Want to know a simple way to get some of the most harmful and worrisome additives out of your diet – one that doesn’t require all that extra store time reading ingredient labels?
Simply reclaim your kitchen from the grip of Big Food.
Now before you dismiss this idea by saying you haven’t got the time, patience or ability to start actually cooking, we want you to just focus on three items that we eat and drink a lot of, and that also typically contain some of the worst of the worst when it comes to food additives. You can make these items yourself, in your very own kitchen, at a fraction of the cost of what you are paying for the “fake” varieties. And the best part is, it’s relatively easy to do.
We’re talking about:
- Soup: Canned, dried, frozen and packaged varieties (unless you’re only buying organic brands) are typically a hotbed of bad ingredients, such as high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate, including all the disguised forms of free glutamic acid, mechanically separated chicken and turkey, along with other stabilizers, gums, thickeners and other unnatural ingredients. Soup is one of the easiest foods you can make yourself — in your kitchen — without having a can that says “Campbell’s” on it anywhere near you.
- Bread: This is one of the simplest and least complicated foods in the world. Bread needs just four basic ingredients: flour, water, salt and yeast. But you would never know that if you only saw packaged commercial varieties or refrigerated rolls, such as those offered by Pillsbury. True, making homemade bread was once a time-consuming and arduous activity. But since relatively inexpensive bread machines came on the market, it’s been streamlined to the point where you can easily do without those ersatz supermarket breads that are ingrained with ingredients not really fit for human consumption.
- Soda: There’s nothing essentially wrong with the idea of drinking soda — it’s just the hideous ingredients that the great majority of these beverages contain that have put them in such disrepute. Nearly all such products these days either contain obesity-promoting high fructose corn syrup or brain-zapping aspartame and other unhealthy synthetic sweeteners. But the good news is, you really don’t have to dispense with soda in order to banish those awful additives from your diet.
Now, here’s how to start taking back your “kitchen privileges”:
The slow cooker: This easy, practical means of cooking has been the butt of jokes for too long. Since the introduction of the Crock-Pot (a trademark of the Rival Company) back in 1970, slow cooking technology has expanded to include all kinds of possibilities. And the time has never been better to bring out whatever kind of slow cooking apparatus you might have from wherever you’ve been hiding it, dust it off and start enjoying some real food. If you don’t yet have one, there are dozens to choose from, ranging from cheap to pricey, with all sorts of extra-helpful features that make it really hard to rationalize buying any more of those pseudo soups laced with harmful additives and “flavor enhancers.”
The bread machine: This amazing device first debuted in Japan in the late 1980s, costing a small fortune at the time. While many people own a bread machine, far fewer get around to actually using it. Perhaps the idea of making bread seems complex or intimidating — but with a bread machine, it’s amazingly easy and dependable, and will fill the whole house with a wonderful bakery aroma. One tip from years of home bread-baking experience is to find a machine with two paddles. While these were once just available in expensive versions, mine was under $80 and makes excellent bread. The dual paddles allow for better kneading, plus the loaf pan is oblong rather than a tower shape, which gives you a more traditional loaf. Also, if you can’t wait the three-plus hours for you bread to be done, don’t be afraid to try the “quick bread” setting. The results are magically delicious in under two hours.
The SodaStream: This device offers an easy way to bring fizzy drinks back into your life without all the dangerous additives. One Food Identity Theft team member who recently got one reports that he is now “an instant fan.” You can control the level of carbonation from lightly fizzy to full-blown, volcanic bubbles and add the flavorings after the fizzing, which can be tailored to whatever you’re in the mood for. One of the best parts of making your own soda is being able to use sweeteners of your own choosing. Perhaps the most ideal is “simple syrup,” which is, in fact, quite simple to make by heating equal parts cane sugar and water until dissolved, then cooling to room temperature.
As Dr. Mark Hyman, best-selling author and founder of the Ultra Wellness Center, said in a recent blog: “One hundred years ago all we ate was local, organic food — grass-fed, real, whole food. There were no fast food restaurants, there was no junk food, there was no frozen food — there was just what your mother or grandmother made. Most meals were eaten at home. Now, one in five breakfasts is from McDonald’s and 50 percent of meals are eaten outside the home.”
While you might not be able to change the way today’s society eats, there’s a lot you can do to keep the processed food industry from dictating your personal choices in one of the most fundamental areas of your life — starting with some basic steps toward reclaiming your kitchen.
Resources
Crockpot 101:
http://busycooks.about.com/od/slowcookerrecipes/a/crockpot101.htm
Natural fruit and honey syrups for making flavored sodas:
http://www.theyummylife.com/Fruit_Herb_Honey_Syrups
Using a bread machine for gluten-free and special allergy diets:
http://www.food-allergy.org/bread.html
