A secular debate about eating meat.

[maiforpeace]

A lot of food sold as healthy and unprocessed is anything but. A good example is the "nitrate free" cured meats. Thing is, they aren't nitrate free. It's a fucking lie. If you cure meat without nitrates it's brown or gray and is highly susceptible to Clostridium botulinum growth during the curing process. You don't want that stuff in your meat.

What they do is add celery juice, which contains large amounts of sodium nitrate, EXACTLY the same chemical I add to my bacon and sausages. All cured meats, even the extra-expensive "nitrate free" ones, contain exactly the same amounts of sodium nitrate. Oh, and you'd best get one with added ascorbic acid, because that's what prevents the nitrates from turning in nitrosamine when heated. Nitrosamine is the stuff that is carcinogenic, not the nitrates. Anyone who is eating truly nitrate free cured meat is a) making it at home b) eating gray bacon and c) fucking stupid.

Another is the "uncured" bacon you see, again in the extra expensive, healthy section. There is NO SUCH THING as uncured bacon. Bacon, by definition, is a cured meat product. Besides, curing meat isn't unhealthy.

Here's my favorite - some asshat company is selling "gluten free" bacon. WTF? Gluten comes from wheat. Even if you fed your hogs a diet consisting only of wheat the meat doesn't have any goddamned gluten in it. I know of no method of meat curing that uses wheat flour, so it's another scam to take advantage of stupid consumers.

Rant over. I'm irritated because I had a potential client take exception to the fact that I added curing salt to my bacon, he wanted it "nitrate free". Fuck him.

Yes, unfortunately unless you've actually done any curing yourself, most people don't know this. The only bacon that might be healthier is bacon from organic pork, which is pretty hard to find.

Michael Pollan offers some great rules about food in his book "Food Rules". Here's one of them that applies to what you post:

Avoid food products that make health claims – This sounds counterintuitive, but consider: For a product to carry a health claim on the package, it must first have a package, so right off the bat it’s more likely to be a processed rather than a whole food. Then, only the big food manufacturers have the wherewithal to secure FDA-approved health claims for their products and then trumpet them to the world. Generally, it is the products of modern food science that makes the boldest health claims, and these are often founded on incomplete and bad science. Don’t forget that margarine, one of the first industrial foods to claim it was more healthful than the traditional food it replaced, butter, turned out to contain transfats that give people heart attacks. The healthiest food in the supermarket – fresh produce – doesn’t boast about its healthfulness, because the growers don’t have the budget or the packaging. Don’t take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health.

[Яasputin]

I dunno but those girls on the ground sure look tasty.

[hadespussercats]

I avoid them for personal reasons and warn that the benefits in time or money can be at the expense of health and culinary experience.

The distinction for me is between processed vs overprocessed food...simple processing to keep food safe, versus over-processing to manipulate taste, appearance, nutritional value and convenience.

So one might get an artisan bread made with whole grain flour, a natural levain, some honey and some salt, or you can buy a loaf of Orowheat Healthy Multigrain Bread made with: UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR [WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID], WATER, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, HONEY, WHEAT GLUTEN, SUGAR, YELLOW CORN GRITS, OATS, BUTTERMILK (MILK), WHEAT BRAN, BROWN RICE, YEAST, SOYBEAN OIL, BROWN SUGAR, SALT, SESAME SEEDS, PEA FIBER, CALCUM CARBONATE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM SULFATE, GRAIN VINEGAR, POPPY SEEDS, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, SOY LECITHIN, AZODICARBONAMIDE.

The supposed healthy Multigrain Bread's main ingredient is unbleached enriched flour...how is that healthy? What about all those other things, like three types of sugar, oil, all those unpronouncables...yuk!

This is purely anecdotal, but I am convinced that when I quit Weight Watchers and eliminated all those over-processed diet foods from my weight loss diet last year this is when I began to slowly and steadily lose weight. I know some of this had to do with the reduction in carbohydrate calories, which is what they use to make up for the fat in most of those diet foods.

Yeah, like those stupid Snackwell cookies, which are worse for you than regular cookies.

I think it's easier to feel full on non-diet foods, anyway. Eat the real stuff-- just eat less of it.

And re- fat free foods: don't they usually make up for the fat by adding sugar?

[hadespussercats]

"the silence of the yams "

Have the yams stopped their screaming, Clarisse?

[Coito ergo sum]

I avoid them for personal reasons and warn that the benefits in time or money can be at the expense of health and culinary experience.

The distinction for me is between processed vs overprocessed food...simple processing to keep food safe, versus over-processing to manipulate taste, appearance, nutritional value and convenience.

So one might get an artisan bread made with whole grain flour, a natural levain, some honey and some salt, or you can buy a loaf of Orowheat Healthy Multigrain Bread made with: UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR [WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMIN MONONITRATE (VITAMIN B1), RIBOFLAVIN (VITAMIN B2), FOLIC ACID], WATER, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, HONEY, WHEAT GLUTEN, SUGAR, YELLOW CORN GRITS, OATS, BUTTERMILK (MILK), WHEAT BRAN, BROWN RICE, YEAST, SOYBEAN OIL, BROWN SUGAR, SALT, SESAME SEEDS, PEA FIBER, CALCUM CARBONATE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES, CALCIUM SULFATE, GRAIN VINEGAR, POPPY SEEDS, ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, SOY LECITHIN, AZODICARBONAMIDE.

The supposed healthy Multigrain Bread's main ingredient is unbleached enriched flour...how is that healthy? What about all those other things, like three types of sugar, oil, all those unpronouncables...yuk!

This is purely anecdotal, but I am convinced that when I quit Weight Watchers and eliminated all those over-processed diet foods from my weight loss diet last year this is when I began to slowly and steadily lose weight. I know some of this had to do with the reduction in carbohydrate calories, which is what they use to make up for the fat in most of those diet foods.

Yeah, like those stupid Snackwell cookies, which are worse for you than regular cookies.

I think it's easier to feel full on non-diet foods, anyway. Eat the real stuff-- just eat less of it.

And re- fat free foods: don't they usually make up for the fat by adding sugar?

Just look at the total calories consumed. 3,000 calories of fat and 3,000 calories of carbs are still 3,000 calories.

The reason people look for low fat foods is simple - fat has far more calories per gram than nonfatty vegetables. One tablespoon of olive oil has about 120 calories. One ounce of lettuce or tomato has about 5 calories. The reality is, it's much easier to eat a boat load of calories when you're eating fatty foods. That's why they say the dressings ruin salads, as far as diet food goes. If you slather on oil based dressings, you basically add huge swaths of calories.

Sugar, to has a lot of calories - 1 ounce of sugar has 110 calories. That's why 1/2 a cup of ice cream (which is what a "serving" of ice cream is....lol...what a laugh...I thought a pint was a serving!) has like 230 calories. A pint has something like 1000 calories! So, if one has a habit of adding a dessert to their diet, you can see how it would quickly add up.

Rough rule of thumb - 3500 calories equals about a pound of fat. I.e. - if you take in 3500 calories in a week more than you expend, expel or discharge, then you'll gain about a pound. This works mathematically, once you narrow down your basal metabolic rate.

[maiforpeace]

And re- fat free foods: don't they usually make up for the fat by adding sugar?

They do...sugar is a humectant, so it makes baked goods that are fat free seem more moist.

[sandinista]

"the silence of the yams "

Have the yams stopped their screaming, Clarisse?

but but but vegetables have the same feelings as non human animals