Blatent Health-Washing By Back To Nature

Back To Nature, a division of Kraft Foods, is a company whose products sit in what I call the 'pseudo-organic' isle of my grocery store. You know the isle where the store keeps Kashi and Annie's Cheddar Bunnies. These brands aren't necessarily healthy, they aren't necessarily non-processed and they may or may not contain organic ingredients. These brands may or may not contain GMOs. They may or may not contain the same amount of added sugars as normal products. What these brands do have in common is the use of health-washing in their brand marketing.

When I choose to buy a processed product (i.e.-anything that comes in a box), I look for a couple of things (not necessisarily in order of importance): 1) Are the grains listed as 100% whole grains? 2) Does the product contain soy or corn products? 3) Does the product contain chemical preservatives, or added flavors or colorings? 4) Is the product labeled organic? 5) Do I feel that the manufacturer made the product in a similar way that I would make it in my own home? When I answer these questions I get a better sense of the product. I prefer to buy products that are Non-GMO, whole, contain nothing artificial, and aren't "formulated" in a way to manipulate me. These are GUIDING PRINCIPLES, not hard and fast rules. But I like being informed.

I make a really ridiculous party dip which I will share with you next week. This weekend I was looking for some crackers to serve with this dip. I wish Ak-Mak made dip sized crackers, but they don't. I took a look at these Back to Nature crackers. I loved what I saw on the front cover!! Three ingredients! Because of the impressively short list of ingredients I was willing to buy this product even though it was not labeled as organic AND I knew it would contain white flour.



Then I flipped over the box and saw this



I feel strongly that to list three ingredients on the front of the box is like bragging to the customer 'Look at my impressive ingredient list!!' But then to not actually have an impressive ingredient list, well, that feels like manipulative marketing in my opinion. Although also in my opinion, Back to Nature products are slightly better than most of the other stuff Kraft Foods puts out. They don't use hydrogenated oils or artifical ingredients and their ingredient lists are shorter. But the products aren't significantly better. The products still could not be made in my own kitchen, yet they cost almost as much as other less processed organic products. Why would I choose to buy this product except for the marketing?

I have mentioned it before, I am not anti-capitalist. I am not an anarchist. I am not going to boycott foods that come from Kraft or Nestle just because they come from Kraft or Nestle. My decision not to buy Back to Nature is solely because I think that it is a mediocre product wrapped in a health-washed package. The ingredient list tells me that the product is mediocre. Their packaging is trying to tell me otherwise.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but damnit, it is still a pig.

This post is shared with Fight Back Fridays and Real Food Wednesdays

I've Been Thinking About Kid Food

I have been thinking about 'kid food'. I have been thinking about the ingredients that go into kid food and their preparation. I have been asking myself why kids like kid food and why adults always seem to end up sneaking chicken nuggets themselves… I have wondered about the salt content. And the sugar content. I have questioned the vegetable content and why the vegetables always seem so processed. I have asked the question what does processing mean, and why does it seem so critical to kids being willing to eat something.

Thing 2 is now at the age where every food is questionable. More often than not he will eat things like pancakes, hot dogs (the grass fed farmer’s market kind!), homemade pasta and smoothies. I have gotten pretty savvy at recreating kid favorites to get him to eat things like kale in his scrambled eggs and whole wheat in pancakes. I do feel good that he is getting good wholesome homemade food. And that has been the purpose of this blog, to make more stuff from scratch. I am proud to say that I regularly make pancakes, pizza, pasta, smoothies, soups, even cream cheese from scratch-completely homemade. But recently I am questioning whether this is good, or missing the point?

Michael Pollan in Food Rules writes that we should only eat unhealthy foods like fried foods, ice cream, etc, if we make them ourselves. The thought is that they are so difficult that we will consume them less often. I love these foods and agree that they are unhealthy. So I set out to follow Pollan’s rules and make them at home with ingredients that I believe in like whole wheat flour and unrefined sugar. But it was this last weekend when I made a batch of those whole wheat cheese crackers that it hit me. The recipe contains 4 tablespoons of butter, and 6 ounces of cheese not to mention onion powder and ¾ of a cup of whole wheat flour. That is expensive-about $6-7 for the batch which yields what looks like about a half a box of Cheezits!! I used a great Organic Valley raw milk jack cheese because the kids like it. They did not like the first batch that I made with raw milk cheddar. But I figured they didn’t like the crackers because they didn’t like the cheese. But even this time, using a cheese they like, both Things turned down the crackers. I will be eating all 4 tablespoons of that butter by myself.

