What is wrong with food?

Posted by Maralise | July 28, 2008 | 30 Comments

It was so hot. The dashboard felt like I could fry an egg on it. So I stopped at 7-Eleven for a drink. When I saw the Slurpee machine…I. fell. in. love. Slurpees always remind me of home. My mom owned a bookstore in the small Utah town where I grew up and across the street from the store was a 7-Eleven. Whenever I worked the ‘sidewalk sale’ during the summer, I could get a Slurpee afterward.

But this time, when I walked up to the machine I was disappointed. The only flavors were Black Monster Ice and Coca-Cola. Seriously? Nothing even moderately food-related? What on earth could Black Monster Ice have to do with food? What exactly do monsters taste like? ‘I feel like having a monster-flavored drink today, let’s go to 7-Eleven kids!’

I shook my head. And I realized I had been tainted. Tainted by real food. I couldn’t get the Slurpee after all. I guess I hadn’t gotten over tasting the chemicals yet.

Let’s face it, the American food supply sucks. The only thing that hurt more than my cheeks (from my almost-ever-present smile at being able to be with friends and family) during my vacation in Utah was my gut. And I wasn’t alone. My husband sat up most nights with indigestion and lived on Pepcid and Zantac.

From my first meal on the plane to my last meal at my mom’s, I could actually taste the chemicals in my food and was shocked to see how many ingredients normal, everyday food had in it. I’m no baker but doesn’t it seem like a loaf of bread ‘should’ not need more than, say, 4-5 ingredients? I thought 15 plus ingredients including things that sounded NOTHING like food was a little excessive and a little bit scary.

One of the many things that living in Europe has taught me is an appreciation for my own culture. A love of my country, of my people, an innate longing for the ethereal concept of ‘home.’ But another thing I have learned is that food, real food, is simple, fresh, chemical-free, naturally colorful and fulfilling. I have never run into any food that is ‘monster’ flavored in Austria. Yet…..

Do you have any secrets for buying great food in the States? What’s your favorite deli? Farmer’s Market? Dairy? Bakery? Any manufacturers that you’d recommend? Grocery Store?

AND here’s some food-related articles in Segullah you might enjoy: Cream of Wheat by Lori Nawyn, Chamomile Tea by Johnna Benson Cornett, Nancy Soper’s Blackberies, Melissa Young’s The Garden of Eaten, and Emily Milner’s Daily Bread.

Category: Liken the Journal

Comments

30 Responses to “What is wrong with food?”

FoxyJ
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:17 am

I totally agree–I served a mission in Europe and one of the things I loved about it was the fresh, tasty food. I’ve missed that. I did notice that it was easier to find “real” food when we were living in the Northwest. And now we’re moving to an area in CA where food is a big deal. For me, it just comes down to cooking most things from scratch. I rarely buy anything except basic ingredients any more. And we hardly ever eat out or buy snack foods. But, I also love to cook and I like taking the time to cook, so I know that doesn’t work for everyone. One thing I loved when we lived in Seattle was a home delivery service for organic produce. Each week they deliver a bin of assorted produce to your home, and the price works out well compared to the grocery store. Everything was fresh and I liked the challenge of getting different stuff than I usually bought at the store. Just in Seattle there’s a company called New Roots Organics, and I’ve also used a company called SPUD, which delivers in Seattle, Portland, and LA. They both have websites that you can look up.
Justine
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:42 am

We shop farmers markets in summer (there’s a great fruit stand less than 1/2 mile from my house), the local organic grocery store for most else. But I’m also a Costco addict, and their fresh food section is pretty great, and some of it is organic, too. Great Harvest whole wheat bread has exactly 5 ingredients, baked every morning. mmmmmmmmm…

FoxyJ is right — from scratch is the only way to avoid the corn syrup and chemicals.
Michelle Glauser
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:43 am

I also live in Europe (Germany). Although I dislike the fact that you can’t always find everything you need at one store, opening hours are crazy, and you have to go shopping quite often because of the small fridges, it’s true that the food is simpler and very fresh (perhaps because of the frequent shopping trips). However, I’m home at the moment and I’m glad to have my mom’s cooking if only for a short while.
Jennie
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:49 am

