(If you haven’t yet, check out the Greens+ Giveaway going on this week)
Gotta love a ‘food’ product with an ingredient label that includes such delicacies as Powdered Fat, Milk Derivatives, Silicon and Whole Egg Powder. Can I have seconds of that please?
For those of you playing along with me for the week that includes 3 Days of Green Smoothies and 5 Days Low Glycemic Eating or 5 Days Vegan (or both!) what you may find kind of coolio about these programs and the other recipes I share with you is that my ingredient lists on recipes don’t have ingredient lists of their own. Have I lost you?
Thousand Island Salad Dressing. Let’s start there. This was my all time fave salad dressing as a kid. Horror of horrors were encountered when I learned that this beloved pink and creamy dressing was made from ketchup, mayonnaise and relish. Grossitating! The point of this example is that every ingredient listed in this recipe has a lengthy ingredient list of its own. The tricky bit is that, by law, packaged foods must have ingredient labels but there is no requirement to list the ingredients of ingredients.
What I would like to know, for example, is what is the ingredient list of powdered fat, referring to the above label. Or those dip recipes that list fish sauce as an ingredient. What is fish sauce? Is it possible that foods that list ‘flour’ may have a little farm waste like bone meal mixed in?
Now I am not telling you to go and throw out all your packaged foods with mysterious ingredients that you will surely now start looking out for. All I am saying is that when you are looking at recipes and looking at foods, keep it simple. Let the ingredient list not require footnotes an appendix or a dictionary.
Curious about what that product was? Alright kiddies! It’s an ‘American Style’ pancake breakfast! (Found this in an Irish supermarket). If you are looking for the real deal pancake, how about these Banana Pancakes? If you want powdered fat, you’ll have to add it yourself.
The next group program kicks off on January 3rd, 2010. We will be starting with a 3-day Green Smoothie Cleanse followed by a program of your choosing, either 5 Days Low Glycemic Eating or 5 Days Vegan- whatever works best for you, works best for me. From now until January 5th, purchase any two e-guides to health or other available products (including The Healthy Cookie: Unbaked), apply the discount code ‘freshstart2010‘ at the checkout and save 20% on your purchase. Let’s get healthy together ’cause yaaaaay this is fun!
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Not only are the ingredients creepy- but it is just as quick to make pancakes from scratch!! Plus I’m sure they taste a whole lot better. I’ve never really understood the reasons for additives like these.. they certainly aren’t going to impart some amazing flavor or anything!
This is why the process of going gluten and dairy free led me to a plant-based, vegan diet. It was frightening reading all those labels… plus i realized the only real allergen free diet consisted of eating whole, unprocessed foods.
Amen to that!
i believe there are hints on the label, in parenthesis, as to what powdered fat consists of: vegetable oil, glucose syrup, milk derivatives, stabiliser: pentasodium triphosphate, anti caking agent: silicone dioxide)… but i’m sure that’s not the whole story.
Since when do carrots and celery produce oil- Often when an ingredient label lists ‘vegetable oil’ it is actually cotton-seed oil. A very cheap byproduct of the cotton industry. Since cotton is not grown as a food crop, growers don’t need to abide by food regulations for pesticide use- meaning that 1/4 of all pesticides used on american farms go to cotton crops. Just saying…
cool, learn something new every day.
Love how it says American style..lol! WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?
quick and convenient… and probably makes a massive quantity (including Canada in there too!)
Love this post, I always try not to buy things with mystery ingredients, blah.
On a side note I have been starting off each day w/ lemon cayenne water. Very interesting at first but I think the taste is growing on me. I have the distinct advantage of already loving lemons (i.e. I will eat a whole lemon) and cayenne Is this safe for my teeth to do everyday though?
Also I just couldn’t get on the three day smoothie train this time but I am trying to do at least two smoothies a day to kind of join in. I have done some reading that says you should lightly steam spinach to increase absorption of the nutrients. Angela over at ohsheglows is a big proponent of doing this before adding the spinach to her green smoothies. Any thoughts?
If you are willing to do it, that is great, blending foods as fine as a blender does is perfectly sufficient. As for the lemon water- good idea to rins your mouth with clean water after, or do it before you brush your teeth in the morning.
thanks
I love your blog!
I’ve nominated you for the Happy 101 Blog Award
http://marisashealthykitchen.com/2010/01/04/happy-101-blog-award/
Happy New Year!
Marisa
Awe! Thanks for the love!
powdered fat… really?? that’s so gross!!
I am part way through your story – it is sooo good. I can’t wait to read more!!
Take care,
Jessica
That is so disgusting- powerdered fat yeeewww. Here’s to reading labels!
What is so startling about product labels is how I watch people go just to the calorie count and make their decisions based on that. You went that far, why not skim the ingredients too!?
secret “ingredients” freak me out and it’s been a while since I played with food that I don’t know what’s in it.
we make pancakes from scratch now instead of pancake mix and even now I am playing with the flours. lately it’s been ground oats.
Got my jugs of greens for my day at the office and feeling GROOVY as always! Yesterday was a bit tough for the first day but I am back in action !
I am doing the 5 day low GI eating and THAN 5 days vegan. GOTTA LOVE CHALLENGES WITH MEGHAN!
xo
Happy New Year Chica!
Powdered fat? Mmm, sounds appetizing… NOT!!! What the heck?
My rule of thumb is “if I can’t pronounce it, it’s not for me”… I love when the labels say “Food like substance”… “Food-like”?… Like, what does that mean?
My favourite is on candy when it lists “food-grade petroleum”. No such thing.
Mmm, whooee, powdered fat! How gross is that?! (Not that the other items you listed are any better!). I’m playing along w/ the smoothies though not 100%, but it still makes a good difference. And adding raw amap (as much as possible) to the menus, too. Oh, and your pancakes sound awesome (thankfully “bananas” and “applesauce” only have one ingredient each)!
ew! Thanks for the post — this was interesting!
Ha! I see that all the time in shops here (Ireland) and it makes me laugh – I always wonder why on earth people would buy that rather than whip up their own version!?
Interestingly, there’s a supermarket chain called Marks & Spencers in Ireland and the United Kingdom which includes ALL of the ingredients on its packaging. For example, if there is a sauce on some fish/meat/potatoes, it includes all the ingredients in that sauce; or if it has stuffing it includes the ingredients in that. It’s really really handy when you’re trying to avoid dairy/gluten etc as it clearly marks what’s in it. Plus they don’t use any nasty ingredients like on that product above. So if I’m ever stuck and need to buy soup/salad etc there for lunch, it’s easy to pick something that suits me.