If you're ever interested in finding out how processed food is made, Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is the book for you. It goes in depth on how the fast food industry was created and how processed food is made. I must warn you, though, this book is not for weak stomachs. It will make you seriously re-consider what you choose to put in your body.
Chapter 5 of the book talks about flavorists and their job of making things taste good. These are scientists whose sole job is to combine different chemicals to create the desired flavor of processed foods, to replace the flavor lost when the food was processed. These man-made additives are either in the category of natural flavor and artificial flavor. The two are chemically the same, and both are created in labs, but artificial flavors are synthetic chemicals.
I found this article about it by Phil Lempert that goes into detail about natural flavors, including the definition under the Federal Code of Regulations. It's an interesting read and you can find it here.
It's just one more reason I like to make everything myself. I would prefer to not have so many additives in my food. Fresh is best!
Hands down the most disturbing book I have ever read. It took me two months to read it because it was so disturbing. It's why I started buying raw milk and local, grass fed meats. Have you read Animal Vegetable Miracle? Great book, and very uplifting. It makes me feel like I can overcome the Fast Food Nation.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I thought was so blech was that The McDonald's M is representative of mother's breasts. So then what does the In and Out arrow represent? Eat that with your fries next time! Hhahahahahaha. Love you Robyn.
I haven't even heard of it. I think I'll look it up. In and out! That's what a hamburger is all about! LOL
DeleteIt's the book that got me really going on this homesteading thing. It's not a how to manual or anything. It's one of my favorite books. Read it and let me know what you think.
DeleteYou'll be happy to know that I have ordered it. I looked on their website and was jealous of the picture of what they harvested from their garden in a day. I think I'm going to go buy some seeds tomorrow!!
DeleteWell get some heirloom seeds, and read the book first. Her descriptions of what she plants are mouth watering. What gardening method do you use? I love the Square Foot Gardening method. I still have to build my beds in our new yard. I am still designing the layout bc we want it to be aesthetically beautiful as well as functional. We have an aerial view of our yard from the main floor of our house, so we want to look out on something attractive. I want to build the beds out of stones, but that is $$, so I will do with it wood first and add the stones later.
DeleteRight now we do the bucket method. :) We pretty much have no yard, and what yard we do have is covered in rocks ( so-called easy-care landscaping) so I plant things in buckets full of dirt. As you can imagine, it limits what I can actually plant. We did a garden one year at another house and I think we did the square foot method. That's when you plant in large squares, right? It worked pretty well. This is why I am DYING to get a house with about an acre of land, but we're having a tough time getting our offers accepted.
DeleteHmmm, I found that book to be very interesting. I never got around to reading the last chapter or two, but I thought it was interesting to read about all that. I still eat all sorts of processed food though....
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