Everyone who buys food knows that food costs a third to twice as much as the same food did just five years ago. But real food costs the most now. That is, single ingredient foods such as butter (just butter, not “butter” with canola or some other oil) and meat that isn’t plumped up with injected brine from an animal fed genetically modified corn. Cheese that is just cheese – without sawdust to add bulk (and yes, they do that).
The cost of eating such food – vs. not-food (and Frankenfood) is becoming exorbitant.
In my area – SW Virginia – an 8 ounce pack of Kerry Gold Butter is hard to find for much less than $6. The seed oil-laden stuff sells for about half that. A pint of cream without carrageenan from cows not injected with bovine growth hormone costs close to $7 now. A grass fed (not “finished”) steak that you could buy for $8 just a couple of years ago now costs $12. Eggs that weren’t laid by battery hens that never saw the light of day or ate a single blade of grass also cost about $6 for a dozen – about twice what they cost not that long ago You can still buy “eggs” – if you want to call the sad, runny, barely-yellow-yolked things that are laid by battery hens – for about half that. But do you want to eat them?
There is good news, though – for those who understand the value of real food. It is that restricting what you eat to real food will result in good health and that can mean not needing to spend a great deal more money on what is marketed as “health insurance.”
The term is specious as well as something worse. In the first place, it is not possible to insure that anyone will remain healthy. What you’re paying for is the promise that if you become not-healthy (as a result of eating Not Food) the insurance will “cover” the costs of the medical treatment you need to restore your health. More finely, will pay for the symptom remediation (via pills) and surgeries the doctor will tell you you need.
The catch is that the insurance mafia is not in the business of covering those costs. It is in the business of making you pay for insurance. The mafia will fight tooth and nail to avoid paying for your medical care at precisely the moment when – due to your being sick and so not in top form – you are desperate to receive the care you need and not in the mood to fight the mafia over what they “approve.” You agree to the medical treatment – and get the bill, later.
Such bills can be bankrupting – especially if you’ve spent thousands (tens of thousands, perhaps) on “coverage” that was subsequently denied. Luigi Mangione is a murderer; but his motivation arouses understandable sympathy in the minds of many. How many people have been – effectively – murdered by the health insurance mafia via denial? How many more have been bankrupted?
The only realistic way to avoid this is to remain healthy and thereby to not need “insurance.” And the way to do that is to avoid eating food that isn’t. It isn’t hard to do this – but it does take a kind of re-setting of your habits. Particularly, the habit of not reading the labels of the stuff on supermarket shelves, on the assumption that what you are buying is food.
It may look like it is, but it’s not fit to eat.
Food does not have multi-paragraph descriptions of what it is. Butter is butter. Not “butter” plus some other things you can’t pronounce and that sound like the names of extra-terrestrial biological entities. Ice cream – real ice cream – is not “dairy desert.” So-called “bio-engineered” foods are not food. Not naturally occurring ones, at any rate.
Single ingredient foods are what you’re after, if you want to be healthy and so not need to “insure” your health. Once you get into the habit of looking for real food, you will discover there is almost none at most supermarkets. The aisles are filled with Not Food. You will stop going to these supermarkets, unless you need dog or cat food and some paper towels. The rest is not fit for human consumption.
Now comes the great part – which is the money you will save by not buying Not Food. Processed “food” is the most expensive “food” there is. Also, by the way, the “food” sold by fast “food” joints. You pay top dollar for chemicals and adulterants and god-only-knows what else that will make you sick and in need of care that your “coverage” will probably deny.
If you keep track of what you spend on real food, you will also find you are spending less overall – even if the cost of individual food items such as real butter and real eggs and so on is higher.
And you will be spending a great deal less than that overall by getting (and staying) healthy – a function of eating real food – and thus needing “health insurance” like a fish needs a bicycle.
. . .
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I have no sympathy for someone who insists on buying imported butter for $12/lb when *brand* *name* domestic (e.g. Land O Lakes*) can be had for $6..00/lb
https://shop.staterbros.com/shop/product/land-o-lakes-unsalted-butter-made-with-sweet-cream/2605602
And then complains about the price of imported.
Food snobs do not impress me, anymore than people who buy “designer” label clothing, or any other so-called “upscale” merchandise, when generic will serve as well.
*Farmer owned, made in California.
Whatsa matta, you no likee California cows?
Welcome back, my dear! You have been missed!
Why do I always get the weird looking icons?!?!
Hi RG,
Which icons? I’m not seeing any. Could you send me a screenshot of what you’re seeing?
Hi Eric,
The little weird faces that we get next to our name. I don’t know what you call those. It is no big deal. I just keep hoping that if I mistype my email address (like I did above) it isn’t one that looks like a goblin or possessed leprechaun. 🙂 Nothing to do on your end. I know it is WordPress that automatically assigns them.
