I've traveled recently to US and the amount of shit food available was amazing. I've seen several small grocery shops without a single fresh veggie available. What a contrast with France (where I live) !
My neighbor came over for some of my famous no-packaging vegetable stew yesterday. She said she was overwhelmed with how delicious it tasted. I made two stews. Here are the ingredients:
Stew 1: Black beans, potatoes, cabbage, nutritional yeast, epizote, zucchini, water.
Stew 2: Split peas, chard, zucchini, nutritional yeast, water.
Both were topped with onion, nuts, cucumber, and nuts. Salt to taste.
The beans, peas, nuts, and salt were from bulk from my local coop (filling containers I brought). All other ingredients from my CSA or the local farmers market.
Maybe a quarter cup of scraps to compost. Zero to a landfill.
Dessert was nectarines that I couldn't help but say, "I can't believe anyone eats ice cream" they tasted so good. Appetizers were tomatoes from my CSA and greens from my windowsill garden.
Total cost: maybe $10 worth of food, enough to eat for 7 to 10 meals.
Now I eat like this all the time. Anyone in or around Manhattan interested in sampling, I'm easy to find. Email me and come over for some famous no-packaging vegetable stew. Especially mid to late summer when I have trouble keeping up with all the CSA vegetables.
Just throw in a load of veg and you can have pretty much a weeks worth of food to freeze ready in 10minutes incredibly cheaply.
If you also eat a lot of dried beans / lentils / chickpeas it is a godsend for how quickly it is ready and thoroughly cooked all the way through and dried beans at probably (here at least) 20% of the cost of tinned beans (even less if you buy in bulk).
My neighbor came over because she got a pressure cooker, heard of my reputation cooking with mine, and asked for a lesson. Here are reviews: http://joshuaspodek.com/food-world-reviews.
While my public speaking is mostly on business leadership and entrepreneurship, I increasingly speak on sustainability and sometimes include making my famous no-packaging vegetable stews.
On Earth Day this year I cooked for about 2 dozen at Lululemon's flagship store on 5th Avenue and spoke on sustainability. Last year I cooked for 50 or 60 at Brooklyn North Farms for Faherty clothing, another time at Assemblage coworking space, and I forget where else.
Here's a video of me cooking: http://joshuaspodek.com/20-minute-vegetable-stew from about 3 years ago.
Minor nit: the best nectarines are still worse than the best ice cream. ;-)
The nuts are the only fat I put in, which adds incredible texture and flavor, so I add them liberally. If I'm in a place where avocados grow, I'll use them, and they taste amazing.
I haven't eaten ice cream in years. I grew up eating tons of it and couldn't stop myself from always having some in my fridge through graduate school, maybe into my 40s, but I've lost the taste for foods where the main pleasure comes from added salt, sugar, or fat. There is a Van Leeuwen across the street from me, often with a line down the block, but it doesn't register as food for me. Meanwhile, I walk miles to pick mulberries, juneberries, raspberries, and blueberries, knowing where some grow wild, even after I've eaten pounds already. OMG, the burst of the fruit juice and all its flavor is like a religious experience.
I started cooking my own meals for the last year and my energy level is way up. Another thing that had a good effect is reducing a lot sugar and carbo hydrates (bread). I have grown up in France too and we are used to eating way too much bread.
Still, I havent figured out how to keep eating as healthy as home when I travel for a long time.
I had thought of targeting vegetarian restaurants as a proxy for healthy food.
One "rule" is that we try to eliminate most things that requires freezing, canning or shelf-stable packaging. I've grown a much better understanding of what fruits and vegetables need to be used quickly vs those that can sit for a week or more and it's helped with meal planning and shopping. We shop more frequently, but stock up much less.
I've actually ended up enjoying the "multi-threaded" nature of cooking a nice meal. Learning how long each dish will take and planning my prep around that is actually an enjoyable challenge. Bonus if the outcome is tasty.
The goal wasn't necessarily to eat more healthily, just to eat more fresh. The side-effect is that you end-up eliminating tons of garbage from your diet anyways. Another interesting side-effect is that since we're starting with raw ingredients, we're finding that we're being much choosier about the quality we're selecting.
Ever since then we went with a pantry full of stuff and freezers packed with "heat-and-eat" premade food to a few cans, some dried seaweed and noodles and virtually empty freezers and a fridge that's packed full of vegetables.
Start with a handful of recipes. Then add a new one to the mix each week. If it is a keeper, add it to the list of recipes. After you have about a months worth of recipes, organize them into menus (and save the shopping lists). Then you can start rotating menus. You will eat the same recipe once per month and it will not get boring as fast and you've save the shopping lists so the planning/shopping is much faster as well. Finally, once you have that in place, swap in a new recipe every now and then. If you like it, keep it in the rotation for a month, then swap the old recipe back in for a month. It make the burden of finding new recipes lighter and keeps things fun and fresh. Obviously, adjust the scheduling above to suit you, this is just an example.
