Healthy Food

This topic has bothered me for quite a while.  I have always been a proponent of moderation in pretty much anything, including shopping for food.  I am lucky I live in a country where even the Aldi offers Bio products and local fresh produce. But here is my issue,  I do not like to buy the same products in the same shops over and over again.  That is, sometimes I buy Bio sometimes not.  Sometimes I shop in other stores and the same thing goes in those other shops.  I know the kinds of fruits that are standard in my house, apples, bananas, oranges... the rest are seasonal when possible.  We especially enjoy strawberry season here in Germany.  I like to buy a variety of food.  To give an example my family eats meat, but not only chicken, beef and pork.  We also eat turkey, goose, quail, two varieties of deer, ostrich, rabbit, guinea fowl and boar.  Some of these are seasonal but that is even better.

My point is that most of us are educated enough to know that mass produced steaks come from animals floating in antibiotics, suspicious feed and horrible living conditions.  If I eat meat from only one source then I concentrate the dangers inherent in that source.  Hence our consumption of Guinea fowl, as it resists rearing in the usual chicken pens.  Moreover, it actually tastes like the chickens of my childhood.  It is also disconcerting to roast a supermarket chicken only to find it floating in about a two centimeters of water.  It turns out that the company that sells them pumps them full of water to even out the weight.  Go to your market and check it out.  If all the young chickens weigh the same then they are injected with water.  I do not buy that brand at that supermarket anymore. I would rather pay a little more for 100% chicken then a little less but it is up to 10% water.

Here is where it gets tricky.  I have been informed me over several conversations that Bio food is labeled by a reliable agency as "Bio" and so it is trust worthy and my precautions are unnecessary if I buy Bio with that label... I disagreed.  Labels mean nothing because I come from South America so the local food tastes excellent but corruption can also taint a food source with cheaper feed, added sugar or chemicals to mature the fruit artificially.  But here is Europe, I was assured it is not possible... then we had this horse meat in the minced meat supply.  Well, it was for cheap ready made foods... right?  then it turned up in the minced meat.  Then it turns out that some of the Bio eggs sold in parts of Germany had not been Bio at all.  Oh and milk cattle, it seems, were given moldy feed, so the milk supply might be tainted.  These are the recent news in this part of Europe.  There is also the ongoing issues of chemicals leaked from plastics in our packaged food, hormones in the water supply, insecticides on our fresh produce and fertilizers polluting the water ways, oceans and water cisterns.  My point is that no one has said how long these issues have existed.  Moreover, how many violators do not get caught?  Many chemicals have not been properly tested for certain domestic uses.  Some government labels inform us that below certain concentrations X chemical is safe... What about when it is combined with all the other chemicals in the food supply?  I have looked for such tests but some are still ongoing and the rest are few and far between.  So I do not trust labels.  Yes, I am feeling smug.

I do spread the risk as a matter of habit but also so that my children taste all kinds of food and learn to discern.  I did the taste test with the Guinea fowl.  I prepared it exactly like my usual roast chicken... you know, standard Sunday night roast.  I received so many compliments from my troops.  It was interesting to then show my husband what we ate.  He was happy and I don't get comments about shopping for proper tasting chicken anymore.  One more fun example... We were in London for a Spring break a year or two ago and while doing the rounds at Selfridges (as one does) I decided on a whim to bring home some bacon from the butcher there.  I did not buy the most expensive one, by the way.  The reaction back at the flat was amazing though, my kids still talk about it and we will have to do it again when we go back.  I must say that the British know how to do bacon.  My children had only eaten the supermarket pre sliced stuff, so this was an eye opener.  Oh yumm.  So, the moral of today is, spread you food sources, buy local and try something new...