The icons crack me up. I wonder if your word choice determines which you get?
If so, seems ok.
It’s a valid point.
There are reasons someone would pay higher prices, legitimate or not.
Eric’s point about oil is something I try to avoid, too, but in this case Land O’ Lakes plain unsalted butter has no oils in it, seed or otherwise.
They do list “natural flavoring” which is odd, but I assume that’s because they factory farm the cows and the milk probably lacks much taste of it’s own. That is one thing you notice about that Irish butter, it’s super yellow and tastes like butter should because the cows are eating grass and not high density grain-like industrial fodder.
Hmm, ““natural flavoring”.
It is said, it is written, that when you see, “natural flavorings” what you’re getting is, MSG.
GRAS? Idk.
Beware the “certified organic” label is worth far less than it did 20 years ago:
https://organiceye.org/high-integrity-certifiers-and-bad-actors/
Yeah, it’s tough because you have to trust so many in the chain. Not to mention a lot of alternative brands are owned (either above board or deceptively) by the big guys so you know they’re cutting corners. A significant number of brands you see in Sprouts or Whole Paycheck are probably just General Mills or Pepsico behind the scenes.
I personally buy as much meat, dairy and eggs locally, either directly from the farmer or in local shops who have local sources. My eggs come from a farm co-op store and they don’t bother with the organic certification. It’s not really gaining anything. It’s a family farm and the treat their hens fine, they’re pastured, get to root around for bugs. But they can’t guarantee they always use organic feed. But I’d wager their hens and the eggs are tons better than some expensive national brand in the big grocery.
RE: “But they can’t guarantee they always use organic feed.”
Who can? There was a big to-do awhile back about some farmers selling grain balled as organic non-gmo, when it wasn’t. And, I dunno about you, but non-gmo is super scarce in the farm stores here,’
…”Let them eat bugs!”
…Well. actually, they do seem to prefer grasses & weeds.
Hi Trey,
Yup; same here. It takes time and effort to get into the habit. Or – rather – to change the habit of just buying “food” without really knowing what you’re buying.But once you get into the habit it’s less effort and the real revelation is going to the supermarkets you used to go to and realizing there’s almost no food there at all.
A little off topic, but the whole COVID nonsense woke me up to the absolute corruption that exists in the American healthcare system and “Public health” agencies such as CDC & FDA, and existing vaccines that have been around for decades. ACIP recently voted to end the 30+ year practice of recommending jabbing every single newborn child with a Hepatitis B vaccine on the day they’re BORN, and there are people freaking out over it. However, something I found absolutely CRIMINAL was the fact that in the early 1990s Big Pharma and “Public Health” bureaucracies decided to start jabbing every single newborn with the Hep B jab when ADULTS refused that particular jab and then framed it as “Protecting public health”. Sounds like something similar they did circa 2006 with regard to flu shots; “We’ll give children flu shots to protect seniors.”
If you start thinking too much John, you have to wonder why in the world TPTB would want to vaccinate a newborn for a disease only contracted via sex or IV drug use. It just goes to show how sick our “beloved” (cough, gag) leaders truly are.
Hi Shadow,
I don’t know if you heard, but after ACIP’s vote to stop “recommending” giving Hepatitis B vaccines to newborns, the so-called “Western States Health Alliance” effectively doubled down on pushing Hep B jabs for ALL newborns in those states. IIRC, they claimed that ACIP had “No scientific basis” for pulling Hepatitis B jabs from the childhood vaccination schedule, but ironically, those states had NO EVIDENCE that the universal policy of giving those jabs to newborn children is even necessary, let alone “Safe and Effective”. It seems that once again, they just did it out of “We’ve gotta stop Trump & RFK Jr!”, which alone is an ideology, much like the childhood vaccination schedule of giving children over 70 doses of different vaccines from birth to 18 years of age.
There is also no scientific basis to claim that vaccines are “safe and effective” either. If you were to contact the CDC or FDA and ask they would admit they cannot provide or produce any safety studies because none were ever performed. After all, there was no need once the vaccine makers got 100 percent immunity and so what if the conditions were predicated on biannual safety studies that were conveniently forgotten?
That’s right Shadow! They’ve bleated “Safe and Effective!” for years for all vaxxes, not just for COVID vaxxes. Heck, IIRC, from what I’ve read and seen, the medical establishment only did “safety tests” of a whopping FIVE days for the Hepatitis B vaccine in children who received one shortly after being born. If a child had an adverse reaction to the Hep B jab on DAY 6 or later, corrupt public health bureaucrats would likely say it WASN’T caused by the Hep B jab but by something else. It’s similar to the fraud committed re the COVID vaxxes. For a time, if someone got sick with COVID or even DIED within two weeks of getting the SECOND COVID jab, they were counted as UNVACCINATED, thus the narrative “Pandemic of the unvaccinated!” I find it astounding that more people aren’t outraged just at the NUMEROUS LIES we were told about COVID, the draconian diktats issued by government, face diapers, and even the mRNA COVID jabs.
