Food additives

This article is just one of the reasons why I try to eat as much of my food as possible from local, organic, and unprocessed sources. How appetizing does this sound?

On a recent summer morning, he hovered over a whirling assembly line as a waterfall of gray liquid cascaded over slabs of breaded chicken. Then the magic began.

During the bath in the liquid solution, which consisted of water and protein molecules extracted from a slurry of chicken or fish tissue, a thin, imperceptible shield formed around the meat. When the chicken was submerged in oil, the coating blocked fat from being absorbed from the fryer.

The point, of course, is the next sentence, which states that the result contained 50% less fat than normal fried chicken. But who would want to eat chicken coated with a "gray liquid ... consist[ing] of ... a slurry of chicken or fish tissue"? EW!

Apparently, lots of Americans. And this is perhaps what most disgusts me:

The most obvious way to get more fiber into the diet is to increase consumption of whole and unprocessed fruit, vegetables and beans. But food companies say that many Americans are unwilling to make significant changes in their eating choices to do this, and food companies are more than willing to fill in the gaps.

...

Food companies insist that, unlike their critics, they are pragmatists. They say their consumer research shows that convenience and taste still outrank nutrition as the top priority for most people and that consumers have no intention of giving up their favorite foods.

That is good news for the industry. If Americans stopped eating large quantities of fried chicken, sweetened breakfast cereal, cookies and snack chips, the financial health of many companies would suffer. [emph. added]

Oh, I bet they are. Remind me NEVER TO BUY ANYTHING PROCESSED, EVER AGAIN, just in case I should get FISH EXTRACT in my bread:

Coming soon to your grocery store, for example, could be ... bread containing microscopic capsules of fish oil, enabling food companies to contend that the bread is "heart-healthy" because of the cholesterol and triglyceride-lowering omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil.

Again, I say: EW! I don't suppose they'll even bother LABELLING this, so those of us that prefer to know what we're eating can avoid it, eh? Answer: no. To wit:

The label on the bread, [Jim Zallie, a food scientist and National Starch group vice president] says, is unlikely to advertise the fish oil content, but simply cite the presence of omega-3's.

Fuckers.

Sigh. All the more reason to get that sourdough starter going, and just make my own ...