Why go to the effort to obtain high quality foods. Taste, health, support local growers, trying to reduce dependency on corporations or gardening as a hobby. Some of the benefits are personal many of them are also global. Food and beverage choices at home, in restaurants and as snacks provide you the opportunity to make small multiple impacts day after day.

The main message for this week is read the ingredients on the food you are using. It may not be what you expect. I am finding a number of foods I have used for years now have extra ingredients. The choice is change products or start making it oneself. For example, it is hard to find a corn tortilla to cook without gar-gum. Most of the 50lb bags of masa flour at the restaurant supply store have it pre-added to the flour. The tortillas with gar-gum will mold in my fridge. The ones without simply dehydrate and are good for months, just need to add water. What else is changing?

How the food is grown
States are passing legislation to remove local control of agriculture techniques and supplies

Nearly every seed-preemption law in the country borrows language from a 2013 model bill drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The council is “a pay-to-play operation where corporations buy a seat and a vote on ‘task forces’ to advance their legislative wish lists,” essentially “voting as equals” with state legislators on bills, according to The Center for Media and Democracy.

Commercial grain crops and soybeans for bio-fuels, animal feed and human consumption are the major crops in the great plain states Agriculture run off is creating an annual dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.This year the dead zone grew to 8700 square miles.

A new report lands much of the blame for the dead zone at the door of modern industrial agriculture. America’s addiction to cheap meat, fed on corn and soy in vast indoor factories, comes at a high cost in human health problems and environmental destruction. None of these costs are paid for by the companies that produce the meat and feed, such as Tyson, Cargill and ADM.

Agriculture was very different before the second world war, when animals were mostly kept outdoors. Cows grazed on pasture and rangeland, while chickens and hogs rooted over fields, supplemented with food and crop waste. Chemicals were little used.

What is in the food.
Preservatives and additives are added to make food taste predictable, provide eye appeal and have a longer shelf-life. The food company controls a majority of the information provided to the consumer.

Here’s a shocking fact about your food: A company can decide for itself that a chemical is safe to use in food and doesn’t have to tell the Food and Drug Administration, the agency charged with protecting our food supply. If that same chemical was used to make a tennis racket, the company would have to notify the Environmental Protection Agency, giving the EPA the opportunity to review it for safety.

Your sports equipment may be safer than what’s on your plate.

Senator Ed Markey recently characterized this flawed process as “a self-graded take home exam that industry doesn’t even have to hand in.” That means the food we serve our families contains hundreds of chemicals whose identity or safety is unknown. The process is a massive exploitation of an exception in the 1958 Food Additives Amendment for ingredients found to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS), which was originally intended for things like olive oil and vinegar.

Food companies use additives to flavor food, enhance its color, prevent spoilage, and more. It includes chemicals used in packaging and food processing equipment that may get into food and covers more than just the ingredients listed on the label. Of the 10,000 or so additives, about 1,000 have been deemed by companies in secret to be generally recognized as safe.

We are still learning new information about one of our oldest preservatives. High consumption of sugars is implicated in contributing to mood disorders. One assumption has been individuals with mood disorders crave sugar. Which came first craving for sugar or mood disorder? This study looks at the question.

In our study we were able to exclude potential ‘reverse causation’ as the reason for the observed link between high sugar intake and low mood. Over years and decades, it could be that those susceptible to depression tend to increase their sugar intake. This group may tend to report higher consumption at study baseline even in the absence of depression at the time of the questionnaire, while having an increased risk of future depression compared to other participants

Products change, read labels when you buy. I was going to make some ice cream and started to buy some Darigold Whipping Cream (my bold)(homemade spoon the cream from the top of the non-homogenized milk).

INGREDIENTS:
HEAVY CREAM (MILK), MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CARRAGEENAN, DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SODIUM CITRATE, POLYSORBATE 80. Gluten Free.

Tracking down food sensitivities can be tricky. Did the strawberry Darigold yogurt cause gas because of a lactose intolerance or the inulin added to provide a creamy texture. (my homemade yogurt: 1 qt milk and 1 T yogurt for culture and 12 hours at 90 degrees, not as thick as commercial)

INGREDIENTS:
LOWFAT MILK, SUGAR, STRAWBERRIES, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, INULIN, NATURAL FLAVOR, CORN STARCH, GUM ACACIA, AGAR, CITRIC ACID, PECTIN, RED CABBAGE FOR COLOR, LIVE ACTIVE CULTURES. Gluten Free.

Inulin is indigestible by the human enzymes ptyalin and amylase, which are adapted to digest starch. As a result, inulin passes through much of the digestive system intact. It is only in the colon that bacteria metabolise inulin, with the release of significant quantities of carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and/or methane. Inulin-containing foods can be rather gassy, in particular for those unaccustomed to inulin, and these foods should be consumed in moderation at first.

I quite eating salmon in restaurants and at banquets years ago due to farm salmon. Now one is at increased risk for eating genetically modified salmon without a choice.

Tons of lab-developed salmon was sold in Canada last year without any packaging labeling it as a product of science, and the company that created and raises the fish, AquaBounty, won’t release the names of food distributors it sells to.

Farm Report
This past week was about the sky. Forest fires are within 30 miles and the smoke has been coming and going.

Clear skys

Smoke created dramatic sunsets.

Watched the eclipse from the front yard.
Beginning

Total

End

Yesterday and today I have spent most of the time indoors with windows closed. Visability is less than a 1/4 mile.