Why should we use whole grain? They have more nutrients, but if your nutrient needs are met from other ingredients, what are the benefits of whole grain?
Can't get off bread? At the very least, get a bread machine and make your own.
I'm not sure this is the case if you look. I live in the upper Midwest and we have many options to buy fresh (daily baked) at many locations around my metro. I just looked at their nutrition guide [0] for their breads and most of the standard, non-dessert breads (except "white") don't have added sugar and only a handful of whole ingredients.
I look at most labels these days and don't buy bread used for sandwiches or toast with sugar. I can't remember the last time I had an issue finding something. As for price I guess that's subjective but I don't find those breads much more expensive in general.
Though, I agree that one should make their own, it's really enjoyable.
They’re probably not as problematic as foods high on sugars, salt, fats and diverse fillers.
Alpha-Linolenic-Acid, Asparagine, D-Categin, Isoqurctrin, Hyperoside, Ferulic-Acid, Farnesene, Neoxathin, Phosphatidyl-Choline, Reynoutrin, Sinapic-Acid, Caffeic-Acid, Chlorogenic-Acid, P-Hydroxy-Benzoic-Acid, P-Coumaric-Acid, Avicularin, Lutein, Quercitin, Rutin, Ursolic-Acid, Protocatechuic-Acid, Silver, Vitamin A, B1, B2, and B6, Niacin, Pantothenic acid, Folic acid, Vitamin C and Vitamin E, Calcium, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Pottassium, Selenium, Sodium, and Zinc. Lipids, saturated, unsaturated and monounsaturated fats, Tryptophan, Threonine, Isoleucine, Leucine, Lycine, Methionine, Cystine, Phenylalanine, Tyrosine, Valine, Argenine, Histidine, Alanine, Aspartic Acid, Glutamic Acid, Glycine, Proline, and Serine. Trace amounts of Boron and Cobalt. Soluble and insoluble fiber (cellulose, pectin and lignin). Sugars of fructose and sucrose. Malic, tartaric, and citric acids. Tannins, Amygdaline, Cyanide.
yes.
Eat real food. Mostly greens. Eat little. Eat often. The end
Examples: chicken grown in 6 weeks 23h/day in light with antibiotics & growth hormones, fruits & veggies with fertilisers, pesticides, insecticides and preservatives so it lasts longer. When only monetary incentives matter, this is what we get.
In general good raw ingredients can have better taste, iow the price per taste is lower or better priced than processed foods. And as the most Western people don’t need the quantity, you could argue that Good raw ingredients are cheaper.
Soft drinks
Packaged bread and buns
Chips
Candy
Store-bought ice cream
Boxed cake mix
Instant noodles
Infant formula
Breakfast cereal
Energy bars
Flavored yogurt
Chicken nuggets
Fast food burgers
Hot dogs
You're gonna tell me my muesli energy bar is "ultra-processed"? It's literally just a bunch of grain sticking together.
Besides, those qualifiers are really weird: linking the category of an item to the place it was purchased instead of its actual ingredients (Fast food burgers, store-bought ice cream, packaged bread and buns)?
This smells like bullshit, clickbait, and health-craze pseudoscience.
[1]: https://www.cookinglight.com/eating-smart/nutrition-101/what...
Sure, you can find exceptions to each of those groups, but most people are not eating whole-foods handmade-by-grandmothers 100% natural foods, are they.
Here are the ingredients for the first Tesco branded energy bar I clicked on (Tesco is the UKs largest food retailer).
" literally just a bunch of grain sticking together" is perhaps not typical.
INGREDIENTS: Milk Chocolate Coating with Sweetener (25%)[Sweetener (Maltitol Syrup) , Cocoa Butter, Dried Whole Milk, Cocoa Mass, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithins), Vanilla Extract], Milk Proteins, Hydrolysed Beef Protein, Caramel layer with fibre (11%)[Polydextrose, Condensed Milk, Cocoa Butter, Humectant (Sorbitol Syrup), Emulsifier (Mono- and Di-Glycerides of Fatty Acids), Flavouring, Salt, Colour (Plain Caramel)], Humectant (Glycerol), Whey Protein Concentrate (Milk), Peanut (6%), Water, Coconut Oil, Peanut Paste (1.5%), Tripotassium Citrate, Tricalcium Citrate, Magnesium Hydroxide, Flavouring, Colour (Plain Caramel), Fat Reduced Cocoa Powder, Vitamin C, Ferric Diphosphate, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Zinc Oxide, Vitamin B6, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B2, Folic Acid, Biotin.
Are you claiming that none of those things are processed? Because that's what the OP was about, not good or bad.
A lot of these ingredients are nefarious, including sugar, especially if too much is consumed. (most people consume several time the recommended dose of sugar a day, even without eating very sweet - courtesy of the food industry for putting sugar everywhere).
