This seems to be cropping up more and more. It started with a fruit bread based snack for DD#1 - and for once it had an icing - white of course - no food colourings allowed... And there it was 'solvent'. yuck. I have been trying to find out what it is of course and so far as I can tell it will be propylene glycol . There are some interesting findings about this stuff. Now I understand that like all chemicals they can be quite hazardous in large amounts - or at 100% concentrations. However I don't want to eat solvent. Thanks. I also don't want it near me - and why? Well my mother-in-law suffered a bad reaction to our babies wipes - and perfumes and air fresheners -anything with this stuff in it. And if she could have such a bad reaction and need an inhaler from just walking into a room where I had changed a nappy - WHAT IS IT DOING TO ME AND MY BABY?
So read the labels. As for me - I am throwing out the wipes and will buy some flannels - we'll go back to doing things the old-fashioned way. And as for DD#1 - we won't be buying any more fruit bread 'treats'.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Bread
I love bread. Fresh baked, golden, crispy. It fills the home with its unmistakeable aroma. Mmmmmmm. So when I make soup, I make fresh bread - yeast, strong flour, sugar, salt and water. Sometimes I even add rosemary or garlic or something a bit special. What I don't add are improvers. Or emulsifiers. Or other such garbage. But it amazes me how common they are in shop-bought bread. I don't really want a loaf to last several days. I want it to taste nice. I want it to have a great texture and be wonderful spread with butter or whatever I fancy.
Anyway, things have been busy at home and I had the ends of 3 shop bought loafs on the counter top- ready to feed the ducks actually. Looking through the ingredients aside from the ingredients I mentioned previously I found:
soya flour
vegetable oil
vinegar
canola oil
263
471
472e
481
170
300
516
I don't want vinegar in my bread. My husband can't stand vinegar and when you try and toast this sort of bread the kitchen is filled with a strong acidic waft. Yuck! I don't actually want oil in my bread either. And I like my flour to be normal from wheat rather than soya - or am I just a purist? I will happily exchange honey for sugar on occasions as the loaf demands - or add grains or fruit, or malt extract. But it makes me annoyed that I have to stand in the supermarket with two kids as I try to work out which is the best loaf - that is to say - the one that most closely resembles real bread.
Anyway, things have been busy at home and I had the ends of 3 shop bought loafs on the counter top- ready to feed the ducks actually. Looking through the ingredients aside from the ingredients I mentioned previously I found:
soya flour
vegetable oil
vinegar
canola oil
263
471
472e
481
170
300
516
I don't want vinegar in my bread. My husband can't stand vinegar and when you try and toast this sort of bread the kitchen is filled with a strong acidic waft. Yuck! I don't actually want oil in my bread either. And I like my flour to be normal from wheat rather than soya - or am I just a purist? I will happily exchange honey for sugar on occasions as the loaf demands - or add grains or fruit, or malt extract. But it makes me annoyed that I have to stand in the supermarket with two kids as I try to work out which is the best loaf - that is to say - the one that most closely resembles real bread.
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
normal service will be resumed shortly...
Well baby has kept me up a lot recently hence the lack of postings! But I've also had food poisoning. It seems that when we go out not only am I more aware of what is in my food but that some standards aren't exactly as good as my own!
Seriously - going out for food is getting hard. Burger places are loaded with additives and trans fats, Chinese has MSG usually. Family places have too many to list. It makes going out for food rather hard.
We have discovered going out with kids is really hard. First we have to please everyone - now baby is 10 months and has gone right off baby food, we have to find somewhere that does high chairs and food that she will eat. And that DD#1 will eat - without additives. And the food has to be ready right now. Or in no more than 5 minutes. Or there's trouble.
Doesn't leave many options does it? Recently I've being trying to explain why we 'don't eat things that are brightly(luridly) coloured' in our family. Ever tried to explain to a three year old why she doesn't get lollies? Or bought biscuits, or gingerbread men with hundreds and thousands on them? Or bread with pink icing or doughnuts with blue? Or flavoured chippies? And the list goes on and on. I don't think we do too badly all things considered. She seems to have grasped that it makes us 'poorly' - not that it turns her into a unreasonable, defiant monster. So maybe that's okay for now.