People are blind and/or stupid, and they hate hate hate having it pointed out to them. So here we are.
They’re probably the same people who STILL wear face diapers everywhere, belieeeeeeeeeeve narratives such as Trump “colluded with Russia”, Joe Biden wasn’t demented, Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election, Tony Fauci is a public health saint, Kamala Harris was a popular presidential candidate, lockdowns and mask/ vaxx mandates saved lives, the only people who died during COVID were those who refused to listen to “The Science”, Zelensky is a hero trying to save democracy from Putin, cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change is an existential threat, the planet will be Saaaaaaaaaaaved if we forced everyone into an EV, etc.
Love you guys.
Keep being free thinkers, unafraid.
Gotta love the sarcasm Helot. It reminds me of Wesley Snipes in “Demolition Man” when he asks, “what…don’t they have sarcasm here anymore”? Haha. I do not know how people get through this lunatic life without both sarcasm and a sense of humor. Oh yeah…they end up as government officials.
But wait, there’s more. From what I read, the COVID jabs double blind “placebo” group were injected with a meningitis vaccine, and not the usual, normal saline, like you would come to expect. Oh, and never mind the PCR test was never supposed to be used to diagnose disease. Put it all together, it was one massive fraud, and sadly, some of the most educated fell for it.
Something I find weird re this whole desire for REAL FOOD & avoiding frankenfood is the fact that it was deemed a HIPPIE/ LEFT WING idea 20 years ago, but now that Trump is president again, and RFK Jr is HHS Secretary, it’s routinely smeared by corporate media & the establishment as a RIGHT WING or FAR RIGHT EXTREMIST idea, or even a CONSPIRACY THEORY.
That’s true, John!
I think it shows that ideology trumps principles for all-too-many.
Eric,
Not only that, to some, an overzealous hatred of President Trump is all that matters, as many of them once loved RFK Jr when he was an environmental lawyer but now hate him simply because he’s in the 2nd Trump administration. Ironically, now they also view vaccines as an ideology or religion. Just look at the way COVID vaccine zealots treated literally anyone who questioned the narratives on COVID jabs.
Huh, RE: “this whole desire for REAL FOOD & avoiding frankenfood is the fact that it was deemed a HIPPIE/ LEFT WING idea 20 years ago,”
Keyphrase: “it was deemed”.
By who?
That may say much.
I don’t recall that label being slung back then. Rather, it wasn’t Left, nor Right, it was Real People.
That’s my view.
Hi Helot ,
I think it may have been the establishment that deemed people looking for REAL FOOD 20 years ago “Left Wing”, perhaps even calling them CONSPIRACY THEORISTS.
I do remember the Democratic Party once upon a time criticizing the enormous influence Big Pharma had (and still has) over the federal government, but now after COVID, they act like Pharma’s biggest cheerleaders. Just look at the way many Democrat politicians are effectively trying to maintain the status quo when it comes to VACCINES & vaccine policy (and not just with COVID vaxxes).
Canola oil is used in Ensure and Boost. Apparently it makes you fat/helps you retain weight–and also causes memory loss. Not sure why it is marketed for the elderly (maybe RFK will look into it), but I bought it for 7 years thinking I was helping someone as the price just kept going up and up. Not until the last weeks of their life wondered how they got 530 calories in an 8 oz bottle and looked up “canola oil.”
“To this end mice received either regular chow or a chow diet supplemented with canola oil for 6 months. At this time point we found that chronic exposure to the canola-rich diet resulted in a significant increase in body weight and impairments in their working memory together with decrease levels of post-synaptic density protein-95, a marker of synaptic integrity, and an increase in the ratio of insoluble Aβ 42/40. No significant changes were observed in tau phosphorylation and neuroinflammation. Taken together, our findings do not support a beneficial effect of chronic canola oil consumption on two important aspects of AD pathophysiology which includes memory impairments as well as synaptic integrity. While more studies are needed, our data do not justify the current trend aimed at replacing olive oil with canola oil.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5719422/
This is the high calorie, but it’s in all the Boost and Ensure also:
Ingredients
Water, GLUCOSE SYRUP, Canola Oil, Acid Casein (from Milk), Soy Protein Isolate, and LESS THAN 2% of SUGAR, Vitamins and Minerals*, Soy Lecithin, Cocoa Processed with Alkali, Salt, Natural Flavor, Citric Acid, Taurine, Carrageenan
https://www.boost.com/products/boost-very-high-calorie
Glad to see you’re aware. “chronic exposure to the canola-rich diet resulted in a significant increase in body weight and impairments in their working memory together with…”
…What else? Who knows.