By the way, those black slurpees will make baby poo a very scary shade of turquoise. Just in case you were wondering.
I’ve been very interested in heirloom seeds lately, since the seeds found in hybrids (which is most seeds found in stores) are sterile. Baker Creek Seeds in Missouri (www.rareseeds.com) has a heart-stopping array of heirloom seeds grown for flavor and history. You will swoon, I promise.
I try to get local food as much as possible. That was hard in Utah for some reason, but much easier in Texas.
Also, it’s been really wonderful to learn how to make my own jam, bread, and other baked goods. Not only is it more nutritious, but I made it! I’m proud that I’ve learned new skills.
Melissa
July 28th, 2008 @ 1:28 pm

Snacks are a killer. So is cereal. It’s always the crappy stuff that is on sale. We have oatmeal and pancakes a few times each week to offset cost of cereal.

I am trying to feed a family of six on about $75 per week. Cooking from scratch helps, but often the higher-quality foods are more expensive and we cannot afford them. I’m trying to find ways eat better food, but it’s hard when a $2 box of crackers will last three days and a $4 bunch of grapes will last one afternoon. I have tried to make crackers from scratch but they were nasty. Maybe I’m too used to the taste of chemicals .
Carrie
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:21 pm

I have friends who are very into ‘couponing’, and brag about how they feed their families on so little a week. The amount that they feed a family of 4 or 5 on is what I spend in a week on fresh produce and milk ALONE! I love using fresh ingredients in my cooking. If I find something good on sale (this week- zucchini) then I go to allrecipes dot com and do an ingredient search for it and see how I can use it so I keep my food fresh, but my cost down (since I bought it on sale).

We aren’t super health conscience but I do try occassionally! And my kids snack of fruit and veggies more than crackers. Carrots are MUCH cheaper an ounce than any cracker you could buy. They just take a little more prep work. (peeling, cutting)

I will say that the whole organic thing is lost on me. We eat produce, buy it from farmers markets as much as is economically feasible, but I just can’t stomach the difference in price at the grocery store! It’s crazy. My bro in law study food science and he said most food scientists think the jury is still out on organic food, so consumer beware, or informed or something, I guess.
courtney
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:38 pm

I wish I could afford to buy organic food! Like most everyone has said, it is so much cheaper to buy the processed, chemical-filled stuff, and when I am living on a student budget, buying natural foods is a luxury. I hate it though, because I feel so much healthier when I can eat food that doesn’t contain ingredients I can’t pronounce. On special occasions, I will shop at the Wild Oats in Salt Lake, but other than that, it’s the plain old grocery store in Provo. The produce in Utah is just not very good. I can’t wait to move to a place where they value quality produce.
ClistyB
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:48 pm

WHAT?!?! You mean you didn’t get all excited about the Sour Punch licorice straws next to the Slurpee machine? I’m tellin’ ya, tasty with a capital ‘T’!! Dead serious.
Question on organic food….if it has an outer layer that you do not eat, such as bananas, why would you care (or pay more for that matter)if the peel has or hasn’t been sprayed with pesticide? YOU’RE EATING THE INSIDE!
jendoop
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:59 pm

This is very much a regional issue, as you mention. We lived in Colorado for two years and I quickly became accustomed to the farmers market and friends helping me figure out baking wheat bread and what would grow in the garden, etc. Then we moved to the Northeast. People here eat crap. Philly cheesesteaks, hot dogs, pizza, funnel cake. Try finding a smoothie made from real fruit, I dare you. And the local farmers market? On Sunday. My garden is doing well, thank heavens, anyone in my area need zucchini?
s'mee
July 28th, 2008 @ 5:30 pm

Ann Cooper- http://www.chefann.com/blog/
-and others are trying to get us on board with eating locally or at least back into the kitchen. In her video presentation to a particular group of foodies- Ann Cooper Video Presentation at Knot in the String
-she mentions the fact that 60+% of the world’s seeds are owned and packaged by Monsanto and Dupont, both are *chemical* companies. The rice shortage in India this past year is in part due to Monsanto’s “Round-up Ready” seed, which is sterile. Eating better means getting back into our kitchens, growing our own food if at all possible and trying to shop as locally as possible. For those in the NorthEast of the country this seems to be a problem, however there are small changes everyone can make.