We made gingerbread men the other day. I wondered what we would do for decoration. I needn't have been concerned: they got eaten before the cookies were cool.
Seriously - going out for food is getting hard. Burger places are loaded with additives and trans fats, Chinese has MSG usually. Family places have too many to list. It makes going out for food rather hard.
We have discovered going out with kids is really hard. First we have to please everyone - now baby is 10 months and has gone right off baby food, we have to find somewhere that does high chairs and food that she will eat. And that DD#1 will eat - without additives. And the food has to be ready right now. Or in no more than 5 minutes. Or there's trouble.
Doesn't leave many options does it? Recently I've being trying to explain why we 'don't eat things that are brightly(luridly) coloured' in our family. Ever tried to explain to a three year old why she doesn't get lollies? Or bought biscuits, or gingerbread men with hundreds and thousands on them? Or bread with pink icing or doughnuts with blue? Or flavoured chippies? And the list goes on and on. I don't think we do too badly all things considered. She seems to have grasped that it makes us 'poorly' - not that it turns her into a unreasonable, defiant monster. So maybe that's okay for now.
We made gingerbread men the other day. I wondered what we would do for decoration. I needn't have been concerned: they got eaten before the cookies were cool.
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Take one chicken...
Ever noticed how expensive portions of chicken are? Buy a whole chicken instead. First make sure it isn't one that somes prestuffed or pre injected with all sorts (they usually come in an oven bag ready to roast). Then roast it. Easy. Make the gravy with cornflour and the meat juices from the pan - it really helps to season the chicken and stuff it with an small onion and a bay leaf! If you are going all out for excellent gravy then 1/2 a celery stick, a couple of peppercorns and some sticks of carrot in the cavity help.
Then slice all the meat - and tear off the bits from underneath and dig into the wings and everywhere on the carcass - you'll be amazed how much there is if you don't normally do this!
So go for it with a roast dinner. Make it easy by doing dry roast potatoes, kumara, carrots, pumpkin and parsnips at the same time as the roast chicken.
So what do you do with the leftovers? Ideas...
have another roast dinner in a giant yorkshire pudding
eat in sandwiches
warm and make a mushroom and white wine sauce to top it
toss with pasta and pesto
add to pizza (if thats your thing)
throw it at your neighbours
puree it then freeze it into bullet shapes and then shoot fat people with it
make it into a hat
sell it on trademe
try to clone it and re-create the original living organisms
use it to lure homeless people into your car and then sell them on trademe
parcel it up and send it to Ethiopia
Is anyone reading this?
Then slice all the meat - and tear off the bits from underneath and dig into the wings and everywhere on the carcass - you'll be amazed how much there is if you don't normally do this!
So go for it with a roast dinner. Make it easy by doing dry roast potatoes, kumara, carrots, pumpkin and parsnips at the same time as the roast chicken.
So what do you do with the leftovers? Ideas...
have another roast dinner in a giant yorkshire pudding
eat in sandwiches
warm and make a mushroom and white wine sauce to top it
toss with pasta and pesto
add to pizza (if thats your thing)
throw it at your neighbours
puree it then freeze it into bullet shapes and then shoot fat people with it
make it into a hat
sell it on trademe
try to clone it and re-create the original living organisms
use it to lure homeless people into your car and then sell them on trademe
parcel it up and send it to Ethiopia
Is anyone reading this?
Sunday, June 3, 2007
The deli counter at the supermarket
This is not a friend of anyone who is trying to avoid food additives! It all looks so good - but when you read the labels they go on and on: salts, nitrites, honey, MSG...
I have never found anything that is really ok to eat and doesn't contain heaps of the nasty chemicals! We do indulge in ham on the bone occasionally.
Really it seems that you get what you pay for. Budget end is sausage and luncheon. Dare you look at the ingredients? Top end is prosciutto and ham on the bone. Even sundried tomatoes usually have preservative in.
A lot of hams contain honey - how many parents read that label before giving it to the kids? Most contain MSG and are bulked out with water/brine. Ever had real ham? It is drier and slightly sweet and a different shade of pink than the average. And totally delicious. Unfortunately it is now very hard to get hold of here. I know. I've tried. If anyone knows of a place here in Christchurch that does it properly then please reply!