I’ve been feeding my family real food, and the costs have skyrocketed here in CA as well.
For beef and pork, we buy the whole animal, frozen and butchered, and all fed properly. I just took delivery of my latest half-cow (like 180lb) and it’s up to $12.50/lb where it started at $7/lb when I started buying it a number of years ago. Pork is up a little bit, but it’s VERY difficult to find a wholesome chicken for a reasonable cost. Local farmers charge $10-15/lb for a chicken, so a smaller sized 4lb bird is $40-60lb, which is bonkers for a chicken, so we don’t eat much chicken. Butter, cream, lard, are all very expensive.
I wonder if there’s more cheap crap available because manufacturers are trying to make cheaper products any way they can, or if there’s some more nefarious reason. My suspicion is this is just the result of cost cutting due to inflation more than anything.
Look up Bell and Evans chicken . That’s all I buy since the market I shop at started carrying their products.
RE: “I wonder if there’s more cheap crap available because manufacturers are trying to make cheaper products any way they can, or if there’s some more nefarious reason. My suspicion is this is just the result of cost cutting due to inflation more than anything.”
How about: It’s both. ?
It depends. Do you worship Satan & want fewer people in the world, …or not?
Your outlook guides you actions.
That last video you posted from “food science babe” – she’s clearly an industry-financed “debunker”.
I can only agree that real food is expensive. I’ve been low vitamin a for over 7 months, and have been eating the grass fed seed finished beef for all of that time. It is $12/lb. Every time I have tried to balk these prices and buy store beef I have ended up throwing it in the woods after attempting to eat it. It smells off and tastes like chemicals. I never had this problem before beginning this diet but I have it now. The bright side to this is that beans and brown rice are very, very cheap.
On MAHA, from my perspective RFK is a complete tool. He calls Ozempic “an arrow in our quiver”. He pushes for replacing artificial food dyes (granted, they’re no prize) with something even worse from my perspective, things like beta carotene and paprika.
Just one man’s opinion. Thanks for the article, Eric.
Hi Max,
I know Thousand Hills (supplier for Azure Standard, Mom’s Organic, Sprouts, etc.) offers beef bundles. You can purchase 12 packs for around $8/lb. It is all grass fed. Also, OreganicBeef out of Oregon offers 20 lb. hamburger beef and stew for around $140. If you are in Virginia or Maryland there are few places that offer some tremendous discounts on beef/chicken.
You bet, Max!
I agree re RFK. That Ozempic business sealed it for me.
RE: “It smells off and tastes like chemicals.”
For sure. It gets, “washed”.
While on the subject of food I just saw a news item announcing Trumpenstein is giving farmers a $12 billion dollar bailout to counter the effects of his own stupid and illegal tariffs, not to mention pissing off China so they stopped buying US commodities.
Reminds me of the saying government will help you by giving you crutches after they break your leg.
Here’s hoping the Supremes slap down Donny Douchebag’s tarrifs as illegal and that Costco wins their case to get refunded for all that it has cost them to date.
Agriculture in this country is wildly jacked. The majority of farms, even big farms, would fail without subsidies. Farmers are huge cash flow in and out. Even a small farm, 400 acres say, is a $500,000 annual business. But at these numbers it’s unlikely you’d run a profit even if you do own your land and equipment. Without the annual $250,000 subsidy no farm could stay in business.
Bayer, ADM, Smithfield, Tyson, Perdue and JBS basically run the farming world for anything larger than a hobby or boutique farm.
Hmm, seems you’re (unwittingly?) furthering propaganda, or something?
– “Without the annual $250,000 subsidy no farm could stay in business.” –
So, um. Farms are unnecessary? A.I. grows all the Brawndow people need?
My little boy, 9 years old, killed his third deer of the season the day after Thanksgiving. I just killed my second buck of the season last Thursday evening. We’ll take a couple more before the season closes in early January. Hopefully, one of us will get a bear this weekend during our meager two day bear season. My family eats a lot of venison. It’s the meat of kings!
Excellent, CG!
I really need to get on that bandwagon. The deer – herds of them – literally waltz around the back yard. I could open a kitchen window and take one. Less time than it takes to go to the store!
My Idaho buddy did just that. Was going to head out that day elk hunting. Morning coffee in the living room, bathrobe, newspaper. Wife calls from the kitchen “Bill your elk just arrived he’s in the yard!”. Ok. Sure enough! Grabs his rifle from the foyer, walks out on the deck in robe and slippers, boom! No walk in the woods that day!
