Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Eh, what's a little bug in the food?

(warning-don't eat while reading this)
A couple of nights ago another cashier and I had a funny conversation about spiders. She said she heard on TV that we swallow on average 8 spiders a year while sleeping. Another cashier piped in....yeah I heard that too. Then the customer I had at the time proceeded to tell me how her Mom was drinking a cup of coffee and she felt something in her mouth and spit it out and it was a fly. Her Mom was really grossed out. Then she told me about a friend that had a roach problem who would only use light colored coffee mugs so she could see the roaches if they got in it.
Well guess what? This is nothing. We already have bugs in our food. Russell told me once that he heard there was a certain amount of *bugs* that was allowed to be in our food. He jokes around a lot and I thought he was kidding. So I did a bit of research.

The FDA calls them natural contaminates. A certain amount is allowed in our foods. Rat hairs, insect parts, insect eggs, rat and insect feces, parasites...it's all in there and there is nothing we can do about it. They say our food comes from nature and nature is not perfect. Chocolate anyone? On average there are 60 or more insect fragments in 100 grams of chocolate. Sound tasty? There are insects and eggs in canned juice, parasites in fish,and what they call insect and rodent filth in pasta, popcorn, peanut butter and flour. It's pretty much in everything that is processed. People buy food and find a bug in it or some other contaminate and they throw it away. But that is the one they can see. What about all the ones they can't see?

It gets worse. This morning I decided I'd make a pan of brownies. I got out the can of canola cooking spray. Canola is supposed to be healthy right? Then I got to thinking about how it smells like chemicals and I looked at the ingredients. They are as follows: canola oil, soy lecithin, water and propellant. I ask myself what the heck is propellant? It sounds like something you'd spray a squeaky door with or lube an engine. So I looked it up and this is what I found at a website about food additives.

Propellants
Propellants help expel the food from its container. Propellants are sealed under pressure in an aerosol food container. They enable an aerosol can to spray out its contents, like cream in a can with a nozzle. Propellants should always be listed on the label by name rather than using the class name propellant followed by the code number. Common propellants used are Carbon dioxide, Nitrogen, Nitrous oxide, Butane, Isobutane, Propane, Octafluorocyclobutane

Butane....isn't that the stuff you put in lighters? And we know what propane is. I can see why they have to put on the can...highly flammable. This stuff is allowed in our food. They say there are no side effects from it. I find that hard to believe. When added up with all the other junk they put in our food such as artificial sweeteners which are highly controversial if you research it....I don't see how this stuff can NOT affect people. I did not use the cooking spray, I threw it out.

They also try to disguise the names of things in the food we buy. Awhile back I was drinking propel water. That stuff is good. And I was happy it was not soda and had very little sugar and no artificial sweeteners. Or so I thought. There is something in it called acesulfame potassium. When I looked it up I found that was just another name for aspartame which is something I can't tolerate. And here I was thinking it was healthy. I saw the word potassium and thought that was salt like they put in Gatorade. haha....they had me fooled.

Is there any way to avoid all this stuff? Yeah, if you don't eat anything. There are even bugs in our flour so you can bake your own bread and it will be healthier but still have bugs in it. I guess you could grind your own wheat like many of the super *green* type people do but even then I'm sure that wheat contains some microscopic bugs we can't see. I think all we can really do is eat as few processed foods as possible to avoid this crap. Other than that, there's nothing we can do about it. Just read labels and make the best choices we can. So go buy that package of chocolate chip cookies with the little added surprise inside. ;)

8 comments:

  1. Ouch...man makes ya want to just use it all doesnt it!! Matter of fact I did know about the bugs ect in flurs, ckae mixes, any flour type products,..breads..muffins ect... and they can actually hatch in the flour products or so I was told......and to stop this process you can freeze od refrigerate the products.... but ya know they are still there...

    Just another reason I am glad I make my own butter....never buy cooking spray....dang Im gonna read that lable next time in the store!! Thanks for the heads up...

    May I copy your post and place it in *my space and in my facebook account? Or even just link it....give you credit... Id like to make people aware is all...excellent post!

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  2. Rebag: Sure do whatever you want with it. :)

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  3. Well I'm sure a some dead bugs if they've been sterilize in the food preparation process would hurt anything. People do eat and subsist on bugs in some parts of the world. Rodent feces on the otherhand I could live without.

    Being diabetic, I use judicious amounts of artifical sweetner and am aware of the "scientific battle" going on which proves them good - then bad - then good over and over. I guess for me - the benefits outweight the bad - or at least I hope so.

    I don't think I want to be eating the flammable stuff - although even wine is flammable.

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  4. I knew about the flour type bug eggs, too. Chemicals bother me more than natural stuff like critter eggs. I think we sometimes forget that we are just animals in a complex dirty dusty world. We can survive so much and remain healthy or at least functional--hehe! What bothers me terribly is how we have all the unnatural chemicals and preservatives in our foods. And it is neigh on to impossible to avoid them all. This is a good reminder for me to read labels again more closely. Thanks bug lady!! ;)

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  5. Basically, there's something in everything that is either bad for us or we probably wouldn't really want to be eating. All we can do is try and make healthy choices and hope for the best. Even plain water has a certain amount of bugs and chemicals in it, so there's no getting away from it. If you want to live, you have to eat and drink. And if you eat and drink then you're going to be eating all these not so nice things while doing so. No ifs ands or buts... That's life!

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  6. great post! I love this type of informational stuff.
    =]

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  7. Thanks for all the info. Im throwing away my Pam spray too. I had no idea we were eating bugs. Do you ever watch the show Monsters Inside Me on the animal planet. Check it out if you haven't already.
    I hear, feel and see things too. I think it's pretty neat

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  8. Indigo Incarnates

    Doug found a cockroach in his pasta once when we were in NYC. Yuck :P

    I've found gnats in my coffee and iced water lots of times when we've been out to eat. There's not much can be done about it in the summer.

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