A guy wouldn't eat Quaker quick oats because it was processed.
It is literally the regular Quaker oats chopped up in smaller pieces. I got a good laugh out of it.
Yet their point is still valid. I recall a doctor talking about how unhealthy yogurt is due to its sugar content. If your a person like myself, who either makes their own yogurt or carefully selects brands of plain yogurt, the broad generalization is nonsensical. If you look at what's available on the store shelves, then over 90% of what they have is based on sugary flavoring. I suspect people buy yogurt since they are usually told that it's healthy, but usually end up reaching for the stuff that this study describes as ultra processes because that's the stuff that industry invests a lot of effort into making desirable (either through its formulation or advertising).
I suspect that there are a number of factors that are contributing to this pseudoscience based health-craze:
- It is easier to demonize food products based upon an overgeneralized label than it is to tell people to check the nutrition labels.
- Most grocery stores dedicate most of their shelves to food with dubious nutritional value, may that be because the food is formulated to sell (which typically has high sodium or sugar content) or longer shelf life.
- Most grocery stores are a poor option for the health conscious because of manipulative sales tactics. This ranges from the store layout, placement of particular products, and over generalized as well as likely misrepresenting of products as healthy.
- A segment of the population feels like they are loosing control over dietary options. Some areas are surrounded by food sold by places convenience/dollar stores and restaurants, yet grocery stores that would support traditional home cooking are more difficult to access.
When some people are faced with something that does not reflect their dietary values, or worse, does not meet their medical needs, is it surprising that they would start adopting extreme viewpoints?
Heck, even the difference between two (differently named) grocery stores in my area, owned by the same larger company, can be that bad and neither is touted as a health food store.
Ultra-processed food is food that meets the criteria according to the NOVA classification system.
"Processes enabling the manufacture of ultra-processed foods include the fractioning of whole foods into substances, chemical modifications of these substances, assembly of unmodified and modified food substances, frequent use of cosmetic additives and sophisticated packaging. Processes and ingredients used to manufacture ultra-processed foods are designed to create highly profitable (low-cost ingredients, long shelf-life, emphatic branding), convenient (ready-to-consume), hyper-palatable products liable to displace all other NOVA food groups, notably unprocessed or minimally processed foods. A practical way to identify an ultra-processed product is to check to see if its list of ingredients contains at least one item characteristic of the NOVA ultra-processed food group, which is to say, either food substances never or rarely used in kitchens (such as high-fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated or interesterified oils, and hydrolysed proteins), or classes of additives designed to make the final product palatable or more appealing (such as flavours, flavour enhancers, colours, emulsifiers, emulsifying salts, sweeteners, thickeners, and anti-foaming, bulking, carbonating, foaming, gelling and glazing agents)."
Edit: Forcing poor towards unhealthy food choices.
I don't think it's as bad here as in the US, however I see more and more of this type of foods in the store and it's usually quite cheap compared to food made from fresh produce at home. And this should really be an alarm bell as there is far less processing needed for fresh foods and it should be cheaper.
Personally I stay away from them and make almost all of my food from scratch. It seems quite scary to radically change the diet of the human in this way in so short of a time.
It's possible that Tokyo is an example where due to the high density of people / restaurants, the "economy of scale" takes over and makes good food much cheaper.
I might go one step further and make the claim that fresh food is so expensive in the US precisely because infrastructure is designed for cars, rather than people.
I don't think it's just Tokyo, you get this all across Europe too. I think there might be an economy of scale just in the fact that almost everyone in Japan/Europe buys fresh food as the primary component of their diet.
I live in the UK, and the idea that you could live somewhere where there isn't a local (aka walking distance) grocery store or supermarket that sells reasonably priced fresh produce is completely alien to me (if you live a rural area, then I suppose you might have to drive, but then you would need to do that to get to any shop at all).
Fresh food has significantly higher storage and shipping costs. It tends to go bad.
You can reasonably expect to sell a pallet of mustard before any of it expires. How much of a pallet of bananas will end up unsellable?
Fish is an issue because it can become "fishy", i.e. you get a strong taste of fish blood if not kept properly. I try to buy them from companies that freeze on the boat and transport around in trucks and sell directly to people.
Most meats though is usually better tasting after the expiration date (to a certain extent!)
But none of that can last for years in storage, I guess that lowers the cost a bit. Also the processed foods have more filler ingredients like corn starch etc which is cheap.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ultra-proces...
The countries consuming the most ultra-processed foods are UK, Germany, Ireland and Belgium.
I think the previous commenter who thought this was hyperbolic click bait - which is actually counter productive is right.
Every time i go to America' toast / sandwiches are inedible because it tastes closer to what i call cake.
Why corn syrup?
Also, there are still a lot of people in the US who like to use soft white bread for sandwiches and, yeah, the traditional recipes for that style contain some sugar. A lot of us try and avoid that style of bread because it is really not much better for you than cake.