My kids love our deer we get in our yard. They’d lynch me if I shot one of those things. The wife may be more easily convinced, since they eat her flowers and vegetables in the gardens.
RE: “They’d lynch me if I shot one of those things”
Feed the children no meat, just carrots & broccoli for a week or two, maybe they might think otherwise?
A pure disservice you do them, if they think meat only comes from a styrafoam/suran wrap pkg. Jmho.
I catch the agri report occasionally on early morning radio. The advertisements for farming chemicals would make your hair stand up. One is a “systemic” for potatoes (now allowed for broccoli, Brussels sprouts, etc) which of course means it’s all thru the plant. Yum.
My work gets me inside lots of industrial operations, and my location in the upper Midwest makes a lot of them food plants. Two things stick out in my memory.
The first was a cheese plant in South Dakota. My 80 yo dad was listening to the quacks again and buying/eating low cholesterol “cheese”. I tasted it, awful stuff with terrible cardboard texture and no cheese flavor. While in the cheese factory, they told me about the stuff and showed me the process, to the vat was added a bunch of titanium dioxide, a paint ingredient. The plant personnel told me they would never eat that crap, but “the market” wanted it.
The other was less disgusting, a seafood plant in the middle of Minnesota (“the city by the bay?”). Artificial crab, like you find on a buffet, is made by grinding real (cheap) fish into a slurry, pressing it into sheets, spraying on red color, and then rolling the sheets up into he familiar round roulades. Run it through a chopper and you get something that looks like crab legs without the cartilage.
If you can, by all means eat as close to the ground as you can. I guarantee that industrial food has things in it and done to it that you don’t care to know about.
Hi Ernie,
I am always surprised the “ingredients” that the USDA and FDA pass as acceptable. Food (unless local) is probably one of the few things I try not to buy “Made in the USA”. I found European foods have much cleaner ingredients and it just tastes better. I try to stick with the local farms (organic/non GMO) and the Amish stores. It isn’t cheap, but as hubby says “You are either going to spend it on healthy food or doctor visits.” Nothing beats the tomatoes and cucumbers that come out of my greenhouse though. The “organic” veggies that come from the store have zero taste. I don’t know what they do to them. My frozen tomatoes (that I use in sauces and soups over the winter) still have flavor so it isn’t freezing that kills the taste.
It is really insidious. The human body is incredibly resilient, so if you eat a Big Mac or smoke a camel, NOTHING is going to happen and they are very pleasant and satisfying. Eating 100 Big Macs or smoking 100 Camels is also vanishingly unlikely to hurt you. But like the effects of the injected quackcines, the long term effects are cumulative and inexorable.
As to the taste, food is sold by the pound and by looking big and lush. Most of the flavor comes from varieties that aren’t commercially successful, huge tomatoes dont, some say can’t, have as much good flavor as small odd colored ones. Potatoes are the same, huge potatoes have to have a bunch of stuff put on them to be tasty, Japanese blues out of your garden are a treat, even if green mashed potatoes put you off.
Yup, me too.
we recently were in greece from the northern most mountain area (no tourists) to the islands (mostly tourists), their food is much more ‘single ingredient’ to a fault. Andy probably why our older family there lives to 100 +/-.
We just got lucky and a new small restaurant just opened near us, and the owner is making a big deal about fresh and single ingredient. my wife is a big humus fan, and the owner showed us how he makes it. All natural fresh stuff. Amazing.
He is from the Mediterranean, go figure.
It’s pretty obvious that our era of BigAg is literarily killing us.
Hi Chris,
My cooking specialty is Greek/Mediterranean food, which is quite funny since I have zero Greek/Italian in my bloodstream. 🙂 It is very simple cooking, but the flavors are extraordinary. It is just about growing/purchasing good ingredients from the start. Mustard thyme lamb chops, tomato/cucumber salads with fresh basil and feta, lots of extra virgin olive oil, green beans in a tomato sauce, chicken paella, and lots of fresh fish with lemon and garlic, etc. And most importantly, you feel good after eating it and not bloated like with many American cuisines.
How did you like Greece? Any recommendations? Did you like one area more than another? I am waiting for the biometric data collection requirement to fall apart, but my goal is to visit before I drop dead.
The major reason for visiting was to take my 90yr old mom to see her cousins. She is 2nd gen american, her parents came over in the 30’s. OMG the stories. I had never been, and I don’t like long travel but I sucked it up. I didn’t make the plans so I didn’t complain, but we would have done it different for sure.
