TOTALLY GEEKED!

huskerbb wrote:

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lilyofcourse wrote:

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Nobody Just Nobody wrote:

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Over the last two years since I have been cooking from scratch I don't like the taste of canned food. I have a small amount in my pantry. But I don't like it and my family doesn't like it. People who don't cook from scratch don't think it makes a difference. I can tell you my family eats a lot of dishes now that they wouldn't eat before. Instant rice, boxed mac and cheese, and many other dishes. Couldn't get them to eat them. Now I make the same dishes from scratch and they eat them. Also, canned peas are just disgusting IMO.

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 There is a difference. 

A big difference. 

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 Instant rice and boxed Mac and cheese are not canned.

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 No they are not.  Nor did I say they were.  But they are processed and pre prepared foods.  Canned foods and most boxed foods are really high in sodium too.  And if you've had a heart attack and/or have high blood pressure the first thing a decent doctor will tell you is to stay away from those foods.

huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Unless you are talking a diet of spaghetti o's and Campbell's soup, there is nothing wrong with using canned foods.

They are a source of inexpensive nutrition, especially when the fresh variations are not in season in that area.

People are dumb.

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People are allowed to make their own choices about the food they consume.   

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 Sure--but 9 times out of 10, the people who rail against things like canned food are the same ones who b!tch about our use of fossil fuels--despite the ENORMOUS amount of fossil fuels it takes to stock the grocery shelves with out of season produce.  

DUMB

 

buying from a local farmers market?  Awesome--but try getting tomatoes from one of those in Minnesota this time of year.

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And that is why there are choices.  People can can (in jars) their own tomatoes.  They can buy them in cans, they can buy them in boxes, they can buy them from greenhouses, they can grow them in their kitchen with a grow light, and they can buy them from Argentina in the store. 

If someone is willing to work for their food to keep from buying canned, that is not wrong.

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 But if they are the ones bitching about fossil fuel use--it's very hypocritical.

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I think you need to differentiate.  People who choose to buy boxed tomatoes over canned is a non-issue related to that.  People who can their own tomatoes are not being hypocritical.  

Many people prefer fresh tomatoes to canned.  This is a non-issue and the only reason I can think that people pick on others for these issues is that when someone says they don't eat canned tomatoes, it makes you feel judged and guilty about your own choices to eat canned vegetables.  MM's decision not to eat canned vegetables has nothing to do with anyone else, so people questioning that choice have their own issues.  Because I really don't think Gaga and Lily are questioning it b/c of concern over fossil fuels.

 

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 ????  Um, people who are canning their own food are eating canned food.  

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 LOL!  People who "can" their own food put it in glass jars. 

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 So?  It is still "canned".  They don't call it jarred.  We canned a lot of food this year.  We didn't jar it.

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 It's an old figure of speech.  Whatever you called it - it went into glass jars, it didn't go into metal cans.  You are actually going to argue about this?  Not to mention  - when you do it yourself, you know exactly what goes into it. 

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 You are the one that brought up the jars, not me.  

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 You are making no sense.

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 You aren't.  I don't even know why yiu brought up the jars.  they have nothing to do with anything.  Whether you eat vegetables you "canned" out of a jar, or you buy the ones del monte does makes no difference.  You are still eating food that was preserved using a certain process.

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A person "canning" their own foods in jars is not the same as a manufacturer putting things in cans.    The phrase "to can" as in home preserving is not the same thing as the "can" that is metal.  Do you even know why many people don't like cans - real metal cans?  Because those cans leech BPA and/or aluminum into the food.  Commerical food in cans also has preservatives in it.  So, when people "can" vegetables in GLASS jars, without preservatives, they are eliminating those contaminants.

How would one even go about home canning in metal cans? I've never even heard of that. I just thought EVERYONE knew that home canning was done in jars.

Oh, and BPA comes from plastic, not metal.

Fort Worth Mom wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Oh, and BPA comes from plastic, not metal.

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And, it's used in the plastic coatings in metal cans. 

