For “Foodie Friday”:
What's in Fast Food Chicken? (Hint: It’s NOT Chicken)
“Frying chicken is fairly simple, if a little messy. You dip pieces of chicken into a mix of egg and milk, roll them around in flour and spices, then cook the chicken in sizzling hot oil until the pieces are brown, crispy and delicious.
But wait! Don’t forget to add a dash of dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone that is also used in Silly Putty and cosmetics.
Now add a heaping spoonful of tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), which is a chemical preservative and a form of butane (AKA lighter fluid). One gram of TBHQ can cause “nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse," according to A Consumer’s Dictionary of Food Additives. Five grams of TBHQ can kill you.
Sprinkle on thirteen other corn-derived ingredients, and you're only about twenty shy as many ingredients as a single chicken nugget from McDonald’s. And you were using pulverized chicken skin and mechanically reclaimed meat for your chicken, right?
No one in his or her right mind would cook chicken like this. Yet every day, hoards of Americans consume these ingredients in Chicken McNuggets, which McDonalds claims are “made with white meat, wrapped up in a crisp tempura batter.”
However chicken only accounts for about 50% of a Chicken McNugget. The other 50% includes a large percentage of corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and other completely synthetic ingredients, meaning that parts of the nugget do not come from a field or farm at all. They come from a petroleum plant. Hungry?
Scariest perhaps is the fact that this recipe is a new and improved, “healthier” Chicken McNugget launched in 2003 after a federal judge called the deep-fried poultry bites “a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook.” Also terrifying is the fact that these McFrankenuggets are overwhelmingly marketed to children who love their fun shapes and kid-friendly size.
While McDonald’s is of course the poster child for fast food ire, if you look at the nutritional information for chicken at any fast food restaurant, the ingredient list will be dozens of items longer than the egg, flour, chicken and oil recipe you might use at home.
Eating fast food is a habit, but it is one that you can break? No doubt you rarely plan to have a delicious meal at Arby’s for dinner, a lingering lunch at Carl’s Jr. or a special breakfast at the Burger King in the airport. It just happens. You are late, tired, hungry, broke, or all of the above. You have no time, and you must find something to eat before you crash. All of a sudden a bright, friendly sign beckons from the side of the road: Drive-through!
In five minutes you are happily chowing down on an inexpensive, filling meal. But don’t be fooled – the true cost of fast food does not come out of your wallet, but out of your body, your health, and your years on this earth.
You can break the unhealthy fast food habit: educate yourself about the true ingredients of fast food items, plan ahead for your meals, carry healthy snacks like nuts to ward off hunger and cook healthy chicken recipes at home. Convince yourself that fast food is the most disgusting stuff on the planet and is harmful to you and to those you love. After reading this, that shouldn’t be too hard.”
Full ingredient list for a Chicken McNugget (from McDonald’s website):
White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary). Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch. Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent.
Full ingredient list for my mother’s fried chicken:
Bone-in chicken pieces, egg, milk, flour, canola oil, salt & pepper.”
_________
The Toxic Ingredients in KFC Foods
“Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of the fast food industry’s largest users of MSG. This taste-exciting chemical (excitotoxin) is found in so many of KFCs products that it’s nearly impossible to eat a typical meal at KFC without ingesting it.
Fried chicken is coated in starches. The recipe for the KFC chicken batter is basically flour, sugar, salt, black pepper and monosodium glutamate (MSG). All by itself, this is a recipe for chronic degenerative disease because the flour and sugar are highly processed, and the MSG is an excitotoxin that Dr. Russell Blaylock links to obesity, cancer and neurological disorders.
When you fry starches at high temperatures, you also create acrylamides, toxic chemical by-products of cooking that are believed by many health experts to promote cancer. One scientific study, for example, demonstrated that eating acrylamides boosts kidney cancer rates by 59 percent. (http://www.naturalnews.com/024585_cancer_acrylamide_diet.html) Acrylamides are also linked to ovarian cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/023269_cancer_acrylamide_risk.html)
What other chemical ingredients might you find in KFC foods?
