Making Love in the Kitchen

“Friendly Correspondence” is a new, semi-regular feature on Making Love In The Kitchen. As you may know, we’re not afraid to ask questions of BIG food, pharma, and fundraising to get more basic details regarding ingredients, chemical levels, testing and where donations end up. Though I continually aim to have an open dialogue and invite interviews, they are becoming tougher for me to get. So I decided I would just start sharing the correspondence. If we can’t stand up for what we do, why are we doing it? I think it was over the summer of 2011 that Pop Chips made a splash in the “health” world, bathing themselves head to toe as healthy, when truth be told, if you looked at the ingredients they are a prime examples of healthwashing. Their marketing campaign was pretty freaking smart. So smart that they actually asked me to be a part of it, requesting my ambassadorship for the product. No dice, but there were MANY other nutritionist who sadly did take the bait. rocessed potato and pro-imflammatory, processed oils and salt. All those torula and yeast extracts are just other names for MSG- they have a super salty flavour so it allows food companies to claim a lower sodium value. And if I were to eat them, I would still loose my vision and my face would go numb for about an hour.
There is nothing wrong with popchips really. They’re a snack food. Junk food if you will. Just like baked lays, and cheddar popcorn. But they’re not healthy. Might I remind you that ‘healthier’ is not even close to being the same thing as ‘healthy’. A healthy snack is fruits and vegetables. Maybe some nuts. Perhaps a home-baked granola bar. When I think of a healthy snack- I think of something that actually offers health. Not something just isn’t as bad for me as something else. You know what I’m saying?

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One of the many reasons I love what I do is it gives me an excuse to be a geeky fan and get my photo taken with rock stars, nutrition authors, super food heroes and most recently, two living legends: Michael Schmidt (far right), who was recently acquitted of all charges relating to selling and distributing raw milk and raw milk produect. The dapper gentleman on the left is Percy Schmeiser, who was sued by Monsanto when his canola crops were contaminated with Monsanto’s GMO seeds. There next to me is, author, journalist and my bestest Vanessa Farquharson. And yes, I’ll admit that I got a little star struck with these legends. I met them last weekend at the Your Food, Your Choice: Grounds For Change conference put on by the Canadian Organic Growers where the theme of the day was simply to say no to GMO.

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