Food

When you have to buy organic because there is no other choice 🌿

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I am not fan of organic products, mostly because they are branding tactic slapped on by the government rather then a sustainable agricultural practice. Rarely is the label worth spending extra money on, it’s just something slapped on a package shortly to be thrown into the trash or burnt on up in the fire.

Unfortunately when you out there looking for healthier products, sometimes organic is only version sold at retailers. While I certainly wouldn’t pay extra for an organic label, which is literally trash, sometimes that’s the only option they stock. I ran into this issue when I was at Hannaford the other day, stocking up on groceries and the only option was organic tofu — it’s literally the same crap with a label.

Fortunately though it was inexpensive, price competitive with the non-organic tofu I buy at Walmart. Still I grumbled a bit when I put it in my cart, knowing the scam I was supporting. Now, I’ve been looking at getting some Quinoa to add to my diet next week, and I’m annoyed that the only choice stocked locally is organic. I get the retailers can only stock so many versions, and might not be cost-effective for them to stock less popular products.

Now, I don’t think buying organic is necessarily harmful to eat or even bad. It’s possible some of the techniques are more sustainable then conventional agriculture, but color me skeptical. But if it’s the only option, and it’s not absurdly expensive, I guess it’s worth paying the price, if its that or skipping new and nutritious options to add to my diet. I just had how popular culture dictates the branding in the market.

Why I prefer frozen fruit over candy and chips 🍓🍇

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The past few years, I’ve been buying a lot of frozen fruit when I go grocery shopping. I really like the bulk bags of frozen fruit you can get at a place like Walmart and some other groceries stores that have 2-4 pounds of frozen fruit in the bag. Not only is frozen fruit good on waffles and pancakes for breakfast, it makes an excellent snack, and is very economical compared to ice cream, chips, candy and cookies.

I saw an advertisement for some kind of bulk junk food supplier the other day on Facebook and had to cringe. Not only was it relatively to expensive to buy those big boxes of junk food, I just saw all the packaging and trash they entailed compared to a single lightweight plastic wrapper around the bulk frozen fruit. And I couldn’t imagine that they would last nearly as frozen fruit, which the only part that has ever gone to waste is the occasional blueberry or strawberry chip that I dropped on the floor and was stepped on or otherwise too disgusting to eat.

Fresh fruit might be slightly tastier then frozen, but it tends to be a lot more expensive and a lot more goes to waste due to spoilage. Frozen fruit never spoils. And fresh fruit tends to be a lot more packaged, meaning a lot more trash. Maybe if I lived out in the country and had hogs, chickens and acreage where I could feed or compost the waste and burn the packaging, I’d feel different, but I generally avoid fresh fruit unless I get it at a farm stand in the summer and it eat up in woods where frozen goods can’t be kept frozen.

Shots – Health News : NPR

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A genetically modified purple tomato can now be raised by home gardeners : Shots – Health News : NPR

As home gardeners in the U.S. page through seed catalogs and pick out their favorite heirlooms, there's a new seed that has never been available to them before: a tomato the color of a concord grape with plum-colored flesh. It looks otherworldly, maybe Photoshopped. But it's not.

This nightshade is purple because its creators at Norfolk Plant Sciences worked for about 20 years to hack color genes from a snapdragon flower into the plant. The genes not only provide pigment, but high levels of anthocyanin, a health-promoting compound.

This dusky fruit, named the Purple Tomato, is the first genetically modified food crop to be directly marketed to home gardeners – the seeds went on sale Saturday. Last year, a handful of small farmers started growing and selling the tomatoes, but until now, genetically modified foods were generally only available to commercial producers in the U.S.

The TRUTH about Meal Replacements

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I used to be interested in things like sugar-free food and MSG but lately I've decided it's better to avoid all that junk for basic, simple whole-foods.