GMO seeds (genetically modified organism) have given us really pretty food, but exchanged good looks and hearty crops for taste. The solution is for us to try to get back to those heritage/heirloom seeds and get that great taste and nutrition back into our meals. Organic (raised without chemicals, however some can still be GMO) is great, but non GMO is better.
mormonhermitmom
July 28th, 2008 @ 8:30 pm

Russian blackberry bushes are considered an “invasive species”. It grows by the train tracks near where we live. Last summer, our kids loved to pick those berries and they made our dull oatmeal much better. Our favorite patches from last year were bulldozed down during the winter so we’ll have to walk further and risk trespassing to get more this year.
As to the cost of healthy food, it’s because the government subsidizes sugar, corn syrup, wheat. Fruit is not subsidized so you pay the real cost of the fruit. If we could just get the government to flip the opposite way, healthy food would be cheap, and those sugary cereals would disappear. Who would want to pay a lot to give themselves cavities?
Chelsea
July 28th, 2008 @ 9:41 pm

This is how I lost my mission weight so quickly – it only took me a couple of months to drop 20 lbs because after living in France, American food tasted awful to me. Like you said, I could taste the chemicals. The only solution I’ve found is to eat more like Europeans – buy fresh produce frequently and eat *real* foods.
Cheri
July 28th, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

If you live in Utah Valley, check out Utah Valley Produce:
http://utahvalleyproduce.com/zen/

From the website: “Utah Valley Produce is a consumer-based form of Community Supported Agriculture. We work on your behalf to arrange wholesale buying of their crops. They get to sell without any marketing costs and you get to buy at wholesale prices. Everyone wins. We all get healthy local food, spare the environment, and encourage our wonderful farmers to keep their land and keep it green.”

It’s run by a family about 1/2 mile from my house–lucky me . This may be the best way to get local produce around here. The big roadside stands apparently pay the farmers a pittance.

Utah Valley Produce didn’t have a name or a website until just a few weeks ago. In past years, the lady just sent out emails letting people know what produce was available. Totally word-of-mouth.
HCJ
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:03 pm

I live in Russia. Shopping can be a nightmare. But what living abroad has forced me to do is to cook everything from scratch. I try to visit the fruit and vegetable markets by the metro stops–it is hit and miss–and finding safe, good tasting meat is also difficult.

Imagine my shock when I discovered that my dreams of tasty American-instafood didn’t reflect reality when I touched down in the US for home leave this summer. A lot of what I make at home in Russia tastes better than food here. I think I miss the easiness of food preparation more than the food itself. I do miss PF Chang’s/Pei Wei lettuce wraps though

Being from Portland, Oregon, I learned that eating in America improves when we eat seasonally and eat locally. We eat what our local farmers grew and made from cheese to berries. We eat salmon in salmon fishing season. We eat squash in the fall and so forth. I also think going out of the box and trying different kinds of ethnic cuisines improves the variety that I can offer my family. There are a lot more whole grain, legume and vegetarian meals in my Indian cookbook, for example, and provide me with options on how to prepare veges I normally wouldn’t buy.

I also think a key to eating better in America is being more careful about seasoning food. In America, the default flavors are fat and salt (these are also Russian defaults). I love my buttered popcorn as much as the next person, but I discovered that when I expanded the types of seasonings I used, my meals were more tasty. Penzey’s Spice blends are fabulous.
FoxyJ
July 28th, 2008 @ 10:32 pm

I mostly cook from scratch, but I rarely buy organic food–I mostly did the veggies because I liked the price and the home delivery option. I like the idea of food with fewer pesticides, but I’m also cheap. So I wash my veggies thoroughly. Like HCJ, we try to eat seasonally, especially produce. I base my meals around whatever produce is on sale at the store each week. We’ve also mostly cut out meat and have been trying a lot of new vegetarian recipes as well.
Tiffany
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:50 am

Well, my kids completely hate the taste of mac and cheese after living in Sweden for five years. I remember mac and cheese with fond nostalgia. They were my secret hoarded treat only to be used in a dire moment of homesickness.

