Thursday, August 26, 2010

Really?

A couple of days ago I made a quick stop into Eureka Grocery Outlet to pick up a few items.  I'm recently going through a divorce and in the process of moving to a new home, so I'm on the edge of broke and living in a constant state of chaos at the moment, so Grocery Outlet is a blessing right now.  They carry a lot of, what I call, junk, but they also have some great deals on good organic and gourmet foods and they now carry more fresh produce.  Normally I avoid too many processed food items for my family, but when half of your cooking gear is buried at the bottom of one of several unmarked boxes and you have to be in 20 different places at once, it puts a crimp on taking the time to cook well.  Consequently I have been falling off my healthy food wagon lately. 

What I really needed the other day was a quick breakfast solution.  If I was really on top of it, I would have a freezer full of frozen homemade pancakes and breakfast burritos, but that was too much to pull off while living between 4 different homes and not having access to my kitchen.  So I ran into Grocery outlet and grabbed a box of frozen waffles, a box of frozen french toast, and a box of these:

I got in line with my bounty of processed foods eager to get home, when the girl ringing me up comments on my toaster scrambles.  Mmmm.  These are good (I agree - they are pretty tasty).  Then she says, "they just seem so much healthier then the waffles or the french toast." 

What?  Really?  Did she just say that?  How could they be any healthier?  I don't get it.  Is this really how most American's think?  Just because it's not noticeably sweet, it much be healthier?  Wow!

Let's see - what are the ingredients:
Enriched flour bleached(wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamin mononitrate, ribolfavin, folic acid), Water, Soybean Oil, Palm Oil, Ham with Natural Juices Ground and Formed (ham, salt sugar, modified potato starch, pork stock, ground mustard, dextrose, sodium tripolypohsphate, natural smoke flavor, natural flavor, sodium nitrite ascorbic acid, citric acid), Eggs, Partially Hydrogenated Soybeean and Cottenseed Oil, Corn Starch, Glycerin, Egg Yolk, Salt, Dry Yeast, Dried Whey, Maltodextrin, Dextrose, Modified Corn Starch, Sodium Caseinate, Cheddar Cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), Sodium Posphate, Mono and Diglycerides, Lactic Acid, Sodium Citrate, Nonfat Milk, Ctric Acid, Sodium Steearoyl Lactylate, Xanthan Gum, Enzyme Modified Parmesan Cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt enzymes), Spice, Blue Cheese (milk, cheese cultures, salt, enzymes), Guar Gum, Natural Flavor, Autolyzed Yeast Extract, Potassium Sorbate and TBHZ (preservatives), Titanium Dioxide, Yellow 5, Yellow 6.

Wow!  What is half of this stuff?  When I make bread it's flour, water, salt and yeast.  That's it.  Ham is ham, cheese is cheese.  Eggs are eggs.  And what exactly is "natural flavor"?  Hmmm.  Healthier then frozen waffles huh?  I don't see how. 

Nutritional value?  For ONE of these, which does not come anywhere near filling you up - You get 11 grams of fat, 3.5 of that saturated (17% of your daily value.  Now remember, you'll probably eat 2 or 3 of these).  0.5 grams of trans fats (triple that if you eat 3) 20 mg of Cholesterol (7 % times 3) 310 mg of sodium (13% times 3) 16 grams of total carbohydrates (5% times 3) 1 gram of sugar and 3 grams of protein (times 3) No vitamin A no Vitamin C no Calcium and 4% of your Iron. 

This is healthier then a frozen waffle?  Really? At least you can top a waffle with yogurt and fresh fruit and get something good from it.  What would you top this with? Ketchup?  Hot sauce maybe?  No wonder this girl looked visibly unhealthy - her skin was gray and she was slightly overweight and moved at a slugs pace.  The poor thing thinks this kind of food is healthy.  She probably lives on stuff like this.  I have to wonder when she last ate a fresh strawberry or had an apple fresh off the tree.  I feel sad for her.  I feel sad for all of the people out there who actually think like this and are completely oblivious to how good food should be.  What have we taught these people?  Not much apparently.  We need to change that.  And soon.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I agree. Most people don't have a clue what good healthy food is! It is a reminder to me to make sure that I teach Erin where her food comes from and how to eat healthy! Since we are moving and on a time crunch too (isn't everybody these days) I'll have to be even more diligent over the next few weeks! Good luck to you!

Kim Eastlick said...

Thanks Cheri - Good luck to you too. Hang in there with the move.