What Passes for Food In America

Preface: I normally like to talk about what’s good about food on this blog. I like to celebrate good fats like butter and whole, raw milk, and and traditional nourishing foods. I prefer not to rant about what’s wrong with modern food. I don’t think it’s healthy to get too neurotic and paranoid about what’s in our food. We all have to do the best we can. However, I also think its important to expose industrial food and industrial food processing. Hence, this post.

Last week we took a weekend trip down to San Diego with my in-laws to do Sea World and the San Diego Zoo with our daughter. Normally when we go on vacation, I bring our food and we get a hotel room where we can cook. It’s more work for me and I don’t really get a real vacation, but I believe it’s important to feed our family well even when we are traveling. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper than eating out every day.

On this trip, we were only going for a weekend so I figured we’d have less stress and just eat out. We had a great time, and we stayed in one of those hotels that have suites, so we saved some money that way. It was a very nice hotel, recently remodeled. They also told us proudly that a free breakfast was included.

There Is No Such Thing As A Free Breakfast

Even at no cost, this free breakfast was no bargain. I would rather pay less for the hotel room and have them offer no breakfast.

I was dismayed and disgusted by what they tried to pass off to us as food. Not only did it taste terrible, there was no nutrition at this buffet. None whatsoever.

And, of course, the place was packed every morning. Nobody seemed to notice or care how bad it was.

If it were just us adults, I wouldn’t care — I’m not a big breakfast eater and I could have just grabbed something at the zoo. But I have a growing child to feed. And based on the garbage they were trying to pass off as food at this free breakfast buffet, and the complete lack of nutrition, we’d have been better off going to McDonald’s.

Here’s what they offered at the hotel breakfast buffet: scrambled eggs, sausage, fried potatoes, granola, milk, toast, bagels, muffins, cereal, waffles, yogurt, coffee, tea and juice.

Sounds pretty good, eh? Surely we should have been able to find something to eat. You would think!

Fake Eggs

I tasted the eggs. There was something funny about them. You always have to be suspicious of scrambled eggs. If you’re served a whole egg, sunny side up, it’s pretty obvious that it is an egg. It might not be the most nutritious egg, and yeah, it’s a factory farm egg, but at least it’s a real egg.

These scrambled eggs were most likely made from powdered eggs. What’s wrong with that? A little something called oxidized cholesterol.

What’s Oxidized Cholesterol?

Remember all those studies that came out that said cholesterol was bad for you? According to Ray Peat, PhD:

Around 1971, someone noticed that the commercial cholesterol used in feeding experiments was oxidized, that is, it wasn’t really cholesterol. Comparing carefully prepared, unoxidized cholesterol with the oxidized degraded material, it was found that pure dietary cholesterol was relatively non-atherogenic. (Source: Ray Peat’s Newsletter September 2005)

What does this mean? Bruce Fife, N.D., explains:

The cholesterol in fresh milk, eggs and meat is not oxidized and is utilized by the body to strengthen cell membranes, synthesize vital hormones, and build brain and nerve tissue. The drying process in making powdered milk, cheese, and eggs fully oxidizes the cholesterol in these products. Once oxidized it can not be utilized in the normal fashion to build and strengthen body tissues, but is packed away into the plaque of injured arteries. Eating such foods will surely clog your arteries faster than any other substance known on the face of the earth. (Source: Saturated Fat May Save Your Life

Sally Fallon Morell elaborates:

A note on the production of skim milk powder: liquid milk is forced through a tiny hole at high pressure, and then blown out into the air. This causes a lot of nitrates to form and the cholesterol in the milk is oxidized. Those of you who are familiar with my work know that cholesterol is your best friend; you don’t have to worry about natural cholesterol in your food; however, you do not want to eat oxidized cholesterol. Oxidized cholesterol contributes to the buildup of plaque in the arteries, to atherosclerosis. So when you drink reduced-fat milk thinking that it will help you avoid heart disease, you are actually consuming oxidized cholesterol, which initiates the process of heart disease. (Source: Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry)

Extended Sausage

The sausage was even worse tasting than the eggs. I have no idea what it was made from but I’m sure it had some kind of extender added to it. Sausages are one of the meat products that are very commonly “extended” with fillers.

