Deciphering fake food from real food

Remember when food packagers realized that they could ride the "less calories" wave by simply putting the word "light" some where on their packaging...
Well, seems as if big chains have also realized how much that they may benefit from jumping on the "reduce your carbon footprint" campaign. They have started putting the word "local" in key spots in their imaging and slogans. Sometimes, like at Walmart, they just hang a banner with the word "LOCAL" above their produce, even though the strawberries may be from Mexico and the blueberries from Brazil.

So, if you really want to care about where your food came from, you really have to read the fine print.

The same is true for knowing what you are buying. If you want food--you know, that stuff that provides Nutrition for our bodies, you can't count on restaurants or grocery stores selling you food. You really have to read the fine print. For example, ever wonder why they can store cheese in unrefrigerated displays? That's because, if you look hard at the label, you'll find that the word "cheese" is really just a gratuitious descriptive for what they would like you to think the product is--some sort of dairy product. Well, it's really a "cheese product," and kinda like oil, you can leave it out on the shelf. Some of those items don't have anything close to what we know as dairy.

The same goes for carbonated beverages and ice cream. Soda can have absolutely no nutritional value---high fructose corn syrup is not something our body recognizes as nutrition. And, even the beloved ice cream can be so fake--and very "un-nutritional" that if you left a carton of it on your counter, it would barely change its structure. In other words, it doesn't melt.

Selling us "fake food" is why our body's set point may tell us to keep eating and why we are getting obese in outrageous numbers--fast junk food is certainly taking its toll on us. Yet, the purveyors of these fine goods want you to believe that their profits should be hand's off when it comes to making them take responsibility for passing this junk off as "food."

Some of these foods even have petroleum based components!

"Local", "Cheese", "Ice Cream", "Beverage"----seems like you can't take anybody at their word these days...

But, you have a better chance of getting some real nutrition when you go to the farm yourself. We have several opportunities to purchase nutritious and local food, and my own neighbors, John and Nancy, make it even easier for us to buy real food that is also local when they host the Saturday morning Mt. Gretna "Farmer's Market." Fresh and nutritious breads, grass-fed local proteins, and organically locally grown produce. I even found organic eggs on the way to E-Town.

If you want to make the trip yourself, two places to visit are Breakaway Farms (on the web at www.breakawayfarms.net) and Landisdale Farm, 838 Ono Road Jonestown (717-865-6220 and landisdalefarm@juno.com).