Six Foods Making Americans FAT!

[czb]

No, I've been eating Brown Cow since I was a kid (late 70's). I used to love the cream top, now it's too rich for me. I think it was originally an upstate NY brand before going west. Since they were bought by Stonyfield I see the Stonyfield label much more, but you still see the Brown Cow here sometimes, it depends on the store. Dannon owns both of them now.

really?? i NEVER saw brown cow when i lived back there. i agree about the cream top, too rich for me.

[witchcurlgirl]

^Yes, I don't think they had big distribution, more of a health food store brand than a supermarket brand when I first started eating it.

[VeraGemini]

One thing I've noticed about the states is that compared to Canada, the food quality is SO much lower. Everything tastes like awful cafeteria food, I find it hard to get a good meal anywhere. I'm not talking fast food joints either, I'm talking sit down restaurants where decent food should be served... it's not. It's this barely passable slop. Bleh.

You're just going to the wrong restaurants in the US. The only real differences between Canadian and USA fare I ever noticed were just regional cuisine things. (And the potato chips, but I suppose that's a type of "regional cuisine thing" too )

[Novice]

i see what you are saying, but novice and grimmlok are right, the UK/Can health authorities do not allow rGH but i'm not sure if that also applied to food for export.

and grim, if you go to places like friday's or cheesecake factory, yeah, the food quality may not be great, but we have so many non-chain restaurants where the food quality is awesome! and not all are expensive.

You're right CZB, There are strict laws that regulate food production regardless if it's for export or local consumption. There are also strict laws that prevent some US grown products hitting the EU markets.

That's not to say that we don't/can't produce cheap nasty foods ourselves!

[Tiny Pixie]

And people wonder why I'm vegetarian

Seriously, it seems awfully difficult to me to get decent meat to eat, you've got to make sure cows weren't given steroids, antibiotics, food containing ground animal corpses, genetically modified corn or wheat or whatever - and then people lecture me about how complicated it must be for me to feed and how necessary meat is for us?
They gotta be kidding me !

[Novice]

Tiny Pixie - you're in France? The UK & France has the same food laws as they're EU-wide...

[MohandasKGanja]

And people wonder why I'm vegetarian

Seriously, it seems awfully difficult to me to get decent meat to eat, you've got to make sure cows weren't given steroids, antibiotics, food containing ground animal corpses, genetically modified corn or wheat or whatever - and then people lecture me about how complicated it must be for me to feed and how necessary meat is for us?
They gotta be kidding me !

Food containing animal corpses was a big problem and is still playing out (in terms of who may be infected and who isn't) in certain European countries.

[Novice]

And there is legislation in place, Europe-wide, to prevent that happening again. However, how do you account for the life-long vegetarians who got CJD?
It's not like I know what I'm talking about since I work for the Govt & work with this legislation everyfuckingday, instead of sitting on a different continent spouting bollox about something I know nothing about.


Why not turn your-all knowing critical eye to the salmonella outbreak in eggs that had to be recalled US-wide 2 months ago? Or the amount of growth hormones in your meats, or the antibiotics in your foods, oestrogen in water, do I need to mention any more? A large number of these problems do NOT occur in the EU.

[MohandasKGanja]

It's possible for lifelong vegetarians to develop CJD, but that could also be because bovine material can be found in insulin, cosmetics and even vaccines, which a vegetarian might take, while avoiding the actual eating of meat. Of the 166 deaths of CJD in Britain, apparently they were assessed to be an unfamiliar variant of the CJD that had historically been found among human populations. Below is the Wiki entry mentioning the use of the remains of dead cattle to feed other cattle (in Britain), which helped spread the disease among cattle.

the disease may be most easily transmitted to human beings by eating food contaminated with the brain or spinal cord of infected carcasses.[3][4] In humans, it is known as new variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD), and by October 2009, it had killed 166 people in Britain (the most recent being of a different genotype than other sufferers[5]), and 44 elsewhere[6] with the number expected to rise because of the disease's long incubation period.[7]Between 460,000 and 482,000 BSE-infected animals had entered the human food chain before controls on high-risk offal were introduced in 1989.[8]

A British inquiry into BSE concluded that the epizootic was caused by cattle, who are normally herbivores, being fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal (MBM), which caused the infectious agent to spread.[9][10] The origin of the disease itself remains unknown. The infectious agent is distinctive for the high temperatures at which it remains viable; this contributed to the spread of the disease in Britain, which had reduced the temperatures used during its rendering process.[9] Another contributory factor was the feeding of infected protein supplements to very young calves.

[Corsair]

@Novice - the estrogen (and whatever else) in the water freaks me out. So many people buy bottle water and think they are good - where the hell do they think the water comes from? Some tap, somewhere. I don't know that purification removes the nasty prescription cocktail that seems to be in our water supply, allegedly.

[Novice]

@Novice - the estrogen (and whatever else) in the water freaks me out. So many people buy bottle water and think they are good - where the hell do they think the water comes from? Some tap, somewhere. I don't know that purification removes the nasty prescription cocktail that seems to be in our water supply, allegedly.

Yeah, I really don't know the solution to that one. It's also something that I'm particularly aware of since one of the alleged causes of my cancer was attributed to excess estrogen....

[Tiny Pixie]

Tiny Pixie - you're in France? The UK & France has the same food laws as they're EU-wide...

Yep France here

I'm not really informed on laws concerning food, I must admit I made this comment based on things I saw on TV, and maybe I'm being paranoid, but I think that even in France, it's sometimes better not to think of what exectly is in your food

[Kittylady]

@Novice - the estrogen (and whatever else) in the water freaks me out. So many people buy bottle water and think they are good - where the hell do they think the water comes from? Some tap, somewhere. I don't know that purification removes the nasty prescription cocktail that seems to be in our water supply, allegedly.

I recall reading that water that comes in plastic bottles can actually absorb chemicals from the plastic, hence the use by date and why some bottled water can actually taste 'plasticy'. I also recall reading about a study that claimed we needed to be more careful about where and how we stored bottled water as there was a certain amount of seepage/cross contamination that could occur, particularly if whatever it has been stored by is pungent. One of my friends is convinced this is true as they bought a bulk load of bottled water and stored it in their old fashioned larder along with all the fresh vegetables and canned foods and then said that it all had a definate onion tang to it when they came to drink it and attributed it to the sack of onions that it had been stored near. They now store their bottled water well away from everything else and haven't had a problem since.

[missbazilb]

I've been lucky enough to have a food co-op open up very close to my house and I joined it. They source their fruit and vegetables from local organic farmers, and the farms where they get their meat are organic and SPCA approved. It's not cheap, not super expensive either, but it's a royal pain in the ass for the ordering and pick up of food. I put up with it because I would rather have as much chemical-free food as possible.

I buy Trader Joe's organic plain yogurt. Checked the label last night, and it only contains milk and the bacterial cultures. It's really tasty!

[Corsair]

Bonus for the water here, probably full of Corexit too (thanks BP). I'll be growing a third tit any time I'm sure. I don't know a dam thing about how effective water filters are, guess I should start researching that.