My friend Charlotte commented on the RIP post and made me think of what foods I eat, and what foods I am trying to avoid.
I have started buying nitrate free deli meat, since I'm uncomfortable with my kids eating so much lunch meat. It's harder to find, and our regular grocery store doesn't carry any. If I say I'm not eating meat with nitrates/nitrites in it, I'm also going to have to stop eating ham, hot dogs, and who knows what else.
The other thing that I've decided really grosses me out is jello. I LOVE jello. Especially red jello with bananas and raspberries inside and cool whip on top ala my granny (who died a few years ago). Gelatin just sounds nasty though. Thankfully, my sister found some vegan gelatin, and made some for us at a family party last year. It was a little runnier than granny's but didn't have the "ew gross" factor.
So what foods don't you eat, and why not?
(My mister loves it when I decide that "we're" not eating certain things anymore. He doesn't know about hot dogs yet. Sorry Mister. Maybe I'll be able to find some that both taste good and are nitrate free....)
9 comments:
It is hard to find nitrate/nitrite free foods. I'll scan the backs of packages forever trying to find some without and there really aren't any. So we try and avoid them as much as we can and eat hot dogs sparingly. We also don't eat margarine, white bread (unless it's for panini's or other gourmet-type sandwiches and then it's kinda rustic), pasteurized fake cheese, fruit juice, soda, whole milk, and I try to avoid milk with growth hormones. The drink thing is really hard because I only believe in water, but sometimes Wayne has to have his sports drinks and then the kids want them too, so I've tried to get the low-cal kind. I also try really hard not to buy cereal. For the most part it's just sugar and it doesn't really do any one any good. Not as much as a bowl of oatmeal or piece of whole wheat toast anyway. (I do love a good bowl of Golden Grahams once a year though). We also have to avoid other pastries and granola bars because of allergies. And this is making me sound like we don't eat anything fun. But we do buy some of these things occasionally as treats or when we go out to eat. However, I've never purchased margarine and don't ever plan to.
Hormel makes some nitrate/nitrite free lunch meat, I found it at smiths marketplace. Costco had a nitrate free ham awhile back, but I haven't seen them since.
How come you don't drink whole milk? Do you give babies something else between 1-2 years? Just wondering if there's something in whole milk that I should be aware of since C drinks whole milk right now.
I don't by regular margarine, but I do buy the smart spread stuff that lowers cholesterol.
Cereal is my weakness. I love cereal. I don't buy any that I consider to be "sugar cereals" except for camping.
I made homemade granola awhile back and it turned out really good except for the too-crunchy things I put in it. I'll know better for next time.
Not buying cereal would save us a lot of money- and I hadn't thought about giving the kids toast for breakfast.... We'd drink more OJ that way, but I water it down quite a bit.
Oh- and juice, I don't usually buy juice, but we've discovered that cranberry juice is really good mixed with soda water for special treats. The kids don't like it, so they just get watered down cranberry juice. We also sometimes drink our homemade grape juice. Plus I bought cranberry plants this year to make juice with.
It's hard to find juice that doesn't have artificial sweetners in it. I try to find the kind that is 100% juice and is sweetened with grape or apple juice.
Oh- I also don't buy farmed fish. When costco has alaskan salmon, I usually buy it for one dinner (it's expensive!), but most of the time they just have the farmed atlantic salmon.
Way too many comments from me- I should just edit my post...
All of these foods that I "don't" eat or buy of course make me feel superior :) to people who do eat these things, but I recognize that different people have different needs and priorities in their lives and that I'm not likely to live any longer because of my food choices...
Re: cereal - my biggest problem is the price. There are a lot of healthy cereals: All-Bran, Shredded Wheat, Ezekiel, Kashi, etc. But I suppose some people wouldn't call those "cereal" lol.
Eat Brats, they are better in every way, especially with some blood cleansing kraut spread generously over them!
I actually really love cereal - even the kind that tastes like straw and dirt. No one else does, which means I have to eat the whole box alone. Then I feel like a pig. I'm like you and just make my own granola with lots of food storage stuff.
And I had forgotten about the buying whole milk for babies under 2 thing. I just haven't had to buy it for so long that I didn't remember that in a few months I'll have to start up again. The main reason is the fat content. But you're right, babies need it.
The main reason I don't like juice is the calorie content. I don't want my kids to get used to drinking too many sweet things in order to get their recommended liquid for the day.
And yes you're right about us sounding like food snobs. We're so awesome because we're so aware!
But really, I'm guilty of buying most of these things at some point because sometimes, you just have to. I'm just trying to be good the majority of the time and be more whole foodsy. Which is a store they need here, by the way. Whole Foods, that is. Very cool. And one of the things I miss about Boston. Totally your kind of store.
Hey Al! Thanks for the shout-out:) They DO make nitrate/ite-free hot dogs. They're a little pricier but they taste every bit as good (and as fatty) as the originals. Also, there's a ton of yummy chicken sausage out there. I've switched out hot dogs/brats for minimally processed chix sausage for my kids.
And yeah, I'm as neurotic as you are about the lunch meat.
As for what I don't eat? Well, I'm a vegetarian and I'll just leave it at that:)
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