We all know that we should try to eat less processed foods and more whole foods, but what is really in the processed foods that make them a less desirable choice? Well, unfortunately that is generally the problem with processed food; it has so many ingredients (most of them we cannot pronounce) that we have an extremely difficult time understanding what is really in there. This past Wednesday there was an article in the Flavor section of the Chronicle by Courtney Perkes highlighting a brother and sister who launched a website in September 2010 to help us better understand what is in processed food and how good or bad it is for us.
As a young boy, Jonas Dalidd learned to read food labels in the grocery store when his mother told him he could pick any cereal he wanted - as long as it didn't contain sugar.
But as a health-conscious adult, Dalidd struggled to decipher the ingredients commonly found in processed foods. So he came up with a website that would define and rate food ingredients in simple language.
"I would read ingredients that I couldn't understand and I could never find a good resource on the web," said Dalidd, who lives in Aliso Viejo, California. "Instead of just searching Google for each individual ingredient, I wanted one website. I wanted a permanent solution for my queries."
In September, Dalidd, 32, and engineer at a software company, launched BefoodSmart.com with his sister, Dina Clapinski.
The free site allows users to search for some of the most commonly used additives and preservatives for a quick look at potential health risks, countries that have banned the ingredients or require warning labels, and a list of references. The site explains how ingredients are most commonly used. For instance, polysorbate 80 is a thickener found in cake mix and salad dressing, and butylated hydroxyanisole is a preservative found in instant mashed potatoes and cereal.
While Dalidd handles the technical side, Clapinski, 34, does most of the research and writing.
She assigns a letter grade to each ingredient based on health effects. In the category of sweeteners, honey gets an A. Stevia, made from the leaves of a South American plant, earns a B, while sugar is a C. Splenda and high-fructose corn syrup both get Ds.
In general, the cheapest processed foods contain the worst ingredients.
There are certain foods that we can obviously recognize as processed, however there are some foods parading as fresh when they are really quite processed. Here is a blog post from that same site digging into a seemingly healthy breakfast option of McDonalds Fruit and Maple Oatmeal.
Image: theimpulsivebuy via flickr
McDonald’s is making headlines again, this time for their Fruit & Maple Oatmeal. In Mark Bittman’s New York Times Opinionator article, How to Make Oatmeal…Wrong, he lambastes McDonald’s for turning their oatmeal into “expensive junk food.”
So why is McDonald’s oatmeal so unhealthy? It starts with the fact that their new “bowl full of wholesome” contains 21 ingredients or as Bittman says,
“A more accurate description than “100% natural whole-grain oats,” “plump raisins,” “sweet cranberries” and “crisp fresh apples” would be “oats, sugar, sweetened dried fruit, cream and 11 weird ingredients you would never keep in your kitchen.”
So what is actually in the oatmeal? McDonald’s first ingredient list shows: Oatmeal, Diced Apples, Cranberry Raisin Blend, Light Cream. Wow, only 5 easy-to-understand and simple ingredients; sounds good, right? But then as you look down the page a bit you realize that each of those ingredients have sub-ingredients:
Oatmeal:
Whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, food starch-modified, salt, natural flavor (plant source), barley malt extract,caramel color (the oatmeal without brown sugar does not contain brown sugar, but adds maltodextrin).
Whole grain rolled oats, brown sugar, food starch-modified, salt, natural flavor (plant source), barley malt extract,caramel color (the oatmeal without brown sugar does not contain brown sugar, but adds maltodextrin).
Diced Apples:
Apples, calcium ascorbate (a blend of calcium and vitamin C to maintain freshness and color).
Apples, calcium ascorbate (a blend of calcium and vitamin C to maintain freshness and color).
Cranberry Raisin Blend:
Dried sweetened cranberries (sugar, cranberries), California raisins, golden raisins, sunflower oil, sulfur dioxide(preservative).
Dried sweetened cranberries (sugar, cranberries), California raisins, golden raisins, sunflower oil, sulfur dioxide(preservative).
Light Cream:
Milk, cream, sodium phosphate, datem, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium citrate, carrageenan.
Milk, cream, sodium phosphate, datem, sodium stearoyl lactylate, sodium citrate, carrageenan.
Out of curiosity, where is the maple in their “Fruit & Maple Oatmeal?” Apparently, that is a whole other topic as McDonald’s was sued by State Officials in Vermont for using the word maple without the product actually containing real maple syrup. While the oatmeal can be ordered with or without sugar, the amount of calories this breakfast dish contains in quite shocking. As Bittman so eloquently states:
The aspect one cannot argue is nutrition: Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin. (Even without the brown sugar it has more calories than a McDonald’s hamburger.)
This a classic example of a food company taking a healthy food, adding a bunch of chemicals, colorings, preservatives and sweeteners to make it “better” (read = cheaper and lasts forever on the shelf). Thanks but no thanks. I’ll stick to my boiled rolled oats with fresh apples, unsweetened raisins, cinnamon, cooked with good old water.
Sources:
If you are wanting to eliminate some or all of the processed foods that your family consumes, but struggle with how to do that without adding an additional 4+ hours to your day, contact me. I help families learn how to prepare fresh and delicious food quickly without having to fill their freezers and pantries full of processed junk.
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Here's to fresh, fast, and fantastic food!
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