I wondered what could be in this sausage other than sausage. I knew it had to be something because it didn’t taste very much like sausage. It tasted more like cardboard.

I looked it up online and found a book on meat science (Meat Science and Applications) which said that sausage is commonly extended with all kinds of things including: water, non-fat powdered milk (more oxidized cholesterol), whey protein concentrate (oxidized cholesterol), sodium caseinate (I didn’t know what this was so I looked it up. According to answers.com, sodium caseinate is, “A tasteless, odorless, water-soluble, white powder; used in medicine, foods, emulsification,” Ahhhhh! Even more oxidized cholesterol!), wheat gluten, cereal flours, tapioca dextrin, soy flour, and soy protein concentrate.

Don’t get me started on soy. I avoid soy like the plague, as most of my readers do. If you want to know why soy is bad, check out Kaayla Daniel’s book, The Whole Soy Story (which I’m reading now).

White Flour Galore

You could have your choice of baked goods — toast, waffles, bagels, muffins — but they were all made with white flour. Even the whole wheat bread was that kind of fake whole wheat that is really made from refined white flour and has coloring to make it look dark. As my readers know, there is zero nutrition in white flour. There is no point eating it. Plus, most modern baked goods have additives like high fructose corn syrup and soy flour.

High-Fructose Corn Syrup

I never order waffles or pancakes in restaurants. Not only is it white flour that fills you up and provides no nutrition, but you can never find real maple syrup in a restaurant. It’s always just called “syrup”. Thanks, but I’d rather not eat a load of HFCS first thing in the morning.

The waffle syrup was not the only thing with HFCS. It’s in everything these days — anything sweet. The yogurt, the jam, the cereals, the granola.

What About Cereal?

Most of my readers know that extruded cereals are not a healthy choice. The extrusion process denatures the proteins, rendering them toxic. To read more about why extruded cereals are bad for you, see this article: Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry.

OK, but what about granola? That’s not extruded, right? Right, but it’s made of mostly oatmeal. When oatmeal is not soaked, it’s chock full of phytic acid — an antinutrient that blocks mineral absorption. Not something you want, especially for growing children.

Low-Fat Everything

Other than the powdered eggs and extended sausage, there was nothing with fat at the buffet. This was extremely disappointing, because I know how important it is to fuel a toddler with good fats.

Sure, they had milk but it was pasteurized, not organic, and it was low-fat. They only had 2% and skim. They had cream for the coffee but it was ultra-pasteurized. They yogurt was also low-fat. And they only had margarine for the colored faux-whole-wheat toast.

What’s wrong with pasteurized low-fat milk? Well, it’s not just the fact that it’s devoid of all the good stuff — the good fat soluble vitamins, the enzymes, the probiotics, etc.

As Sally Fallon Morell mentioned in the earlier quote, pasteurized low-fat milk has powdered milk added to it. That’s right, more oxidized cholesterol.

According to Sally Fallon Morell:

Powdered milk is added to 1% and 2% milk to give it body. Regarding milk, the more I learn about pasteurization, the more I realize how harmful it is (for other reasons than the oxidation of cholesterol). And now most milk is ultra-pasteurized, especially most organic milk.

I think if people can’t get raw milk, the next best thing is pasteurized (not ultra-pasteurized) cream diluted with water. The fats are much less prone to damage by pasteurization than the water portion of the milk, and at least the fats in cream have not been homogenized. This is what I did for my family when we could not get raw milk. We used diluted cream on porridge and in cooking. (Source: Kelly the Kitchen Kop)

Isn’t it ironic that people think they are avoiding cholesterol by drinking skim milk — when in reality, it’s actually full of the bad cholesterol — the oxidized cholesterol?