Went to the far north of greece where they are from, small town, mostly was textile jobs. The older people’s sentiment about the ‘Turks and Germans’ is still prevalent (WW2). I can’t believe my grandfather figured out that he had to get out. How he did it must have been worthy of books. I guess the ‘calling’ of America was very strong. He beat the WW2 problem where they captured young men and woman (my aunt was hidden, and came to america very soon after WW2)
we did our family duties for a week, saw the Monestaries (OMG!!!), had to have been built by slaves way back then.
Then my immediate family went to the islands for 2 weeks, but we tried to fit in too much. 1-3 days per island, not enough. we did 5-6 islands in 2 weeks. In hindsight we shouldn’t have. 3-4 would have been better. We did tourist islands like Naxos, Mykonos and Santorini, and not so touristy Paros and Serifos. My vote was the smaller non-touristy and my wife and daughter liked the touristy stuff.
Like I said before their mainland road systems are off the charts better than ours, amazing, but watch out for the socialist speed cameras which are everywhere. Some said I will be getting tickets (many) in a few months, haha…. The islands roads are from before car days and tiny and narrow. Their island boat system is amazing as well, but we chose the private company Seajets which were very fast and nice (40-50 knots, wow).
We missed Crete, which other travelers said we should have done.
There were zero to no ‘beaches’ like we thought.
We should have stayed in the towns at more expense. we stayed in air bnb’s 1-5 miles from the towns which caused a lot of trouble with rental cars, parking (not good in the towns). We went in mid-October which is just off main tourist season. I can’t even imagine what the crowds would have been in the touristy places in-season, not for me. The smaller non-tourist islands were already shutting down and we almost got stuck sleeping on the little beach (5ft) cause “the two taxis already left for the season” But the local people rallied for us and got us to our place. Very good people everywhere.
Unfortunately, we only planned 1 day in Athens, and downtown was really nice. We should have stayed at least 3 days in Athens.
We did not use a travel agent and we probably should have. One peer couple from our USA area we met used a travel agent and didn’t have half the inconvenient issues we had (travel, houses, etc…)
Hope this helps.
Hi Chris,
I appreciate the detail and this information is good to know.
I got a late start on tomatoes this year but managed to enjoy some nice midsize sliced for burgers & salads, and the Commanders favorite Sweet 100 for general snacking and salads. Yep, nothing beats a tomato grown long enough to make that full flavor!
Euro food yes I’m a fan. Two visits when the kids lived there. France b&b, morning continental breakfast bread heavy, well here comes the Zantac as bread sets off heartburn (partial hiatal hernia). Nope! When the bread is made with old school wheat flour I was fine. The butter was beyond anything you get here. Three weeks in Europe two Zantacs only. Here it’s daily unless I’m really careful zero wheat products. I get furious with the so called USA food experts “ GMO is fine!” I’ve got two gals in the bike group on zero gluten here due to Frankenwheat. One pointed out, when we were kids in the ‘60s wheat grew 3 feet tall, at least. Now it’s about 15 inches or less, yep Frankenwheat.
Amen, Sparkey!
I don’t touch bread unless I know it’s bread made with non-GMO/organic (real) wheat and no other stuff that ought not to be in bread. I have zero issues with such bread. And I am back to 210 pounds (down from 232).
I really should get back to baking bread. There is an egg bread recipe in an ancient Betty Crocker cookbook, it makes amazing well risen loaves at least double or more the height of the bread pan. Damn it’s tasty!
You’ll lose even more if you ditch carbs, especially bread. That is, if you go keto. Not only is this good for weight, it’s good for overall health, including your heart and arteries. It is simply proper nutrition. Please read everything by Gary Taubes and Nina Teicholz.
As for bread, it’s doubly bad, being not only carbs with a high glycemic index, but also other things like gluten intolerance. In his book “Wheat Belly”, William Davis claims that we are all gluten intolerant, it’s just that some people have outward symptoms and some don’t. Highly recommended reading.
Roger that, Yuri!
I am learning a great deal, by experience – using myself as the test subject!
It’s in many cases not really a true gluten intolerance (it could be a genetic issue but that takes hundreds of generations to do naturally).
It’s a reaction to the residual glyphosate that causes the problem. It’s not even GMO that may be the problem, it’s that the GMO is done to make a variety resistant to the glyphosate so they can coat the crops to the point of making them impossibly toxic. GMO is such a broad term and we have been doing that by selective breeding. That’s not to say the CRISPR gene splicing they do isn’t making frankenthings that are impossible and no amount of natural breeding could ever achieve. We made a lot of fundamental changes to animals, crops, etc just by forced selection over and over, too.
There’s not much practical study of the two things (GMO and fertilizer/herbiscide) individually. In other words, no one tests GMO alone and no farmer is going to spend the money to get into a system that uses GMO seeds without also doing the chemistry experiment that goes along with it.