- Partially hydrogenated soybean oil (contains trans fats)
- High-Fructose Corn Syrup (linked to diabetes)
- Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) (linked to cancer)
- Titanium Dioxide (used in sunscreen)
- Yellow #5 (chemical coloring)
- Propylene Glycol (used as antifreeze in RVs)
- Red #40 (another chemical coloring)
- Sodium nitrite (linked to pancreatic cancer)
- Sodium Benzoate (chemical preservative)
- Hydrolyzed Corn, Soy and Wheat Protein (may contain hidden MSG)
- Corn Syrup Solids (more processed sugars)
- Autolyzed Yeast Extract (another hidden source of MSG)
… and many more.
Here’s an ingredients list from just one product on the KFC menu. How many times does MSG appear in this recipe?
Boneless Wings Ingredients:
Wing Shaped White Chicken Fritter Pieces, Seasoning (Salt, Monosodium Glutamate, Garlic Powder, Spice Extractives, and Onion Powder), Soy Protein Concentrate, Rice Starch, Sodium Phosphates. Battered With: Water, Wheat Flour, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Sodium Bicarbonate, Monocalcium Phosphate), Salt, Dextrose, and Monosodium Glutamate. Breaded With: Wheat Flour, Salt, Soy Flour, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate and Sodium Bicarbonate), Monosodium Glutamate, Nonfat Dry Milk, Dextrose, Extractives of Tumeric and Extractives of Annatto. Predusted With: Wheat Flour, Wheat Gluten, Salt, Dried Egg Whites, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, and Sodium Bicarbonate), Monosodium Glutamate and Spice, Breading set in Vegetable Oil. Just what we need…fried MSG.”
From: http://www.organiccommonsense.com/organic/the-toxic-ingredients-in-kfc-foods/
___________
The Food Obama Won't Eat (but is Happy to Let You)
“Michelle Obama said it's "like a poison in a way that most people don't even know." But their personal beliefs haven't filtered into the food policies. They've been caught red-handed treating you like lab rats. Find out how you've been betrayed...”
Story at-a-glance
“Many political supporters of genetically engineered (GE) foods are feasting on organics, while promoting unlabeled GE foods for everyone else, including Mitt Romney, President Obama, and former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
At present, the race is neck-to-neck between Romney and Obama in terms of not doing anything to protect or promote safer, more healthful organic foods for average Americans. Instead, both of them, while on organic diets themselves, promote untested GE foods for the masses.
According to a former White House executive chef, Laura Bush was “adamant that in ALL CASES, if an organic product was available it was to be used in place of a non-organic product,” and Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, has publicly credited a combination of organic foods and holistic medicine for turning her health around after she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1998.
In a 2008 interview, Michelle Obama is quoted as saying: “...you start reading the labels and you realize there’s high-fructose corn syrup in everything... Everything that’s in a bottle or a package is like poison in a way that most people don’t even know...”
While the Obama’s appear well-informed about the health dangers of processed foods in general and genetically engineered foods specifically, their personal belief system has not filtered into the food policies that affect the rest of the population. On the contrary, the President has appointed a number of former Monsanto employees into key federal positions that wield near-absolute power over agricultural issues, while ignoring his pre-election promise to “immediately” label genetically engineered foods once elected into office.
We have no real champions for food safety and labeling of genetically engineered foods within the federal government. But right now we do have a great opportunity to change this situation by circumventing the federal system entirely and supporting California’s Proposition 37 to label GE foods. This CA law would have a national effect.” Complete article at: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/10/09/ge-food-supporters-insist-organic-foods.aspx?e_cid=20121018_WNL_art_1
_______
On This Day:
Erie Canal opens, Oct 26, 1825:
“The Erie Canal opens, connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River. Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, the driving force behind the project, led the opening ceremonies and rode the canal boat Seneca Chief from Buffalo to New York City.
