Many of you may remember this post all about corn, and this post will echo it a bit. First let me restate, I really hate corn. Its weird to hate something that grows all around me but whatever. Since last summer I have been annoying Laura to the max in the grocery isles reading ingredient lists on nearly EVERYTHING. First I look at if it has corn in it, then I look up how much sodium hangs out in it. After that I compare it to everything else to see if that doesn't have corn, and then from there if I can I compare my options with each other to purchase the one with the smallest amount of sodium.
Here is a short list of things that were tricky/surprising to find without/with HFCS in it:
Non-Diet Pop, Ketchup, Grape Jelly(or Jam or Preserves), Yogurt, "Maple" Syrup, Cereal.
I recently read an article that said many food manufactures are concerned that by adding less sodium on boxes consumers will think, oh no! less flavor! This is weird because I think awesome, less salt, less opportunities for heart disease to strike!
So where does all of this comparing get me? Pretty much with a larger grocery bill. But after thinking about it, buying a brand that is a few cents or a dollar more I think its worth it in the long run. $10 extra dollars every couple of weeks to hopefully prevent thousands of medical dollars in the future? Yes please.
This is what separates America's educated vs. uneducated. The educated citizen will spend more now but be wealthier later in life where the uneducated will be wealthier now and plateau while their learned peers continue rising. Weird how that relates to food.
I'm also seeing the food I eat as a standard of living. If I am only eating what I need to in order to survive, that is all I ever will do, survive. But eating good food that isn't processed much is one way to thrive in life.
I have a real hangup with the location I am currently residing in. As I would love nothing more to raise the standards of the food I eat I realistically have only one place I can buy groceries. This store has got to cater to everyone who has money and everyone who does not. Danville, IL (where our store is) has a wide spread of it, and only two grocery stores in town which belong to the same chain. So there is so very little variety. The produce section is appalling, last week I went to buy some peppers and they only had 6 SIX!!!! shrively ancient looking green peppers available for purchase.
There are also no organic food stores to speak of within 15 miles. Which is a problem, I would love to move much of my grocery buying to an organic store that sold many locally produced and organic products, but there aren't any. I also do not want to drive a half hour or more to buy these because then I'm adding more to the premium this food costs. So I'm stuck, I'm cheap but still demand good food.
Another probable place to buy good local veggies is farmer's markets. The ones around here mostly sell crafts and wares and less farm produce. Imagine that, here in the world's bread basket we grow so much "food" its not even edible in its raw form. This is a sad point to make.
But really what got me inspired to write about food was the Juice I buy. I love me some never from concentrate juice. I've been a Tropicana OJ fiend since I found that I could get that in the 128Oz Jug. HOT DAMN! As I mentioned before selections can be vast but still very limited yet for some reason I have 3 not from concentrate OJs to choose from as well as the usual brands from concentrate, like minute maid. Even fake juices like SunnyD have a showing at our local grocer.
As for other juices though I am pretty much stuck. I only have Mott's Premium and when available Simply Apple. My biggest juice difficulty though is grape juice. Can ANYONE?! help? I can't find for the life of me a brand of grape juice not from concentrate. Really I don't have a problem with from concentrate juices but if my extra appley juice is any indicator I feel like grape juice is going to be out of this world. So let me know.
Anyway thanks for listening to me rant about my food. I encourage you to read labels and empower yourself with some knowledge of where your food comes from, it might shock you.
5 comments:
Fat Tony, I think you are going to have to approach your grocery shopping a lot more intelligently than you are if you want to eat the way you want to eat.
Since you live virtually in the middle of nothing (I did some hardcore googling to try to find a few things in your area to no avail) you've got to be creative. You don't want to drive more than 15 miles to do your regular grocery shopping, that is fine. But you can do a bulk trip and buy a ton of the products you want to be 'natural' so that you don't have to make that trip more than once every few months. Make a list, drive to Urbana (Lots of co-ops and organic shops there) and buy the shit out of the products that you can't find at your grocery store (Jam, Apple Juice, etc) Yes, it will be expensive, but you can either pay for it or keep complaining.
You could also look into programs where they deliver products to your house. I don't know if you live too far away or what, but that might be another option.
And in terms of fresh produce, maybe you should start saving some of the goods from your garden/what you can find in the farmer's market and preserving them in the summer so that you have delicious vegetables all year round. (I believe your sister could be of extreme help to you, as she had a fabulous post about tomato canning)
I was trying to find some sort of Crop Share in your area, but had no luck. That would help you out bundles and its the coolest idea. You essentially are buying part of the farmer's crop, and once a week you get a huge bag of fresh, organic produce from them throughout the summer. If you can find something like that in your area, you'll have hit produce gold.
My last suggestion in this long list is to try making some of the stuff from scratch. Have you ever tried making your one jelly? Or yogurt? It is possible, and if you did that you'd know exactly what was going into your food. It would be a bit more work, but at least its another option in your ongoing food wars.
I will spare you any more babbling, but I wish you good luck in your quest to become corn syrup free!
Actually, check out this site and see if any of these farms are near you. You might have some luck on the CSA front!
http://csafarming.com/
speaking of juice my friend, besides good old fashioned OJ, try looking to see how much of the juice advertised on the front is in the actual container... usually not much. They usually use a blend of the more sugary juices like apple and peach, then add a splash of whatever the juice is supposed to be....
The best solution though would be to just sell your house and move back to the Twin Cities
this post reminded me of the time i watched you eat a plate of doritos with melted cheese on it for dinner.
yep, it's official you do live in the middle of nowhere. i tried searching for different options for you and came up short. we, as you know do nature's garden delivered and they may have some options in your area. i know they are always looking for a host site if they don't directly deliver to your door. who knows, maybe you can encourage a few others to sign up and you could be the host house. anyway, here is their site for the ohio valley area : http://orv.naturesgardendelivered.com/ put your zip in and go from there. as for reading labels- it is quite shocking to compare something as simple as sour cream and see how drastically different each brand is. a few extra cents here and there is well worth. good luck on your search for organic foods....
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