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 Maybe--but not all cans are coated and the dsame people who refuse to eat green beans that were out of a can think nothing of guzzling water out of a plastic bottle.

weltschmerz wrote:

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I won't eat green beans out of a can because they're nasty.

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 ANY vegetable from a can is nasty.

flan

huskerbb wrote:

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WTF are you even bringing that up for? I know how it's done. I'm quite sure I did a lot more of it last year than you did.

It's still "canning". Whether or not you put it into jars or some company puts it into cans is irrelevant. It's the same basic process.with the same basic result--you are preserving food for later use.

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 Probably more than she has done in her life.

I can't tell you how many summers were spent canning food from the fields.

 

 

lilyofcourse wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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See this?  Home canned goods without a can in sight!  THIS is the normal way to "can" at home.

 

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 Yep. 

You seem to be hung up on a word.

You do know know those jars have metal rings and lids, right? 

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 Our friends had a huge garden.  we spent most weekends last July and August canning--not to mention freezing corn.

We canned mostly tomatoes and beans, but also jalapeños, pasta sauce and marinara, a few pickles.

we pickled a lot of the green beans.  Later, they canned some venison, but we were gone that weekend.

Growing up, the only things we bought at the store were the things we couldn't produce.

Flour, sugar, certain seasonings and fruit.

We even ground our own corn.

huskerbb wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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I won't eat green beans out of a can because they're nasty.

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 Where do you get your vegetables in Canada?

 

if you say you only eat fresh--then you lose the right to say you care about the environment.  

 

It takes an enormous amount of fossil fuel to keep fresh vegetables and fruits in northern climates year around.  We can do it, but there is a staggering environmental cost.

 

 

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 Lufa Farms.

It takes an enormous amount  of energy for canned or trucked-in food. Maybe I should just stop eating altogether and live on tube feedings.

Will that please Your Majesty, or will that still make me a hypocrite?

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 it takes a LOT less energy to transport canned food.  First of all, it can be grown locally and canned So it doesn't have to be shipped as far.  Even beyond that, it doesn't require refrigeration to transport.  It can be stacked more easily so more fits on the truck.

 

 

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 Canned food still uses fossil fuels for energy.

Maybe I should just off myself, in order to reduce my carbon footprint.

 

I get a lot of my vegetables from Lufa Farms, which are massive rooftop greenhouses right here in my city.

Fort Worth Mom wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Oh, and BPA comes from plastic, not metal.

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And, it's used in the plastic coatings in metal cans. 

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 If it's coated in plastic - the BPA leeches.  If it's not, the aluminum leeches.  Either way, you get contamination.

It got insane a looooooong time ago.

I absolutely abhor the taste of canned vegetables. And there isn't anything else in a can I would eat. I make my own broth and soups. The vegetables I eat during the winter are frozen - from a local company! So no, the fossil fuel impact is not great. The vegetables are grown nearby and flash frozen and packaged right where they are grown. My pantry has ingredients without ingredients in it. That's the best way I can explain it. We don't eat food from a box, nor do we eat food from a can. I don't purchase food with ingredients. I purchase "whole" foods.

If I eat out, I eat somewhere relatively upscale where the price indicates that food does not come from a can. The last time I ate out the bill was over $150 for 2 of us before the bar bill. So if anything came from a can... Let's just say at those prices, the chef's reputation and the restaurant's reputation is worth more than the convenience of opening a can.

You can get a whole bag of bulk beans that makes ten times the amount of a can of beans for the same price. So if you're trying to cut costs that's not a good choice.

It's odd because whenever I "can" at home I've never used monosodium gluconate, sodium phospate, or artificial colors. None of that ever makes it into my "canning". But I can easily find that on many products in the store.

I don't buy boxed foods. A year ago when DH was laid off I bought cake mixes, 10 for $10. I used one to make cupcakes for church. I used another one night when DH had a sweet tooth. We still, a year later, have eight mixes left over. Actually, no. I donated some at Christmas. So I think we have less. I even make home made pudding when the kids want it. We have tons of pudding here too. I just don't use boxed stuff.

