Food fears

I realize this is not cat related, however I have more readers here than on Feral By Nature and this is important. It was also something I was unware of.

Do you know that when you go out for a Sunday buffet, and decide to splurge on that filet mignon special, what you are eating could just be cheap meat glued together...with a glue that is NOT a food.

Check this out. I know I'll never be tempted into eating steak again. I was just talking to a friend a few weeks ago about how I had given in to my memory of a really good steak, and ordered one while traveling for work, with the "justification" that I could take part back to my hotel room for Molly-the-dog. I had about two bites and put it aside, because it just didn't taste all that good. I told my friend that I likely would never order steak again. I figured I'd lost my taste for it, which was, I thought, a good thing. Now I wonder if what I had been eating at the hotel restaurant wasn't even steak. And who did eat it? My poor little mutt back in the hotel room.

And did you know those "natural" Kashi-brand cereals and other products aren't so natural?

“You might be wondering where your favorite Kashi cereals have gone. It has recently come to our attention that 100% of the soy used in Kashi products is Genetically Modified, and that when the USDA tested the grains used there were found to be pesticides that are known carcinogens and hormone disruptors.”

That’s the sign posted in the cereal aisle of a Portsmouth, Rhode Island grocery store called the Green Grocer. It’s been hanging there for a few months, but earlier this week, someone snapped a photo and posted it to online—and then it went viral.

Let’s back up for a minute. John Wood, who owns the store, actually removed the Kashi products from his store back in February, after reading a 2011 report from a group called the Cornucopia Institute, an advocacy group that supports organic farmers. The report states that only four of Kashi’s 24 cereal products are actually certified organic and that Kellogg, the umbrella company that owns Kashi, “purchases genetically engineered ingredients for its ‘natural’ Kashi products,” including chemically processed soy.

When Wood got wind of this, he pulled most of the Kashi products from his shelves and posted the sign. Photos of the sign were posted online this week—and now people are pissed. (ed: at Kashi/Kelloggs)

Here is Kashi's response.

And then there is the wonder store Whole Foods. Someone finally looked at their labels and noted that some of their packaged organic vegetables come from China. With China's poor track record of food oversight...really? Organic vegetables from China in one of the supposed highest tier food stores in the United States? What's up with that?

Here is the response from Whole Foods.

Now I realize trusting the media is a lot like trusting food marketers. Just as food marketers are trying to sell food and make a profit, the media sells stories.

Nonetheless...

Looking in my cupboard, I wonder how many foods I buy that I think are healthy, and that I might in fact be paying more for, specifically to eat better, that are in fact poisoning me (us).

I have been struggling over what to feed my cats so I'm not killing them with melamine and low-grade pesticide-aided corn and other grains. (I don't even want to think about the so-called meat in there, and the animal suffering involved in obtaining it). Now it appears that I need to have the same fears about what I eat...not just when I knowingly purchase junk food, but even when I try to purchase food that is supposed to be "good for me."