There was a time, I am ashamed to admit, when Turkey Twizzlers and Bernard Matthews Turkey Drummers formed part of our weekly meal plan. Over time, mainly due to home educating and meeting people with new opinions and views on health and foods, I have been introduced to a whole new way of thinking in particular about food.
These days I am so much more careful about what I buy for my family and what I keep in the store cupboards. I read so much about organic foods being better than non-organic, coffee and red meats beingbad for you, and processed meats causing cancer, and I think it cant be an accident that rates of cancer have soared. We stick additives in our food, pesticides on it whilst it grows and force it to grow out of season. We stick GM in foods that, frankly dont need it. We have a high reliance on tinned goods, on sugary fatty foods and everyone is obsessed with chocolate (me included).
So I don't eat soya products at all as I know our bodies cant digest it but its amazing how many products have it in, even icecream. I don't eat vegetable oils and only buy unfiltered olive oil, I don't use sweeteners only unrefined, unbleached 'raw' sugar when I need to sweeten food. I buy organic meat and veg when I can, buy 'not from concentrate' fresh juices and try to cook from scratch. I used to only drink 'raw' milk, use butter instead of all these nasty spreads and eat only organic dairy products - obviously with Lucas off dairy it becomes more of a challenge.
I don't like being faddy (and tend to find faddiness irritating and a little amusing as a rule) but the truth is, I don't know what we are supposed to eat nowadays. For example, by definition sausages are processed, cancer-causing foods. But surely a sausage made from meat you mince yourself, add onion and seasoning to and put into sheep gut is nowhere near as 'cancer causing', as the ones from the frozen tesco range which contain:
Pork (68%),Water ,Pork Rind ,Rusk ,Seasoning ,Pork Fat. ,Rusk contains ,Wheat Flour ,Salt ,Seasoning contains ,Wheat Flour ,Salt , Stabilisers (Disodium Diphosphate, Tetrasodium Diphosphate) , Spices (White Pepper, Ginger, Mace, Nutmeg) , Herbs (Parsley, Sage) , Preservative (Sodium Metabisulphite) ,Yeast Extract , Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid) , Spice Extracts (Black Pepper Extract, Mace Extract, Nutmeg Extract) ,Sunflower Oil. ,Filled into s beef protein casing.
Mmmmm, appetising - NOT! Anyway, so then I look at ham which contains all sorts of hideousness (Pork,Salt ,Sugar , Stabiliser (Sodium Triphosphate) , Antioxidant (Sodium Ascorbate) ) and think surely a home cured, or butcher purchased ham wouldnt be as bad for you would it. Its all so damn confusing. And what about cheese (oh cheese, how I miss you.....) - isn't that a processed food? After all, milk is heated, rennet added, and probably additives too - so does that make cheese bad?
In the last 2 years our shopping bill has gone from £75 a week to nearly £200 a week. Its appalling but the cost of any food is expensive and the 'good' food is extortionate. And how do you know that the 'good' food is really good for you. What if next week it turns out organic food doesnt have enough vitamin e in it, or coffee contained poisonous bacteria.
*sigh* its just so hard to know.
Over the years I tried wheat free, dairy free (very hard to do), vegetarian ( for 20 + years), seasonal/local and organic - and various combinations of the above!! We have had our fair share of 'junk' food too!! Everything changes, its hard, I tend to go with what *I* think is a healthy/balanced diet and also what we can afford (and what various people will eat!!). At a time when lots of people are struggling good food unfortunetley is a luxery.
ReplyDeleteI agree. And of course food prices are up by nearly 1/3 on what they used to be. I think it was the sausages thing that got be because I dont eat shop sausages, but I do buy butchers sausages. Then the report in the news claimed sausages were bad for you - so Im left wondering if they mean *all* sausages or just shop ones.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, its interesting to hear how others eat. I cant wait until lucas is weaned (or better) so I can eat dairy food again.
We find that additives etc really affect behaviour in our 2, so like you, we try to avoid them and I cook from scratch as much as I can, usually in industrial quantities so I can freeze 'ready meals'. Sadly, coke doesn't make me hyperactive or it'd solve the energy problem. They aren't fussy eaters, which is unusual in auties, but they loathe processed food because they can taste not only the additives but the plastic it was wrapped in and the polystyrene tray it sat on so cheese and meat has to be unwrapped and swapped to waxed paper as soon as I get it home so the flavour can fade out. After all the business about pthelates from plastic being carcinongenic in food, that worried me a bit...
ReplyDeleteAs for the sausages, I think butchers ones would be fine. Like most things, as long as you have variety it works out more or less okay.
My kids aren't fussy eaters either (in fact it's about time Dr's stopped using it as a marker for Autism) but they can taste the 'fakeness' of additives. Additives don't seem to affect my lot but they seem to struggle with the healthy things like 'whole grain' breads, cereals and pulses. Seb and Lucas have dairy issues, Lucas and I cant seem to tolerate soya, and Lucas doesn't do well with tree nuts.
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