I do buy boxed pasta though. But only because DS is gluten intolerant. So if we have spaghetti or mac and cheese I start from scratch and make the cheese sauce or pasta sauce. It's really hard to find a boxed gluten free mac and cheese and most of them taste like crap anyway.

I don't buy organic and I'm not perfect. I'm not going to say I NEVER open a can because I do once in awhile. What I will say is that if you have health problems you really need to be aware of what you eat. If you have a prize car and just dumped cheap gas in it and never changed the oil and didn't take care of it you wouldn't be surprised if it quit running. Yet people who have chronic diseases dump all kinds of chemicals into their bodies every day. When my son was diagnosed as being gluten intolerant I started researching. And I read and read and read. And I found out a few interesting things.

1. Our flour is over processed these days. It is bleached and bleached and then bleached again. One hundred years ago people grew their own wheat. And then they ground it. And put it directly into food and ate it. But now everything has to be shelf stable for months on end. So we have to put all kinds of preservatives and chemicals and everything else in it to keep it fresh while it is trucked to where it needs to go and sits there waiting for you to buy it.

2. When people used to eat sausage or hot dogs or anything like that they ground meat and stuffed it in the casing. Which was all well and good. But now we're a major company and we need to make the meat go further and turn a bigger profit. So in with the meat goes a few chicken feet and beaks. Some nasty pieces of meat we wouldn't feed our dogs. And let's add some fillers while we're in there. Throw in some wheat based fillers and bulk that crap up. Hey, we now have twice the sausage for the same amount of meat we originally bought. But for the consumer it's NOT the same. You eat that crap they put in there.

A hundred years ago people ate what they grew. So they knew what was in it. Now people have no idea. We're eating crap a lot of times that if we really knew what was in it we wouldn't feed it to our pets. I'm sure someone will say none of this matters and it's all made up crap by scientists that want us to buy more natural food but you don't have to spend tons of money on fancy food to eat right. Just go back to the basics.

The only canned things I use are tomatoes (sauce, crushed, diced) and beans (black and kidney). How hard would it be to can those myself?

Mellow Momma wrote:

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Exactly. Eat food. Actuall food. Not food that has ingredients. If I want corn, I don't want corn with ingredients. I want just corn. The same goes for anything else.

Sprouted foods are all the rage now. A sprouted grain is made from a grain that has begun to sprout which allows for faster digestion of the whole grain. Instead of the casing going through you as fiber, it allows the nutrients to pass through to you easier.

Fermented foods are also big. They supposedly realign your gut bacteria and get a good set of flora in there to digest your food.

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 Yep.  Real food.  I once heard someone say if you look at the food and it comes directly from the ground, a tree, or an animal you're good to go.  If it has to make a stop in a factory before it gets to your table then it's probably not.

Well, beans have tons of additives in the cans. And we have a store here that serves a lot of Hispanic people so you can literally go in and there's barrels and barrels and barrels of different beans. You scoop out what you want and only buy that amount. And get this, there's nothing in them but, hold it-











































































BEANS!

What I find really funny is people who say cooking from scratch is so difficult. Let's take a cake for example. You open the dry mix and you have to add in water, eggs, and oil. To make one from scratch isn't many more steps. Just measuring out the flour, sugar, and soda usually. Once I started realizing that, and how much cheaper it was, I guess I just never went back to the old way.

Mellow Momma wrote:

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Don't you know it's almost impossible cook unless you use canned food! Impossible I tell you!

