What Are You Eating?

The hot topic of "Pink slime" a fantastic moniker for what is know in the food industry as lean finely textured beef, is  has been popping up in the media over concern of its uses in school lunches. Pink slime is the finely textured product of all the parts of the cow that are not fit for sale in any other form, yet sold as food in school cafeterias and restaurants across North America. While Pink Slime is likely as safe and nutritious to eat as most hot dogs, the bigger question facing the food industry is whether it should be made known to the consumer whether they are eating beef, or lean finely textured beef, as this new form is so far removed it bares its own name.

These engineered foods are receiving huge backlash in the media, and many are calling for a return to more "natural" processed foods. However, without stronger regulations on food labelling, food companies seem to find a way to keep cost saving measures and re label them in ways the confuse the consumer. Case in point the Maple Leaf "Naturals" line which contained all the same nitrates as the original meats, but labelled as nitrate free.

So natural foods are the way to go? Perhaps, but L-cysteine is a natural product found in most commercially produced bread and wheat based product, made from human hair. Or the red die that many enjoy in Strawberry flavoured drinks such as Starbucks Strawberry Frappuccino, is made from beetles.

Hungry? In fact it seems that the more one forays into the business of big food, the more the statement "ignorance is bliss" seems to ring true. Is that what modern eating has become? A choice between ignorance and knowingly eating slime, bugs, or human hair on a regular basis? Maybe, but its also another great reason to look at the foods you're eating and pick those that are in their state closest to nature, that's the best guarantee against a myriad of cost saving, flavour changing, colour producing things that may be hiding in your food.

Enjoying the simple pleasure of whole foods, prepared in a kitchen and not a factory may just be the one of the solutions to an ever increasing problem.

"Pink Slime"

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Are Bugs Vegan Friendly?

Human Hair and Bread!?!