Has healthy eating become a luxury?

[sparkindarkness]

As people know from my previous rambles, including my rant against the pernicious evil that is Wheatabix and my righteous fury against Special K I have some issues with healthy food

Comments

[pujaemuss]

'Probiotic' is a word that makes me hugely unhappy. Healthy bacteria that may help improve your digestion. Which is lovely, if it wasn't for the fact that nearly 100% of them are digested by your stomach acid and thus achieve nothing in your intestines because they're dead.

One of the reasons I love my sister dearly is the memory of her shouting at the television that, "Bifidus digestivum is not a real bacteria name! There's no family of digestivum!"

And I hear what you're saying in general as well. I am too poor, both in money and time, to regularly go to the farmer's markets and there are many times when shopping, money being tight as it is, when I have to choose cheap food over good food. Shigata ga nai.

PJW

[kathminchin]

I was once (once) advised to eat either probiotic or live yoghurt by my doctor

[sparkindarkness]

Exactly - huge gallumping amounts are needed. These pro-biotic yoghurt drinks that you eat "once a day" are 100g or so. Yeaaaaaahhh....

[kathminchin]

Yup. I was eating two at each meal. plus three as snacks.

Fortunately I only had to do it for two weeks.

I couldn't agree more...

[anonymous]

We were just talking about this very things the other day. I watched Super Size Me and was hearing how in a McDonalds milkshake there is literally hundreds of chemicals, but not ONE natural ingredient. Just amazing. The same people who produce paint and oil produced your food substances!

But who can afford to eat organic...

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Re: I couldn't agree more...

[sparkindarkness]

I sometimes wonder if food which has so many chemicals should ever be called food?

I'm not happy with the organic label either - it is often grossly appropriated, unregulated and covers up a lot of sins.

[elrohana]

Its surprising what you can do if you want to. For nearly 2 years I fed myself, DH and a bottomless pit of a housemate (who didn't contribute any money to the household) on our two salaries (neither of which was as good as it is now), as well as the 3 cats and a dog, and we ate very healthily - ironically, better than the 2 of us do now as I have gotten lazy now we have money. We didn't eat meat often but we did eat a lot of tinned tuna and mackerel and very healthy veggie stuff (lots of beans and pulses). I'm a good cook, and I got better years ago when I cooked for 3 years for myself, the then OH, and 3 lodgers on a budget of about £50 quid a week (that included tea, coffee, milk, cereal etc, and an evening meal 7 days a week). I shopped a lot at Netto and at Leeds market. I held down a full time job and kept the house clean and tidy pretty much singlehanded too. Ok no kids involved, but during the cooking for lodgers phase at times I was doing 2 jobs, one full-time plus a part-time pub job 3 evenings a week plus weekends. It

[sparkindarkness]

Oh I'd never weant to say it's IMPOSSIBLE :)

But it's hard. Really damn hard. As you say it's immensely hard work - and it often isn't as appetising, especially if you don't have the skills

[suryaofvulcan]

I happen to have some expertise in this area ...

It may comfort you to know that the 'light' and especially the 'healthy' claims are going to take a beating in the next few months. There's a new EU regime coming in that means each specific claim will have tobe individually approved for EACH product the manufacturer plans to use it on. Essentially they're going to have to prove via clinical trials-type studies that what they're claiming is true. So far of the thousands of claims that have been submitted, do you know how many have been approved? SIX.

But yes, even if someone ignores all the ready meals and buys fresh produce (and they COULD do this in a one-stop shop at the supermarket), they still need the time and the knowledge to make appetising meals. It's tempting just to take the shortcut.

[sparkindarkness]

I dearly hope so - it's grossly deceptive advertising, it really is. The lies and almost lies being peddled to people who are TRYING, disgusts me

Time, energy and expetise even if you have the time to shop and the money to buy (and you can read past the labels! I've seen FLOUR containing so many chemicals I've been horrified) - it's so much harder

[stormcat]

It's not the extra sugars and salts that get me -- it's the other additives. Sucralose? That's shooting agony for a few days. Too many preservatives? I'm crippled for a week. I'm sure as hell not letting that stuff into my child.

So I cook, and keep a bowl of fruit as ready snacks for Ro, and do my best. I'm lucky enough to have supermarkets nearby that are competing for the yuppie dollar and therefore not only have fresh ingredients (usually locally sourced -- they discovered it's cheaper and therefore a higher profit margin if they don't have to ship food across the country) but even alleged organic stuff. If I need those, I get the plain varieties, no added sugar/salt/etc, and season to taste at home.

I'm lucky to be able to, and I know it.

[sparkindarkness]

Chemicals are a major issue with me. I don't want anything in my food that shouldn't be there. Do we REALLY need fructose corn syrup and MS bloody G in every damn thing we eat? And the cochineal beetle is in nearly everything!

It's grossly unnecessary. You look at the labels of some products and it's like reading a chemical factory's inventory

It's lovely to have it nearby and great to be able to find it - I made a point of looking. But it's depressing that these basic require time, energy and LUCK