So non-GMO or organic probably helps more because there’s no Roundup on it than anything.
One thing that many “Big Food” companies have been doing for a while is using 3D printed “meat” for making their products. There was that leaked secret recording of the Campbell’s VP alleging his company was using 3D printed meat, which Campbell’s tried to deny but I have little reason to doubt what he said, given the WEF’s creepy video around 10 years ago pushing 3D printed food among other creepy plans.
One thing I do give Robert F Kennedy Jr for is my own paying more attention to the list of ingredients in food I buy at the grocery store.
Meant to say I give RFK Jr credit for my paying more attention to the list of ingredients in food I buy at the grocery store.
I personally haven’t seen 3d printed meat, though it’s been tried on an experimental basis to try to get you to believe you’re getting real meat and not “Krab” or mcchicken.
But it is routinely ground and extruded, and you want to keep in mind the quality of the cheap protein they’re grinding…
Hi Ernie,
The crazy thing about this 3D printed “food” is that it’s framed as “Saaaaaaaaaaving the planet” or “Stopping cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change”. After learning more about this climate change nonsense the past few years, I’ve become convinced that people who STILL belieeeeeeeeeeve the cliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimate change narratives are royal chumps; probably the same people who STILL belieeeeeeeeeeve the narratives on COVID, the draconian diktats issued by many governments in response to it, vaccines (Not just COVID vaxxes), and face diapers.
You nailed with this one Eric. Eating real food and staying out of the snares of the health insurance mafia is not very difficult. It just requires a bit of determined effort. The problem for most Americans is they are fat and lazy. I’ve only had health insurance for a brief time over the forty years of my working life, and it was a high deductible HSA savings account. Cant imagine being a part of a system that sees me as a pin cushion/lab rat for their latest voodoo juju.
The cost of high quality, ‘real food’ is less than people think. I’ve noticed as we changed our diet, the portions of crap food previously needed to feel full have decreased as the quality of our food has increased. It seems counter intuitive, but the better the food, the less of it your body craves.
Real food does have a natural “shut off.” For example, I love scrambled eggs but after a while, after I’ve had enough, it’s impossible to eat more, to stuff myself. Contrast that with, say, Krispy Kream doughnuts. I could eat those until I feel sick, go purge myself and then eat more. It’s unnatural, manipulated by dopamine. I avoid that shit completely.
Yes, had a grilled pork chop and 1/2 of an acorn squash last night, plenty full and no big appetite this morning.
Thanks, Norman!
And, me too – in re feeling satisfied with less food. It’s very noticeable. I also have zero desire for the Not Food anymore, which for me is really something!
I’m susceptible to certain advertising so it hasn’t been eliminated entirely. But through determined effort, I’ve cut down the fast food to a couple times a month.
Excellent, Norman!
For me, it was a total change of life. Like a lot of guys, I’d just grab food (often fast food) when I was hungry because I just wanted to eat something and get back to work. That bout with gout caused me to . . . re-evaluate. Since August I have eaten zero processed food and cut my sugar consumption down by prolly 95 percent (I eat no dessert or candy or sugary drinks). I mostly eat eggs, clean beef and chicken. Butter as much as I like. It’s my big indulgence and I believe it is good for me. Blood pressure is normal again and I can fit back in my high school pants. It’s been a revelation. I will never go back.
Glad your gout is done and your BP is back to normal. From what Ive seen the last few years with our oldsters, ending up on meds, for BP is the last thing you want. It’s criminal how many people over 65 get BP ‘meds’ pushed on them like candy.
What is even more sneaky is that the criteria for a borderline high blood pressure is 130 now instead of 140. That gives big pharma an excuse to put more people on blood pressure medication they may not need…but will bring more money in for them.
That’s so true. What’s expensive it the handling and processing. If you buy ingredients and cook food for yourself it does not have to be expensive. Real food comes in its own packaging, no a bag or box. That said, getting quality food can be expensive in time and to some extent money. You have to do it like your grandmother did, shop a couple of times a week to get fresh vegetables. Good chicken, pork, beef or fish directly from a rancher or from a quality butcher won’t be cheap. You have to bake bread once a week. Real food has poor shelf life unless you can or freeze it.
My wife & I had this realization about our food and lifestyle about 10 years ago, left the city and bought a house on 20 acres in the middle of nowhere. Took a while since we were clueless about this lifestyle, but now we have a huge garden, raise chickens, goats, and the occasional pig, trade eggs for raw milk and locally raised beef. Nothing is wasted; e.g., our leftover Thanksgiving turkey carcass, which we used to throw away, my wife boiled down and made a couple of quarts of bone broth and some dog food. In our mid-60’s we take no meds and are fitter, healthier, happier than we’ve ever been. It can be done.