What’s a Mother to Do?

We ate at the free breakfast buffet the first morning morning and I decreed that we would not go back. My father-in-law said he thought it was “fine” — but of course, he’s one of the most easy-going people on the planet. He’s one of those people who’s happy with a danish and some coffee. He’d rather not know what’s in the food. As he likes to say with a wink and a smile, “Don’t confuse me with the facts!”

I used the Garmin GPS to search for Whole Foods and lo and behold, there was one less than five minutes away. Our hotel had a full kitchen so we could make eggs and bacon there every morning. Whole Foods also had a full breakfast bar, so if we didn’t feel like cooking, we could just head over there. And in California, you can buy raw milk in the store — so we stocked the fridge. We ate delicious dinners from Whole Foods every night.

Even More Oxidized Cholesterol

It wasn’t just at the hotel breakfast that we encountered oxidized cholesterol. When we were at the zoo, we thought it would be fun to get Katie some ice cream. We found a place selling ice cream, and then we realized it was soft-serve ice cream.

I have never really liked soft serve ice cream. It’s OK, but I’d much rather have what I consider to be real ice cream. I feel the same way about low-fat frozen yogurt. What is the point?

I remembered seeing a place with real ice cream so we walked an extra 15 minutes to get to that one.

I’m glad we did. When I was researching powdered eggs for this post, I was surprised to learn that soft-serve ice cream also usually contains oxidized cholesterol.

Soft-serve ice cream has been shown to contain higher levels of oxidized cholesterol than traditionally produced hard ice cream because it is often produced from a powdered mix containing powdered milk and cream. (Source: Integrated Supplements newsletter)

There Is No Such Thing As Cheap Food

This is what drives me crazy about industrial food. It’s so hard to eat out these days because you never know what you are getting. Oxidized cholesterol, trans-fats, powdered eggs, soy extenders. I never knew about any of this stuff a few years ago.

You end up feeling like one of those moms on the high-fructose corn syrup commercials. People give you that look, you know the one. Rolling their eyes. “Oh, no, here she goes again.”

Luckily, I have the best in-laws who are very open-minded and totally supportive of the way I feed our family. I’m so grateful for them. My mother-in-law was the one who wanted me to do this post — she even came up with the title, “What Passes for Food in America”. (She even took the photos for this post. She said she was snapping pics and someone came up to her and said, “You’re taking pictures?” and she said, “Yes, my daughter-in-law is going to write about it on her blog. She writes about food and nutrition.” They said, “How’d we stack up?” She said she just smiled and gave them a thumbs up. Ha! Don’t you LOVE it?)

I do spend a lot of time educating them, though. It doesn’t hurt that my mother-in-law reads this blog. I think it can be hard with family members who just don’t know any better — and if you don’t take the time to explain why you do the things you do, they are not going to be as understanding. If they act like you are being a pain, you just have to take the time to explain and try to help them understand.

I find that when I provide my family members with information, they tend to be open to it. Not always, and not all family members. But many of them are. For example, when my mother read Sally Fallon Morell’s book, Nourishing Traditions, (which was lying around at my sister’s house — because I had sent her a copy) she said, “I had no idea our food supply had changed so much in the past few decades.”

The biggest advantage industrial food has is a lack of information. When we educate ourselves, it’s a lot easier to make healthy choices. I think it’s important that we all speak out and demand quality food for our children and for ourselves.

As Michael Pollan says, “There is no such thing as cheap food.” There is always a cost. Pay now or pay later. I’d rather eat well now than eat cheaply and pay later for diabetes medication and hospital visits.

Share Your Comments

What about you guys? How do deal with food when you travel? Do you find it challenging? Share your thoughts and tips in the comments below.

This post is a part of Fight Back Friday on Food Renegade.

Disclosure: cmp.ly/4 and cmp.ly/5

Tagged as: heart disease, oxidized cholesterol