Cornucopia Institute exposed cereal manufacturers, claiming natural and organic, but when their products were tested, they were found to contain genetically modified organisms, which are not organic, and other so-called natural ingredients that don’t belong in organic foods. See link below.

As consumers we need to read books like Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation to inform ourselves.  Once we’re informed we can notify politicians that we want responsible oversight of our food system. Let them know our food should be nutritious, safe, and ethical, not merely profitable.

Mostly, you can vote with your dollars. McDonald’s made exactly zero dollars from me last year, as did all the other fast food outlets. General Mills, Coca-Cola, and other food manufacturers also made no profit from me.

http://cornucopia.org/cereal-scorecard/docs/Cornucopia_Cereal_Report.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Food_Nation_(film)

Learn more by searching Google for Factory Farms