I hope you got to watch that Jamie Oliver video that I put up yesterday. If you missed it, here’s the gist: our current food system is feeding us crap that’s making us fat, sick and poor, while also shortening our life spans (for the first time ever, people in the western world — not just America — are facing a shrinking life expectancy).
In the post-war (heh) era, our food delivery system evolved dramatically, to the point where a lot of people no longer prepare food in their homes — beyond heating and adding water, anyway. These people are entirely dependent on the few consolidated corporations that actually do the food prep work for their nutritional needs. Can these companies be trusted to deliver healthy food? Well, of course not. Delivering healthy food has very little to do with their corporate objectives.
What they did over the latter half of the last century is convince us of many things. That we don’t have to work at being healthy — we can buy our health in a box of cereal, a glass of juice, or in a pill. That meat is not a treat — something to be enjoyed and shared at Sunday dinner — but that it should be consumed three times a day. That dessert is not special occasion food, but a coda that should end every evening meal. And that food — preferably popcorn, chips, pizza, hot dogs and candy — should be a part of the experience every time we watch a movie or sporting event, and even every time we watch TV.
And now they’re trying to convince us that we can keep eating all this stuff and still be healthy. Not that we should give up any of it — god forbid our health goals should interfere with their bottom lines — but rather we should let them make the food magically harmless with additives and chemicals (which, by the way, they’d rather not talk about).
So, I set about to find an example of this. I could have looked in any number of places, but a friend* was recently touting the merits of Blue Bell ice cream, so I figured that would be a good place to start. My friend told me they’d come out with “no sugar added” ice cream that is just as good as the regular stuff, but since it has less sugar, this new stuff is more healthy. I went to their web site and found the No Sugar Added creation. But I searched high and low all over that web site and I couldn’t find any information about the ingredients or nutritional content of their concoction. You’d think this is information they’d want to put forward — testimony to the healthful benefits of their product! But all they’ll allow is that they use “old fashioned ideas” and “only the finest ingredients“. It’s “traditional.” Huh.
OK, so now I’m starting to get really curious (and maybe a little bit suspicious). What are these finest ingredients? Well, I had to wait until the next time I went to the grocery store, but eventually, I got to find out (sorry about the quality of the photos — I took them with my phone).
Here are the facts (below), and they are impressive. Only 100 calories and three grams of fat! Wow! This is indeed magic ice cream! Ok, so maybe the serving size is a little small (who eats only a half a cup?!?), but still, this is not a huge indulgence.
But then I kept spinning that carton, and was surprised to find out what Blue Bell considers to be traditional, old-fashioned ingredients. Here’s the list (below). How many of these ingredients can you identify? Or pronounce? I’m no nutritionist, and I’m certainly no expert, so I had to do some research and here’s what I found out.
First of all, let’s scratch milk, skim milk and cream off the list. We know what those things are. Those are the traditional, old-fashioned ingredients. Here’s what we’re left with, then:
- polydextrose – this is a pseudo dietary fiber. It’s not really a fiber, but they do get to claim fiber content. And check this out:
Polydextrose is made by combining dextrose (corn sugar) with sorbitol. The result is a slightly sweet, reduced-calorie (only one calorie per gram because it is poorly digested) bulking agent. The FDA requires that if a serving of a food would likely provide more than 15 grams of polydextrose, the label should advise consumers that “Sensitive individuals may experience a laxative effect from excessive consumption of this product.”
Ew. More on sorbitol below. BTW, you did know that corn is in pretty much all the processed food you eat, right?
- sorbitol – a sweetner and a laxative. Also made from corn. Although this stuff is supposedly safe to eat, you might want to stay away, especially if you’re diabetic. Or if you have a sensitive stomach:
Moderate amounts of sorbitol are safe, but large amounts may have a strong laxative effect and even cause diarrhea. The FDA requires foods “whose reasonably foreseeable consumption may result in a daily ingestion of 50 grams of sorbitol” to bear the label statement: “Excess consumption may have a laxative effect.”
- maltodextrin – a starch sweetener often made from corn. I gather it’s pretty innocuous.
- cellulose gel – an ice cream stabilizer and fat substitute. Again, pretty innocuous.
- cellulose gum – another stabilizer.
- vegetable gums (guar, carrageenan, carob bean) – more thickening agents/stabilizers:
Gums are derived from natural sources (bushes, trees, seaweed, bacteria) and are poorly tested, though probably safe. They are not absorbed by the body. They are used to thicken foods, prevent sugar crystals from forming in candy, stabilize beer foam (arabic), form a gel in pudding (furcelleran), encapsulate flavor oils in powdered drink mixes, or keep oil and water mixed together in salad dressings. Gums are often used to replace fat in low-fat ice cream, baked goods, and salad dressings.
- natural and artificial flavor – who knows? That’s about as vague as it can be.
- soy mono- and diglycerides – these are emulsifiers:
Makes bread softer and prevents staling, improves the stability of margarine, makes caramels less sticky, and prevents the oil in peanut butter from separating out. Mono- and diglycerides are safe, though most foods they are used in are high in refined flour, sugar, or fat.
- aspartame – this is your Equal/NeutraSweet sugar substitute. Don’t even get me started on this stuff. The jury is very much out on whether it is safe, so if you eat it, you’re volunteering yourself — and your children — to be lab rats (you’re even paying for the privilege!) in the great laboratory we call a marketplace.
- acesulfame potassium – another artificial sweetener. The jury is out on this one too.
The safety tests of acesulfame-K were conducted in the 1970s and were of mediocre quality. Key rat tests were afflicted by disease in the animal colonies; a mouse study was several months too brief and did not expose animals during gestation. Two rat studies suggest that the additive might cause cancer. It was for those reasons that in 1996 the Center for Science in the Public Interest urged the FDA to require better testing before permitting acesulfame-K in soft drinks. In addition, large doses of acetoacetamide, a breakdown product, have been shown to affect the thyroid in rats, rabbits, and dogs. Hopefully, the small amounts in food are not harmful.
- annatto color – a food coloring. Apparently harmless, outside of a few allergies.
- vitamin a palmitate – the major component of palm oil.
And that’s that. Not exactly what I’d consider to be a health food, or either “traditional” or “old-fashioned.”
Now I ask you, would you rather eat this stuff a lot or take the hit on the fat and calories and just eat the real stuff only once in a while?
*Sorry if I’m picking on you, dear friend. But you’re a very smart, well-educated person, so if you’re struggling to figure out what’s healthy and what’s not, is it any wonder that the masses are clueless? And this is what the food companies are counting on…
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