you should be "neurotic" and we are off topic

[paul bruesch]

I recently heard part of a piece on NPR which discussed food, particularly
processed food. Food scientists can't/don't/won't deal with the "whole
food"... they need to break it down into its components and deal with each
component individually as though it was a food unto itself, which it is not.
The example I heard in the short time I was able to listen was about carrots
vs. beta carotene. When we hear "carrot" nowadays, many of us (thanks to
food scientists and manufacturers of processed foods) think "beta carotene."
However, carrots are much much more than beta carotene, and we NEED the
whole carrot, not just the beta carotene. The primary reason we hear so much
about beta carotene is that there's not much money to be had in selling
carrots. The money is in processing the real, whole foods into components
and smushing them together into nutritionally deficient, but "tasty," globs.


Buying non-local food is sometimes "necessary" (e.g. we don't have many
local apples left in January here in Minnesota, and we never have local
oranges...) but the carrots and beef and seasonal produce, as well as
non-food items ( e.g. wooden [non-lead-based paint] toys) should ideally
come from nearby. Why? Two reasons that come immediately to mind are (1)
shipping (which further breaks down to (a) product cost and (b)
unnecessarily burned fuel [wasted energy]) of products produced far from
home and (2) much more of your dollar spent on locally-produced goods stays
local, making a healthier local economy for yourself and your neighbors.
Another reason that comes to mind is freshness of your food. If it's local
and fresh, nutrient-killing pasteurization is a less important
consideration.

Just a thought... we have Denatured Alcohol... maybe we should refer to our
processed food products as Denatured Food.

JF, Thank You for your comments about Wal-Mart. Many times I've wanted to
comment on remarks on the list about things "you can buy at Wal-Mart" and
Sam's Club... just didn't want to stick my neck out like that!  But since
you did... many people know that WM sells some organic foods. Does everyone
know about the very significant effort WM made to water down the organic
standard so that THEY can sell "organic" more cheaply and MAKE EVEN MORE
MONEY by selling more volume of more crap.

Paul Bruesch
Stillwater, MN
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: https://www.moypiano.com/ptg/pianotech.php/attachments/20080109/7b8a94c2/attachment.html