Is There Evil Lurking in Your Cupboard?

Here is a guest blog from my favorite health guru, my mom, Margaret.

           I have begun to read labels with regularity, trying to weed out foods with unhealthy ingredients.  Of course, I don’t pick up a bell pepper and look for ingredients, or a strawberry, although I do try to be sure those two foods are organic, being as how they are the two worst offenders for pesticide residue if not grown without it.

            Similarly, I don’t bother – at least I did not in the past – to read the labels on foods such as vinegar, baking soda, or spices.  One or at most two ingredient foods, I thought.

            So one day I am preparing a used bottle of the most delicious vinegar in the world for recycling.  As I wash it, I absent-mindedly read the label.  O. M. G.!  Third ingredient:  High Fructose Corn Syrup.  Well, no wonder it was so good – I would never deny that HFCS does not make foods taste great – I merely believe that they turn foods into delicious “edible food-like substances”, as Michael Pollan describes so much of what Americans eat.

            After I recovered from this horrifying discovery, I went through my refrigerator and pantry looking for other offenders.  Catsup, pickles, bar-b-que sauce, horseradish, and Worcestershire!  Now, the company that makes this particular Worcestershire has been in business since before 1839, (which I did not know before, but I did know that it had been around since I was a youngster, which was a very long time ago and way before the “invention” of HFCS.  Why, then, does this appear on their bottle:  “The Original Worcestershire Sauce”?   HFCS was developed in 1971.  According to the website of the particular Worcestershire lurking in my cabinet, the product today “remains true to the spirit of the original recipe”.  That, however, is not at all what it says on the label, and I think they should be ashamed of themselves.

            I also found a can of so-called “Healthy Request” tomato soup in my pantry that contains HFCS – “healthy”, what a laugh!  I should have known - Michael Pollan warns that anything labeling itself “healthy” or “lite” is probably anything but.

            It is possible to find perfectly good catsup, worcestershire, and tomato soups without hfcs in them, mostly at health food stores. 

            Here’s to healthy choices and reading labels and eating Food!  And keeping the devil out of your pantry!