Very few American seniors take no prescription drugs. Many are taking prescription drugs they don’t really need.
The blogger A Midwestern Doctor has written about how blood pressure guidelines were gradually lowered, in a manner not supported by mortality data, so that most seniors will be prescribed blood pressure medication as their BP rises with age.
It happened to an acquaintance of mine. John got overtreated for blood pressure, to the point of hypotension and syncope. One day at trail work, he passed out and fell backward. Luckily, his head barely missed hitting a sharp tool.
Did that blood pressure medication serve him well? I reckon not!
I took two BP meds in my 40’s but when I cleaned up my diet (mostly cutting out processed carbs) I no longer needed them; at 66 I’m around 115/75 every time it’s checked. Real food really is essential.
Hi Jim,
Big Pharma really does want everyone to be on a bunch of prescriptions, browbeating the medical establishment with their constantly evolving “guidelines” seems to be their strategy. Up through my 50’s my bp was 110/70, now it runs about 140/80, which is fine for someone my age (78).
My doc keeps pushing me to take a statin because my cholesterol is high, I think around 240. Too bad nobody ever mentions how cholesterol is vital to brain function, maybe the widespread use of statins explains why there are so many addled morons on the road these days. I take vitamins and supplements, otherwise proudly prescription free.
Hey Charles,
We’re on that same path, though we’re in our mid-40s and have yet to reach full self-sufficiency, but we’re getting there! My woman is having a blast incubating eggs and raising chicks and we’re enjoying the free eggs. I’m about to eat some.
We have several fruit trees planted and successfully growing. The garden and greenhouse are coming. I’m contemplating meat-rabbits at some point and raising a pig or two for ham and bacon is likely at some point in our future.
I’m happy it’s worked out for you and that good health has followed!
The story behind why there is cellulose in Permeesian cheese is that it is an anti caking ingredient so it doesn’t stick together. Amusingly I’m guessing that genuine Parmesan cheese from Italy doesn’t have it but you have to grate it yourself. Oh, the humanity…
As for cellulose in other cheeses? I’ll be checking for that now.
Any chicken or other meat you buy that says water chilled will be full of water when you cook it and take longer to cook. The lean meats they sell might be healthier but are trickier to still be tender after cooking.
I always read the labels and generally cook from scratch because it’s cooked the way I like it usually for less money. Besides; processed foods cost more money because they aren’t doing it for free.
I do have a garden and the damn squirrels love my organically grown corn and potatoes but they generally ignore the carrots, lettuce and radishes. Penned chickens like lettuce and carrot leaves. In summer they get clover and other plants that I weed out of the garden although grubs make them happier.
I just checked the butter in the fridge, “cream, salt” are the ingredients. Ironic, isn’t it, that it came from Sam’s Club of all places. The chicken we buy is another matter.
If you can swing it buying a whole cow and splitting it with family and friends is another option as well.
When I was working for a division of Unilever as a regional sales manager I wasn’t allowed to go on the second floor of the plant in Baltimore without an escort. The second floor was where all the Paki bioengineers worked whipping up “food” from inert chemicals. Oh, and we bought rape seed oil (canola sounds so much better) by the rail car.
Hi Mark.
Canola oil is the GMO version of Rape Seed oil. Apparently in WW2 large quantities of Rape Seed were grown to use it as an industrial lubricant and after the war the government of our future 51st state genetically modified it to be an edible oil as it was bred to have lower levels of erucic acid, a compound that can be harmful in large quantities.
I use Canola oil as a chainsaw bar oil and it works fine for that purpose.
Yes, without the reduced erucic acid, consuming Rape Seed (“Canola”) oil will destroy your heart. Canola and all other seed oils are poison. They’re also very good at causing skin cancer. Here’s a summary of a study:
“A 1996 study on Skh:HR-1 hairless mice found that a diet high in polyunsaturated sunflower oil significantly increased the severity of photocarcinogenesis, including higher tumor incidence, multiplicity, and progression to squamous cell carcinoma, compared to diets with lower polyunsaturated fat content. This effect was linked to enhanced photoimmunosuppression, as mice fed high polyunsaturated fat showed significantly suppressed contact hypersensitivity reactions after chronic UV irradiation. These findings suggest that dietary polyunsaturated fats may exacerbate UV-induced skin cancer development through immunological mechanisms.”
These seed oils replace the fats in your skin, causing it to be damaged. I used to burn very easily in the sun when I ate shit foods that made me feel like crap (chips, chicken tenders, bottled dressings, normal mayonnaise, fake butter, bread, etc.). Since eliminating all seed oils, I can stay out in the sun for a very long time now without burning. This has the added benefit of eliminating the use of expensive and poisonous sunscreen. Win, win, win.