I love that the crackers are homemade. But even though they are made with local whole wheat flour, cultured butter and raw cheese (which all get high marks in my book), the crackers are pretty processed. Wheat must be harvested, dried and ground. Milk must be cultured and strained. Butter must be obtained from cream and then churned. And the onion powder is a ton of processing too. Onions must be picked, sliced, dried and then ground. About the only ingredient that is minimally processed is the salt which was just dried from sea water.

More and more I look at the food I am serving my family and I feel that the whole foods are the best: roasted chicken with boiled broccoli, baked potatoes with a braised roast, stewed vegetable soups, brown rice and beans. These are all foods that are cooked in their original forms, with little alterations. These are the simple foods that our parents and grandparent ate growing up, not pizza and pasta and chicken nuggets. These foods surely offer the best health benefits. But they offer little in the way of exciting blog posts. “Hey everybody! Fry a grass fed steak in a cast iron skillet. And make sure that you salt and pepper it.” WooHoo. You already know how to do that. Where is the story? The excitement? It is in the story about homemade Goldfish crackers for sure.

In the last several months I have become a better cook. I have made all kinds of exciting stuff. And some things I have learned are not that intimidating like making home cultured cheese, kombucha, granola and stocks. These are worth my time and efforts on a regular basis. These homemade varieties replace industrial versions of the same foods only with more flavor and health benefits. But cheese crackers? I remain as non committal as ever about them. Is the point of the real food movement to replace the white flour in them with whole wheat? Is it about using local cheese? Is it about making cheese crackers that don’t utilize controversial preservatives like TBHQ? Is it about using organic ingredients to ensure that one is not exposed to chemical pesticides? Somehow I don’t think so. As I ate my homemade cheese crackers by myself this weekend, with no help from my kids, I started thinking about the things I would rather them eat: raw nuts and whole and dried fruits, raw veggie sticks, raw cheese. What better snacks could there be?

I am happy that I have gone to the effort of making these crackers from scratch. But I do not think I am going to keep them in the house. They will be a thing I will make for parties only. Because truthfully, even with all the high quality ingredients they contain, they are not in any sense of the word, minimally processed.

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday

Whole Wheat Cheese Crackers

After Thing 1 was born, I didn’t know how to cook. It wasn’t that I forgot, I just was physically incapable of bringing a meal together. The act of leaving the room would bring on screams of pain from my teeny baby, and given that there was maybe 45-50 minutes in between each painful nursing session, what was I going to make? A sandwich? I basically sustained myself with Cheezits during this early point in motherhood. I would just eat as many as I could while nursing. I was mostly careful not to drop the crumbs on his head though.

I have not purchased Cheezits since I started this blog. And while I am not super strict with food away from home (since it is limited anyway with all my packed lunches); I have also not met up with a Cheezit since I started the blog either. But I miss them. I still see the boxes in that aisle of the grocery store that I no longer shop in. My grocery store keeps organics in a different place, but for some reason the keep organic canned tomatoes with their conventional brethren. And this just happens to be the aisle where the Cheezits are. And seeing them is like running into an old boyfriend. You know there used to be something between you, but you just keep your head down as you walk past hoping that you get away without a conversation.

I also have issues with the fishy crackers. I used to buy them all the time; but between the food dyes and all the chemical preservatives and the ridiculous amount of salt, that is another food that has not been purchased by me since I began this blog. Though for sure, people have given them to my kids. Well meaning parents will share on the playground. And the school Thing 1 attends for a couple hours a day gives them as a snack. I am sure he stuffs his face, knowing he must take advantage while he can since his mean old mom won’t buy them.

Then last week a friend posted this link from the Smitten Kitchen on my Facebook wall. Thanks sooooo much for sharing! The entry was a recipe for homemade whole wheat goldfish crackers. I was too intrigued. And the recipe, adapted originally from The Lee Brothers Cookbook, was stupid easy. And I like stupid easy. The author asked if someone would make the recipe using only whole wheat flour as she did not. I figured that was pretty much an engraved invitation to copy her and write this whole post. So here it goes:

Whole Wheat Cheese Crackers
6 Ounces shredded cheddar cheese (She recommends orange cheese, I do not-it might be colored with food dyes, just skip the orange stuff and stick with white. And I do think that raw milk cheese is worth it. Also--grate it yourself, pre-grated cheeses are loaded with weird ingredients and anti-caking agents)
4 tablespoons of butter
¾ cup of whole wheat flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour because that’s what I had)
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon onion powder

In a food processor, combine all ingredients until the mix forms a ball. The dough should be pliable, but not too soft. Keep some extra flour on your surface for keeping the dough dry. Roll out dough to 1/8 of an inch thick. Cut out shapes and bake them with a little room in between each cracker. Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen small cookie sized crackers. Like my super old antique cookie cutters? I have been carting these around from house to house ever since my mom passed. They had to be my grandmothers!

