How Fat is Fat?

It’s no wonder that in my home we grow and preserve our own produce while helping supply as many others as possible. I’ve been a label reader for years and the more time I spend reading even the simplest product label the more dedicated I become to the philosophy of food independence.

I picked up three gallons of organic 1% milk at the store today, not a difficult task but for some reason I read the nutritional information which is always a mistake; it follows that I automatically move to the 2% and then homogenized labels. So let’s start there. Homogenized milk is often referred to by consumers as “whole” milk which is a misnomer. Whole milk would contain the full fat content and cream as it came from the cow, yet to the average consumer the product on the shelf is as whole as milk gets. Most consumers have no need to understand that milk, like cream, comes out of the same cow and even out of the same teat, and then is separated with a centrifuge.

What stopped me on the food label was total fat content. 1% milk contains 2.5g of fat per serving, and this is good. Humans need milk fats to properly metabolize some essential amino acids and fat-soluble vitamins. So why did that stop me; because I started wondering what it was 1% of. Is it 1% of what homogenized milk contains? No. Homogenized milk contains 8g of fat, and as poor as my math suddenly seemed to be that would have caused 1% to contain .08g per serving. Is my milk 1% the fat content of the whole, raw, warm, milk that comes out of the cow? That would require the cow to produce 4000g (8.8lbs) of fat/cream per gallon of milk. I can’t be certain but I think any dairy would be totally ecstatic with that because that’s about the weight of a gallon of milk.

After some consideration I came to realize that 1% is a reference similar to an ingredient list; fat content is 1% of total weight per serving. Marketing is nothing if not confusing. Homogenized milk is 3.2% and it seems only reasonable that we should be able to expect consistent presentation of information. Wouldn’t it seem appropriate to have milks labeled the same on the face of the container displaying 1% low fat, 2% reduced fat, 3.2% full fat, rather than calling it whole milk?

The mixed standards of consumer information, education and marketing have long allowed for information and claims that can become confusing to the uninformed or unconcerned consumer. They have been presented with a collection of information that can be useful to a consumer educated in nutrition yet, provides little easily accessible information to consumers without technical expertise. We expect consumers to choose appropriate amounts of calories while encouraging the misinterpretation of dietary information due to package claims. Consumers are often left with only the most available information at hand for guidance, the popular diet book of the moment. Clear, direct and honest information should be the first priority of our food system and regulators. It seems reasonable that front label information should conform to the same standards as the nutritional facts labeling.

My obsession with labels and ingredient lists has been a strong part of our family’s transition to home canning and the purchasing of local products. We now know what is contained in our food; we have control and the option to choose any extraneous materials that are added to them. It has become one of the most comforting parts of our lifestyle, the freedom to choose.

American Dream

I can’t identify the American Dream any longer. I grew up understanding that the American dream was fulfilled through hard work and perseverance. If we followed those precepts we would be able to gain home ownership, security and satisfaction. This may have been an archaic idea even as I reached adulthood in the 1970s. Already we were accepting appearance of substance and possession as ownership. We were beginning to believe ease of lifestyle was the American Dream. By 1984 the popular water cooler-conversation program was “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”. The Idol lifestyle may have remained out of the reach of 99% of the population but we vicariously indulged weekly, and began dreaming of ways to emulate it. We found ourselves able to purchase houses at flexible interest rates, considering them investments not homes. We began sacrificing ownership for mere possession. Our fathers often worked for one company or in one profession all their lives, but with the explosion of the Silicon Valley industries employment changed throughout the economy. We now could change jobs every six months without seeming to be a risk to lenders, or future employers.

We began focusing on our recreation, not as vacations and weekends but the constant activity of our lives. We filled mornings with trips to the club, and our evenings with games. We sacrificed family activities for the enthusiasm of action. We pressed our children into a life of constant activity; Little League, Soccer, Swimming, Music lessons, and if they were lucky they still had time for an ever increasing load of homework. We had made a choice; life would be fast and exciting, like the rich and famous.

I agree with Zachery Cohen: all social movements are driven from the bottom up. The changes we accepted in our lives were driven from the bottom up; we demanded them. For most of us to appear affluent we needed to buy cheap. We bought cheap products, cheap food, all purchased with cheap money and cheap credit. The consumer desire had changed from quality and value to low price at any cost. Food industries were more than happy to deliver; they began seeking out new labor markets, new manufacturing methods and new ingredients to use in our food, anything to reduce cost, price and the time we invested in food preparation. We allowed the bulk of our food dollars to be transferred from those who produced our food to those who provided us with a greater value time. Food processors now received the bulk of food dollars we spent, because we were happy to eat by only applying the heat.

For the last thirty to forty years we’ve had an exciting time of excess consumption. We’ve been able to live the life of the rich and famous, to the detriment of our manufacturing sector and the quality of our food. Now in a time of recession more people than ever are reevaluating the lifestyle and food system we have invested in. Do we care about homeownership, security, and satisfaction, are we satisfied with cheap materials and goods, or do we want back a bit of our heritage in the American Dream as our ancestors understood it? Are we willing to live once again a less lavish lifestyle at a slower more sustainable pace so that we can rebuild our dreams? Will we begin to rebuild our dreams with a social movement from the bottom up?

Preparing food is a uniquely human action; it demands one thing of us that we have avoided our time and attention. We have carelessly delegated our food preparation to others until we began to believe the ads of Stouffer’s and think we were making a home cooked meal when we opened a box and heated it in the oven or microwave. Food preparation was the first thing we sacrificed as we sought the appearance of wealth, and it’s the first thing we must restore. It’s time we sit down and begin to explore the kitchen again. We need to regain the connection to our Grandparents and Great Grandparents. Taking products from raw materials to meal isn’t the realm of chefs and trained cooks; it’s the magic that was performed by our ancestors, cooking on wood-fired stoves. Food preparation is within reach of every adult and child. It’s time we look back to the tradition of experimentation and teaching, passing skills and explorations on to others. The American Dream can once again be an attainable goal, through our persevering work and taking ownership of our food. It must be the base of a social movement; moving toward a sustainable society focused on the attainability of the American Dream for all people.

To make this dream a reality, let’s all plan our meals: prepare a few days’ menus based on what is in season, what is in our area, what is the outside temperature (do I really want to turn on that oven?). If we start with a whole chicken, even if you didn’t raise it yourself, roast it on the BBQ, maybe grill some zucchini and onions that you just harvested today or are in season at the grocery store, slice tomatoes from the garden and sprinkle with basil (also today’s harvest), add some feta and a baguette of sourdough and voila! A family of four will probably only eat half of that chicken so tomorrow we can pack chicken salad sandwiches in our lunches or use the chicken for tostadas for dinner. The chicken carcass can be boiled with herbs, reduced a bit and the broth can be saved in the freezer for winter-time soups like minestrone. Do our children or younger co-workers know how to do this? Or will they spend as much for a bucket of the colonel’s best and call it a meal? As the elder-wiser ones, we are duty bound to share what we know. We should be encouraging and mentoring; we’ll all be the better for it.

testing new apps

This is my test of Live writer and IE8. I may be totally unhappy