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 For me, the turning point was my son's diagnosis.  At that point I started reading and researching.  Like I said, I'm not perfect.  There are things I could do better or more of.  But every day we take a step in the right direction.  If we can't buy fresh we buy frozen.  We redesigned our pantry to hold large quantities of things we use every day.  AND, at the urologist today he told us that kidney stones are usually caused by high sodium content and/or high protein diets.  The first thing he asked was if we ate out of cans and boxes.  I told him that since our son was gluten intolerant I do most of the cooking by scratch.  He told us that was good because people don't realize how much sodium is in their diets from those items.  We buy flour, sugar, and yeast at Sam's in bulk.  I don't keep a lot of stuff around that other people do.  We just don't use it.  And we honestly don't eat out all that much.  Less than once a month.  You don't have to change your whole diet overnight.  But doing small things helps.

chef wrote:

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Mellow Momma wrote:

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Don't you know it's almost impossible cook unless you use canned food! Impossible I tell you!

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 Then I guess tonight's dinner didn't happen. I feel pretty full off nothing though. It must be all that Neverland food!

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weltschmerz wrote:

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Mellow Momma wrote:

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Exactly. Eat food. Actuall food. Not food that has ingredients. If I want corn, I don't want corn with ingredients. I want just corn. The same goes for anything else.

Sprouted foods are all the rage now. A sprouted grain is made from a grain that has begun to sprout which allows for faster digestion of the whole grain. Instead of the casing going through you as fiber, it allows the nutrients to pass through to you easier.

Fermented foods are also big. They supposedly realign your gut bacteria and get a good set of flora in there to digest your food.

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You want to know the best dietary advice I ever heard?

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

-Michael Pollan 

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 Here's something easy.  The closer that it is to the way God made it, the better it is for you.  Obviously an apple is better for you than a highly processed little debbie cake.  Veggies, fruits, broiled , baked, sauteed meat.   Less processed grains.  The simpler it is the better.

Lady Gaga Snerd wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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Mellow Momma wrote:

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Exactly. Eat food. Actuall food. Not food that has ingredients. If I want corn, I don't want corn with ingredients. I want just corn. The same goes for anything else.

Sprouted foods are all the rage now. A sprouted grain is made from a grain that has begun to sprout which allows for faster digestion of the whole grain. Instead of the casing going through you as fiber, it allows the nutrients to pass through to you easier.

Fermented foods are also big. They supposedly realign your gut bacteria and get a good set of flora in there to digest your food.

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You want to know the best dietary advice I ever heard?

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

-Michael Pollan 

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 Here's something easy.  The closer that it is to the way God made it, the better it is for you.  Obviously an apple is better for you than a highly processed little debbie cake.  Veggies, fruits, broiled , baked, sauteed meat.   Less processed grains.  The simpler it is the better.

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 I agree.

weltschmerz wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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weltschmerz wrote:

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I won't eat green beans out of a can because they're nasty.

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 Where do you get your vegetables in Canada?

 

if you say you only eat fresh--then you lose the right to say you care about the environment.  

 

It takes an enormous amount of fossil fuel to keep fresh vegetables and fruits in northern climates year around.  We can do it, but there is a staggering environmental cost.

 

 

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 Lufa Farms.

It takes an enormous amount  of energy for canned or trucked-in food. Maybe I should just stop eating altogether and live on tube feedings.

Will that please Your Majesty, or will that still make me a hypocrite?

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 it takes a LOT less energy to transport canned food.  First of all, it can be grown locally and canned So it doesn't have to be shipped as far.  Even beyond that, it doesn't require refrigeration to transport.  It can be stacked more easily so more fits on the truck.

 

 

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 Canned food still uses fossil fuels for energy.

Maybe I should just off myself, in order to reduce my carbon footprint.

 

I get a lot of my vegetables from Lufa Farms, which are massive rooftop greenhouses right here in my city.

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 Greenhouses use an incredible amount of fossil fuels if they are in northern climates.

 

you can eat what you want--just quit bragging about how small your carbon footprint is.  It's more like clown shoe size.

Lawyerlady wrote:

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Most of the people discussing their eating habits haven't said diddly squat about their carbon footprint.

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 She has.  

Lawyerlady wrote:

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huskerbb wrote:

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Lawyerlady wrote:

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Most of the people discussing their eating habits haven't said diddly squat about their carbon footprint.

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 She has.  

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Yes, she has.  But not really the rest of us. 

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 Um, that's why I quoted her post.