Posted 06 February 2005 - 10:44 PM
I have become so turned off by what I'd call "Greenie Extremies" and "natural food cultists" I try to avoid buying anything marked "all natural" or "no preservatives".
I don't worry about the antibiotics in American beef. I eat very little of it because I don't want my arteries to get clogged. I boycott beef for personal health reasons and also due to ecological reasons.
Using bushel baskets full of grain to produce one pound of beef is a waste of resources. Ranchers bulldoze rainforests in Central and South America to use the land for grazing. After a very few years, the land is exhausted and unsuitable for anything.
The fecal waste from slaughter houses (both cows and pigs also) pollutes the water supply. It may sound funny, but cow farts constitute one of the key sources of the gas that is eating a hole in the ozone layer.
Milk is fine. You just have to be sure it is skim milk. Skim milk tastes like chalk water. There is a much better brand called "Skim Plus" which tastes much better.
One of my favorite treats consists of mixing one (recommended by the mfg) or two packages of "fat free" and "sugar free" jello pudding (flavors include chocolate, butterscotch, pistachio, vanilla, etc.) with two cups of skim milk..or one package with two cups of fat free yogurt. You end up a lot of tasty pudding with only 300 to 400 calories.
Yes, I know it is filled with "aspartame" and "acesulfame potassium" as sweeteners,
"yellow 5, blue1, yellow 6 artificial colors", "BHA, TBHQ and citric acid preservatives".
Thank goodness for all that artificial stuff that enables me to eat a serving of pudding with only 70 calories in it versus the 160 calories I'd get with regular instant pudding.
This seems to be a forum where all kinds of people "vent". I "vent" by reading all those multisyllable chemicals that the Coca-Cola Company puts into ordinary "natural" water to transform it into zero calorie "Fresca" (certainly the nectar of the Gods) to natural-food-folk. They become furious. I've had some become so enraged that they physically charged at me and tried to seize and destroy my zero-calorie delight.
I admit I am still overacting to the FDA's banning of cyclamate back in the 1970s. Because of the 'Delaney Amendment' any substance found to cause cancer could not be used in food or drink.
They found that if they subjected rats and/or mice to huge quantities of cyclamate cancer would indeed develop. A human being would have to drink something like 5 gallons of cola a day for a hundred years (impossible) to ingest an equivalent quantity of cyclamate. But "the Delaney Amendment" was fundamentalist and absolute. Common sense was not allowed to interfere.
Actually, I saw the ban coming and bought so much cyclamate that I was still using it twelve years later. I should have bought a twenty-five year supply. I suspect that since cyclamate was/is artificial, its shelf life must be as nearly immortal as that which we seek.
They banned cyclamates just like the Europeans ban American beef (unfair trade). Well, if the yuppies in Europe want to waste their money on expensive "natural beef" like that from England with Mad Cow disease tossed in at no extra charge, let them.
The Greenpeace crowd wants to block American Soybeans from entering England because they have been genetically engineered. If people want to spend more for genetically inferior soybeans, I guess that is fine also (more unfair trade).
However, when that madman in Angola decides to refuse shipments of genetically engineered corn to feed the people starving to death in his country because he fears Europeans won't buy his "natural corn" anymore, I really get steamed.
Natural food tyranny shows its ugly face all over the world. Switzerland is keeping something called "golden rice" locked up within its borders. That is rice, which a man has worked for years to insert the gene of a carrot (and therefore vitamin A and a golden color) into. It would improve the diets of millions of people who live mainly on rice and less than $1 a day. It would prevent 500,000 children from developing "river blindness". But Switzerland's "natural food lobby" has passed legislation that forbids the export of any genetically engineered food product or seed.
I have nothing personal against "natural foods" as such. They are overpriced. Those without preservatives (especially bread) grow mold very quickly. But, to each his own. If you have any money left over after you finish "natural food" shopping, feel free to waste it in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
I like Dr. Gregory Pence's idea that someday we'll be able to eat a diet consisting entirely of synthetic foods which are tasty, eliminate hunger and supply optimum nutrition. Ah, the totally "unnatural" diet. That sounds good to me.
Now, these thoughts should push some buttons, flick some switches, and even cause a few light bulbs to pop. Just don't attack me physically. Think of what pitiful shape I am already in because of all the chemicals that have seeped into my very cells.
Forget trying to convert me. I am an apostate. I am beyond redemption. I see why people vent here. You really find yourself gleefully giggling after you've done it. [tung]
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