Healthy equals natural.

by Janne Gunnarsson
(Karlstad, Sweden)

I'm so glad the "eating healthy" point of cooking gets discussed. My tip for eating more healthy spells as-few-artificial-ingredients-as-possible.

My point is that we in general, thanks to good marketing, are not able to go to the regular grocery store without coming home with a complete chemistry box. We're supposed to shove that into our hungry bodies and believe that we are eating "light".

A couple of examples;

Boullion and fonds off the shelf usually contain not just one "flavour enhancer(?)" but several and the rest is aromas, couloring, thickeners, and the "meat" content is usually extract and as little as maybe 2, 3%.

Only 2-3% of the Vanilla flavour used worldwide comes from real vanilla. The rest comes from petrochemicals and even rotten spruce, from witch you can extract lignin or more commonly known as "vanillin".

If you remove fat and sugar to make a product "lighter" you also change the mouthfeel drastic. The food industry deals with this by adding emulsifiers,stabilisers, starches. There's even mayo where the egg yolk and milk proteins are removed for a light product, where's the mayo in that?.

I'm not this crazy activist fighting the food industry. I'm just a guy that wants to know what i put into my mouth and by using natural ingredients and cooking by methods I believe that I get the best control of my health.

Please keep this discussion going guys, What do you think?

If anyone wants to know more, contact me at facebook.

Sincerely

Janne Gunnarsson, Sweden.
www.facebook.com/jannegunnarsson