Archive for the ‘supermarket’ tag
Eating In Season
When I was a kid, my mother would send me to the greengrocers for fruit and vegetables. It was almost all seasonal.
Except for bananas and oranges, just about everything came from the local farms, or at least within the county. and without celebration or fanfare either. No ‘locally grown’ or ‘organic’ labels back then.
This had a number of advantages. Produce was generally fresher. Everything was loose in any case, so you could pick out for yourself what you wanted.
It meant that you got fruit and vegetables at the peak of their ripeness, and probably at their most nutritious, save for picking them from your own garden.
It also mean that you got to look forward to certain items at certain times of the year.
I would look forward to new potatoes, to fresh peas, runner beans. I always looked forward to summer fruits. They were always a little more expensive than regular apples and oranges, but one certainly didn’t hand over a fistful of notes for a small carton of berries as one usually does in the supermarket these days.
Tomatoes, and other salad items were a summer treat too. We simply didn’t have salad in the winter, as their were no perfectly red round and totally tasteless hothouse tomatoes back then.
Actually my parents had a small back yard, and my father would grow runner beans, and tomatoes, for which he would sent me to the local fields with a bucket to get manure. Still, that’s another story for another time…
Processed Food Facts
In the United States, 90% of the nation’s food budget is spent on processed food. A recent government report says that over 40% of the food products found in the average supermarket contains trans fats, and there is no safe recommended limit for trans fats, or partially hydrogenated oil.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest estimates that banning trans fats from all foods would save at least 30,000 lives each year in the US alone.
Again, you need to become a keen label reader. The more ingredients on a label that you don’t recognize, the more chance is that it’s some chemical junk. If in doubt, look it up, and check what effects it might have. Isn’t a few minutes taken now, better than losing years later due to illness, that could have been avoided?
Those Favorite Brands
Take Ketchup. It’s all the same isn’t it? That supermarket own brand, tastes almost as good as Heinz, and it’s quite a bit less expensive.
“Mind you, I heard that Hunts Ketchup is full of that High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), and I’m trying to cut back on that, as I’ve read it’s not good to consume, particularly when you’re trying to lose a few pounds, so I’ll avoid that one. On seconds thought, perhaps I’ll stick to Heinz. My mom bought that, and always swore by it – wouldn’t get anything else”.
You’d be wrong.
Heinz Ketchup is made with HFCS, like most other brands.
Why try an organic Ketchup? You might only take a little bit once in a while, but you can bet you’re kids take lashings of it, right? So do them a favor, and get something without the ubiquitous HFCS in.
Check the labels next time you’re in the supermarket, and you’ll be surprised how many ‘good’ brands contain way too much junk!