I can’t eat cheese in the states because it has no flavor and tastes mostly like wax. And fruit snacks are just appalling. I buy them every once in a blue moon as a sugar snack for the kids. But I can’t believe how many moms buy them for kids when they are just loaded with sugar, chemicals and bad stuff.

That said, I live in New York now and I’ve been working on what we eat. I learned how to cook so many things from scratch so I continue that tradition. We have farmers’ markets all over that are open several days a week.

Oh, one last comment, have any of you read the book by Barbara Kingsolver called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle?
I read it two weeks ago and learned a lot from it. Barbara Kingsolver and her family moved from Arizona to a farm in the east. They had a goal to eat only locally-produced food and to grow an extensive garden. It was an amazing book. She said they saved quite a bit of money living this way. They ate the produce that was in season, letting it guide their menu. Their goal wasn’t to save money, but rather to eat in a sustainable way that was healthier and better to the environment.

I find much of popular American culture over-processed, filled with chemicals and unhealthy. But there are also many things to admire, so I take what I like and discard what I don’t.

Great topic!
Tiffany
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:53 am

Oh one other thing, Barbara Kingsolver makes a very powerful case for the fact that the price of gasoline is calculated into the price of food. And with gas prices soaring, food prices are too. Buying from local farmers should become more and more feasible. Also, wouldn’t you rather support the local farmer working to create a great farm as opposed to all the executives profiting from your food dollars?
Tiffany
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:54 am

And and one more thing, just a personal question, Maralise–have you moved back from Austria, or are you just on a vacation to see friends and family?
TJ Hirst
July 29th, 2008 @ 9:19 am

I, too, have gotten over the memory of riding my back through the back streets to splurge my allowance on cherry Slurpees and bottle cap candy. Now, my best secret for good food is grow some of it myself and buy raw ingredients to make most of it myself.
CatherineWO
July 29th, 2008 @ 4:35 pm

One of the pleasures of growing older has been that many things I used to spend money on (like new clothes & furniture) no longer mean much to me. Instead, I spend my money on good food. The irony is that I don’t spend nearly as much on food as many couples our age. I do buy organic locally grown produce, and we do grow some of our own. I also buy organic meat from a local rancher, and we have two freezers for storing it. My husband makes his own homemade bread (with the help of a breadmaker), and we eat things like yogurt, popcorn and fresh fruit for snacks. I buy very few prepared foods, such as chips, crackers, rice & pasta mixes, etc.

Learning to use other seasonings really is the key to good food though. There are so many wonderful fresh herbs. If you don’t want to grow your own, you can buy then really cheaply at any Mexican food market or order them online.

I too believe that much of the way we eat is regional. We raised our family in the Seattle area, and we really were spoiled with plentiful fresh local vegetables and seafood. I REALLY miss the seafood.
ddrplant
July 29th, 2008 @ 4:40 pm

I dunno, I lived in England as a teen and didn’t find the food to be much more natural or fresh than here, but I wasn’t the one doing the shopping and cooking back then and England could be different than the rest of Europe in that way too.

I don’t buy organic. I can’t justify the cost and like others have mentioned the jury is still out. I can’t afford to shop at the natural food stores either. So, I’ll just keep buying the fruits and veggies that are cheaper or on sale (does that translate to in season?) and washing them.
Wendy
July 29th, 2008 @ 6:05 pm

I’m having processed food shame.

We do a fair amount from scratch, but the budget’s too tight for as chem-free as I’d like to go, and in this frantic time and season, a cake mix is usually what the relatives get for their birthday cakes.