Bring back the old fashioned butchers!!!
I have never found anything that is really ok to eat and doesn't contain heaps of the nasty chemicals! We do indulge in ham on the bone occasionally.
Really it seems that you get what you pay for. Budget end is sausage and luncheon. Dare you look at the ingredients? Top end is prosciutto and ham on the bone. Even sundried tomatoes usually have preservative in.
A lot of hams contain honey - how many parents read that label before giving it to the kids? Most contain MSG and are bulked out with water/brine. Ever had real ham? It is drier and slightly sweet and a different shade of pink than the average. And totally delicious. Unfortunately it is now very hard to get hold of here. I know. I've tried. If anyone knows of a place here in Christchurch that does it properly then please reply!
Bring back the old fashioned butchers!!!
Sandwiches
One of the questions I get asked the most is just what I put in sandwiches for the kids. I think we eat a more varied diet than most because of avoiding certain products. So here is a list of the regular fillings - with or without salad of course:
cheese
cream cheese
marmite
tuna and mayo (with sweetcorn sometimes)
poached salmon and mayo or tinned salmon
ham (occasionally - and the best quality I can buy)
fruit spread
almond butter
nutella (occasionally) - and always on wholemeal grainy bread
leftover cold roast chicken
leftover beef joint
egg
There are plenty of other options too that my daughter doesn't really like
tomato
cottage cheese
peanut butter (sometimes with fruit spread)
smoked salmon
prawns
hummus
banana
honey
And then there's the toasted sandwich with a salad garnish:
cheese and onion or pineapple or tomato
mashed up baked beans ( protein and fibre!)
I love that daughter will eat these as they are a really quick and easy balanced meal - if you put some cherry tomatoes, celery and carrot sticks, cucumber stars (use cookie cutters)and lettuce on the side too.
Who said that avoiding food additives was hard?
cheese
cream cheese
marmite
tuna and mayo (with sweetcorn sometimes)
poached salmon and mayo or tinned salmon
ham (occasionally - and the best quality I can buy)
fruit spread
almond butter
nutella (occasionally) - and always on wholemeal grainy bread
leftover cold roast chicken
leftover beef joint
egg
There are plenty of other options too that my daughter doesn't really like
tomato
cottage cheese
peanut butter (sometimes with fruit spread)
smoked salmon
prawns
hummus
banana
honey
And then there's the toasted sandwich with a salad garnish:
cheese and onion or pineapple or tomato
mashed up baked beans ( protein and fibre!)
I love that daughter will eat these as they are a really quick and easy balanced meal - if you put some cherry tomatoes, celery and carrot sticks, cucumber stars (use cookie cutters)and lettuce on the side too.
Who said that avoiding food additives was hard?
Food additives
So how widespread are food additives? Particularly the ones that the latest research tells us our kids should avoid at all costs. They are in just about every processed food from bread and spreads to canned goods (once upon a time didn't canning actually eliminate the need for preservatives?), drinks, puddings... Frozen foods even contain them.
I make my own bread. I confess - I do own a bread maker to help things along. All the recipes use surebake instead of regular yeast. It took trial and error to work out the actually quantity of yeast I really needed. It's half. So by omitting the additives I get to buy just yeast (which is cheaper) and use only half the quantity. You also don't need the milk/dried milk. Real bread. Oh -don't expect it to last. It's wonderful on the day and great for toast the next morning but then use it as breadcrumbs as it will be too hard and dry. I wonder how the manufacturers manage to make theirs last 3 or 4 days? Oh that's right ;-)
I make my own bread. I confess - I do own a bread maker to help things along. All the recipes use surebake instead of regular yeast. It took trial and error to work out the actually quantity of yeast I really needed. It's half. So by omitting the additives I get to buy just yeast (which is cheaper) and use only half the quantity. You also don't need the milk/dried milk. Real bread. Oh -don't expect it to last. It's wonderful on the day and great for toast the next morning but then use it as breadcrumbs as it will be too hard and dry. I wonder how the manufacturers manage to make theirs last 3 or 4 days? Oh that's right ;-)
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