Work began on "Clinton's Ditch" in August 1823. Teams of oxen plowed the ground, but for the most part the work was done by Irish diggers who had to rely on primitive tools. They were paid $10 a month, and barrels of whisky were placed along the canal route as encouragement. West of Troy, 83 canal locks were built to accommodate the 500-foot rise in elevation. After more than two years of digging, the 425-mile Erie Canal was opened on October 26, 1825, by Governor Clinton.”
_______
The Earps shoot it out at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, Oct 26, 1881:
“After years of feuding and mounting tensions, on this day in 1881, the "law and order" Earps and the "cowboy" Clanton-McLaurys engage in their world-famous shoot-out near the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, leaving three men dead and three more wounded. The Earps ignored the sheriff and moved ahead to confront their enemies. "You sons of bitches," Wyatt Earp reportedly said, "you re looking for a fight and now you can have it."
But when the 30-second gunfight was over, there was no doubt which side had triumphed: the Earps were bloodied but alive, while Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury were dead or dying. Sheriff Behan, who witnessed the entire shoot-out, charged the Earps and Holliday with murder. However, a month later the Tombstone justice of the peace found the men not guilty, ruling "the defendants were fully justified in committing these homicides."”
______
Infant receives baboon heart, Oct 26, 1984:
“At Loma Linda University Medical Center in Loma Linda, California, Dr. Leonard L. Bailey performs the first baboon-to-human heart transplant, replacing a 14-day-old infant girl's defective heart with the healthy, walnut-sized heart of a young baboon.
The infant, known as "Baby Fae," was born with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome, a deformity that is almost fatal and is found in newborns in which parts or all of the left side of the heart is missing. A few days after Baby Fae's birth, Loma Linda heart surgeon Dr. Bailey convinced Baby Fae's mother to allow him to try the experimental baboon-heart transplant. Three other humans had received animal-heart transplants, the last in 1977, but none survived longer than 3 1/2 days. Bailey argued that an infant with an underdeveloped immune system would be less likely to reject alien tissue than an adult.
Baby Fae survived the operation, and her subsequent struggle for life received international attention. After living longer than any other human recipient of an animal heart, Baby Fae's body made a concerted effort to reject the alien transplant. Doctors were forced to increase dosages of an immuno-suppressive drug, leading to kidney failure. Ultimately, doctors were defeated by the swift onset of heart failure, and on November 15 Baby Fae died after holding on for 20 days.”
_______
Whitney Houston earns her first #1 hit with "Saving All My Love For You", Oct 26, 1985:
“Talent, good looks and connections in high places—that's a combination that might spell success for almost any aspiring pop star, and Whitney Houston had all three. Both beautiful and talented, Houston was the daughter of soul singer Cissy Houston and niece of pop star Dionne Warwick, and she parlayed her hereditary gifts and the professional nurturing of her well-connected family into superstardom of a kind rarely matched before or since. A near-unknown prior to the release of her debut album Whitney Houston, she shot to stardom when her first chart-topping hit, "Saving All My Love For You," hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on this day in 1985.”
---------
From me: I don’t have much regard for most celebrities, as you may know, but that song was one of my late granddaughter’s favourites. Susan died from her injuries from being run into by a drunk driver on 14th. February, 2006. RIP Susan, This one’s for you:
_______
Yesterday:
After the usual early morning jobs, and drinking coffee while publishing this journal, taking care of the animals, getting dressed etc, I had to wait for Prissy to wake up again mid-morning, so I that could run the vacuum. I like to leave sleeping kittens alone! Still using my old camera, as my newer one isn’t fixed yet.
A gentleman came to see me about splitting up these lots, so that I could sell the house, but not the guest house. We had papers all over my dining room table. Little Prissy wanted to know what was going on, so for the first time she climbed up on top of her kitty condo.
She is growing up, but she still won’t eat out of a dish today.
No comments:
Post a Comment