Cheri’s http://www.utahvalleyproduce.com is awesome. I’ve canned some good stuff from them.
Maddison
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:51 pm

Totally agree! I grew up in America and thus had primarily an American diet. Luckily for me, my mother was quite the culinary expert so she often made food from scratch and I thus developed a love for “real” foods. But, I did have my McDonald’s and Twinkies and soda as well. Then I married an Englishman. First of all, he’s never even TASTED soda in his life! Hard to imagine, huh? So because of his upbringing on “real” foods, we wouldn’t dream of buying white bread, Kraft anything, soda (of course), or any other now-traditional American foods. We live on modest means so we don’t really go out much; we make most all of our breads and grow a majority of our veggies (this is mostly due to cost but also because they taste better!)
So, I know what you’re saying. Once you eat European, you can’t eat American the same ever again!
Krista
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

I really miss Germany and all the cheap, beautiful bio-dynamic produce that was sold at our local Tegut (a grocery store). Oh, and all that wonderful cheese and bread!!! Demeter, Alnatura, and Herzenberger. Even Aldi mart had good (inexpensive!) Emmentaler and Gouda cheese. Sigh. I have been going through sticker shock since I returned to the states.

Yet I have been surviving since moving back to the states. We are basically chemical free. I refuse to buy organic produce that looks like it has sat on the shelves for three years though. More important to me than organic produce is using the right fats and oils and avoiding refined, high glycemic, and processed sugars in all their forms. I also do not eat gluten which eliminates a lot of starches from my diet.

In Germany I began to love millet an quinoa and I eat them often.

My favorite places for healthy food in Utah County:

Good Earth in Orem
Real Foods of Orem (you can buy raw milk there)
Ginger’s Garden Cafe (Dr. Christopher store) in Springville
Provo Farmer’s Market (pricey but one of the only places around here that I have been able to find Volker’s bread).

Thanks for the link to Utah Valley produce Wendy. I will definitely check it out. We are still pretty new to Utah county so I still do not know all the right places to eat or find good quality food.

IMO it is easy to find healthy food in the states-but it is also WAY too expensive!!! Still, I look at the extra investment in food as a form of preventative medicine for my family.
Krista
July 29th, 2008 @ 8:56 pm

Oh Maddison!! My husband, despite being German through and through, absolutely loves the junk food here. His favorite treats are Kozy Shack rice pudding and McDonalds hamburgers.
Justine
July 29th, 2008 @ 10:00 pm

Krista, YOU JUST MADE MY DAY! Volkers bread every Saturday!?!? I had no idea they were down here, and I thought I had to consign myself to getting their bread once a year at the Utah Chocolate Show.

I will so see you there Saturday.
Johnna
July 30th, 2008 @ 12:01 pm

This post is making me so happy. I’m just happy to be hanging out with my fellow foodies here. And glad I’m living in Northern California, where getting quality fresh ingredients for the family meals is cheaper and easier. In Utah it is more expensive and difficult that I found it to be in Indiana, Ohio, or Michigan.

I would like to point out, in Melissa’s defense, that carrots are not a substitute for crackers when it comes to children snacking. When kids are hungry, like mine are when they come home from school, they need some kind of grain product along with the fruit or vegetable. Frex, we’d do apples with crackers, or apples with cheese. Otherwise, there aren’t enough calories in the snack.

Then there’s the whole crackers vs. chips debate. Lay’s potato chips contain potato, sunflower oil, and salt. But they’re so greasy/overfull of calories that I would rather give my children transfat crackers in the daily lunch.
Krista
July 30th, 2008 @ 9:41 pm

See on Saturdays Justine! LOL I’ll be the pregnant one in sunglasses.
Sage
August 8th, 2008 @ 7:09 am

Tiffany,

I also live in NY. Brewster, in Putnam County. I got my book group to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle because I thought it addressed the lack of a real food culture in America so well. It inspired me to plant a garden (I’ve done it before, but am still amateur). So I have lots of zucchini and broccoli and beans. Didn’t eat the Swiss chard, though.

Anyway, this is a great topic. I have had health problems since my 15 year old was in utero, so I have had to seek out ways to improve. I participated in a CSA farm here in NY. I loved it. We also have a farmer’s market (if only they wouldn’t smoke over the organic produce!).

It is great to hear that so many are also trying to feed their families real food.
fruit machine fan
March 23rd, 2009 @ 3:10 am

hey cheers for that… very informative – i’ve added your blog to my netvibes account – thanks