This recipe is PHENOMENAL. But don’t kid yourself. These are not really crackers. They are really like eating a buttery piece of cheese paradise. The flour simply acts in holding all the cheese and butter together. They taste waaaaaaay better than fishy crackers and they taste real, unlike Cheezits. So I would say these are improved Cheezits. But I warn you. You can eat the entire batch. You will not notice how quickly they will go. I plan on telling the baby sitter that there is a strict 3 cracker rule. Because the kids would gorge themselves on these!

This is maybe the best recipe I have made in 6 months. It is an instant staple. I will likely make this for every party I throw from now on. They are ridiculous. Sorry to the gluten free and lactose free crowd. I should have apologized in advance. But if someone wanted to try these out with rice flour would you let me know? Shoot me an email or tweet at me, or just link me up to a blog post about it? I bet The Smitten Kitchen would be interested in hearing about it too!

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday from Sustainable Eats!

Mary's Gone Crackers

When I started this blog I imagined a string of product reviews. But I have realized, that when you value whole foods, there are not that many 'products' that fall into that category. Processed foods and prepackaged foods generally contain additives and sugar and alot of the time center around commodity products like corn, wheat and soybeans, all foods that are holding less and less of a market share in my diet. There is one new product that I am excited about. Mary's Gone Crackers.

It wasn't until this afternoon that I even realized that this title is a pun, on one hand the crackers are 'gone' because they are so good you always eat them all. But also, Mary is clearly 'crackers'. Ha! I love that stuff.

What are Mary's Gone Crackers? They are these very crunchy, very savory crackers that are wheat and gluten free and certified organic. Their main ingredients are brown rice, whole quinoa, flax seeds and sesame seeds. I started buying them recently because I have not found a good cracker that is minimally processed enough and some friends at work have become positively hooked on them. Now me too. I have not yet brought them home for the boys, but perhaps I should! I have been buying the herb variety, and I can see the rosemary right there in the cracker! That is refreshing.

Their website states that the cracker recipe was invented in 1994 after Mary and her son were both diagnosed as having Celiac Disease. She started reproducing grain based deserts like brownies and cookies from gluten free grains, but it was the crackers, that she would make at home and bring to parties so that she could enjoy dips and cheese, that really took off. These are crackers that you will love if you are a Celiac, but everyone in my office loves them too, and we do not have wheat sensitivities.

Mary's Gone Crackers has a website where you can purchase cases of their products as well as locate a store to buy them in slightly smaller sizes.

I have lately begun to limit wheat for both myself and my children. Wheat just doesn't supply enough nutrition to form the basis of a healthy diet. I would describe my wheat intake as recreational right now, I love to eat it, but it is not the main event. My family might never be off wheat completely, but I love having a product that is wheat free and organic and still tastes good. Thanks Mary!!

The To Do List: Crackers, Part 2

So the Great Cracker Experiment didn't go as well as planned. Below is the recipe as I found it in allrecipes.com :

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
salt for sprinkling

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
In a medium bowl, stir together the whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Pour in the vegetable oil and water; mix until just blended.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough as thin as possible - no thicker than 1/8 inch. Place dough on an ungreased baking sheet, and mark squares out with a knife, but don't cut through. Prick each cracker with a fork a few times, and sprinkle with salt.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until crisp and light brown. Baking time may be different depending on how thin your crackers are. When cool, remove from baking sheet, and separate into individual crackers.

The way I made it:

Ingredients
3 1/4 cups of brown flour (or wheat flour that has had about half the germ removed, be sure to let toddler taste the flour)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup water

salt for sprinkling

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a medium bowl, get your not quite three year old to stir together the flour, 3/4 teaspoon salt and the olive oil oil and water; mix until just blended. Close the door to the spice cabinet, take honey away from the toddler (yes, it is a bear!) On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough as thin as possible (Yes honey, mommy's rolling pin is exactly like your play-doh rolling pin!)- no thicker than 1/8 inch. Place dough on an ungreased baking sheet, and mark squares out with a knife (no we don't need the pizza cutter. No baby....please put that down...the pizza cutter is just like a special knife....Hey! That's sharp give it to me, that's ONE.), but don't cut through. Prick each cracker with a fork a few times, and sprinkle with salt. Bake for 20, no 25 minutes in the preheated oven, check and bake another 5 minutes. Take crackers out and let them cool. Then decide that they need more time and return them to the 350 degree oven for another 10 minutes. When cool, remove from baking sheet, and separate into individual crackers.

The crackers were actually quite delicious. Their taste was great, but their texture was horrible, like seriously stale pita bread. But I am undeterred. I will find a good recipe and I will master it. The flavor was good, kind of sweet almost, and I ate some avocado with some of them last night and it was really good. Best of all, Thing 1 was THRILLED to be cooking with mommy and though he spent more time trying to lick the jar of cinnamon or picking up anything that resembled a knife, we both had a good time. And he has asked for these crackers over and over, he eats them and he likes them. I guess you never can tell.

Notes:

Wheat Crackers. http://www.allrecipes.com/ 22 May, 2010.

The To Do List: Crackers, Part 1

Amazingly crackers are one of the more complex processed foods that reside at my home. When I made the To Do List a couple of weeks ago I took a quick inventory of my refrigerator and pantry items to come up with the list of processed foods and crackers were high at the top of the list. We eat them every week. They kind of overlap pretzels, but this post is dedicated solely to crackers. I was surprised by how many ingredients these seemingly simple items contained. My beloved Kashi crackers have an ingredient list a mile long! Mostly because they use seven different grains and they ALL have to be listed separately in every application that they use them. But the crackers that were curtiously baked for me by the little elves that live in that cute tree had all kinds of strange stuff in them.

For starters, the first ingredient, Enriched Flour, had it's own ingredient list! All these vitamins had been added to the flour, which I suppose is not bad, but unnecessary in my mind. They do list the main ingredient as wheat flour, which is not untrue. But with whole wheat flour being such a sought after ingredient these days (at least among my crowd) I can only believe that there is some hope that you, the consumer, won't notice the omission of the word whole.

They also list something that I have started to see alot of places called TBHQ. And I suppose that is an understandable progression. With so many people saying these days, 'don't eat what you can't pronounce', and if you were a food company have an important ingredient called tert-butylhydroquinone you would want to shorten it to TBHQ too. Hey! Anyone can pronounce TBHQ, right? That means you can eat it!

TBHQ is a preservative. Particularly it is a preservative of unsaturated vegetable oils. It is colorless and odorless, which is good because you can't have a preservative screwing up the original product. The whole point is to preserve shelf life. You might think that is a good thing, because when you buy a box you can keep it open and pick at it for as long as you want and the crackers will taste fresh. But I have a feeling that the TBHQ is added so that the mid level distributors can buy it wholesale and leave it on their shelves for a long time until you mosey in to find that special cracker for your dinner party. A product that goes bad is a product that you can't sell and that is a huge problem.

In trying to research what this additive is, I stumbled across a website called www.scienceblogs.com that happened to use a quote from Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. The quote reads as follows:

According to A Consumer's Directory of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (ie-lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food.

I actually found a blog quoting Michael Pollan quoting a different book. How the heck do I notate that?? MLA take me away! The blog continues to say that TBHQ is NOT lighter fluid. However eating it in high doses can make you sick. I am sure that there are no high doses in my elfin baked crackers, and I have full faith that I am not going to get sick from these. However, that is one more mark in the "Throw It Out" column.

Additional suspect ingredients are monocalcium phosphate, high fructose corn syrup (just sugar--people do not be swayed, it is just a highly processed form of sugar!! Don't just look for items that replace the HFCS, look for items that OMIT them) and soy lecithin. Ironically, I took supplements of soy lecithin when I had a clogged milk duct shortly after Thing 2 was born. It cleared me right up. I'll have to do a separate post about that once I figure out what it is!

I have thrown these crackers out. I threw out the Kashi ones too. I actually made my own crackers this weekend. But you are just going to have to check the blog tomorrow morning to find out how they turned out!

Notes:
tert-butylhydroquinone. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. wikipedia.org 25 May, 2010.

Molecule of the Day: TBHQ. Science Blogs. www.scienceblogs.com 27 March, 2007.