Fresh food vs. Factory Food

A lot of that is frozen food though. It changes the food much less than, say, canning, or processing potatoes into potato chips, or tomatoes into ketchup, and things like that.

is that even a question

Actually, I think you're wrong there. For years health surveys show that the fattest is most likely New Orleans. Boston is high on the least of leanest people.

We're almost 100% on the same page as far as food prep and food choices.
I make my own pasta suace, but use canned tomatoes (no preservative & no high fructose corn syrup).

I make my own bread in a bread machine using the same manner as you (no hand kneading). Interestingly, as for pizza, we even have the same style there. I make my own from using pre-baked whole wheat crust. I buy freshly-made whole wheat pizza dough (no preservative no dough conditioners), when I can.

drumming fingers

OK, I'll just say me too, with slight variations.

I will confirm about much of the restaurant industry and their lack of on-the-spot kitchen preparation. A friend of mine worked in Western Mass at the 'kitchen factory' where they make the food ahead of time. They make new recipes and experiment there, too. After they make the meals in the kitchen factory, they ship them frozen in bulk by truck within the region. So when the places get the meal (like Olive Garden), they just heat it up in microwave or heat lamp. So things like proper texture and good tastes are absent.

Now that's revoltin'.

I've only been to the Olive Garden once, long before I went to Italy and became italian food crazed/snotty. It was in Santa Barbara. It was truly terrible. So, herein lies my very late restaurant review.

I probably am missing some cogs in all this in that I don't think cooking real food is hard. Even Rags and I can do it. I'm not even sure it is more expensive for restaurants to do in the (maybe very) long run.

I don't mean to sound crazed here, but I think there is a whole near addictive cycle going on for salty grease followed by sugar followed by salty grease (and so on) that a body gets accustomed to. Real food can be salty, greasy, and sugary, so is no panacea by itself, but at least there are less additives as people become more careful on that, and, for at least some, a tendency to use more spices and less salt, and get used to less sugar, as taste gets more refined.

I'm off on my own new thing. I happen to hate the tortillas in new mexico, at least those available right by me (for tortilla afficionados, none of the sonora type). And I love tamales, and have only had one good one in this almost five years. So... I'm looking into making my own lard. It turns out it isn't hard, and that real lard has less saturated fat than butter. If I were pure about it, I would buy pork fat only from the right ranches, but I don't have that money or access.

You can assume that if I succeed in making a good tamale I'll post about it on a2k. The last time I made them, in the eighties, they were corn concreted pellets of poo. But wait, I know a little more now...

Now I'm wondering...
can tamales be made with chicken fat instead?

Not to put too fine of a point on this, but dietary problems started when many of us where toddlers. They put all that sugar in baby food and got us hooked. Then corporations addicted us further with salty and greasy meals whether from home or in restaurants. That trend is contributing (along with little or no exercise) to the debilitation of many adults and children in North America.

The numbers of morbid obesity and childhood diabetes is now epidemic in adults and in children as young as 5. As for animal fats, it doesn't matter whether or not the fats come from purer, non-polluted sources. Medical research and my personal direction is to limit them...period.

"Obesity awarded first prize for North American health threat... This means it has definitely taken the prize as the biggest health threat in North America."

Bottom line: the average North American's diet has gone down the tubes over the last 25 yrs with large increases of animal and saturated fats, too much salt, and way too much processed foods and white sugar. High fructose corn syrup is added to so many products it's shocking. The amount of processing food goes through seems ludicrous. They are coming out with new health recommendations for intake of sodium, that's how bad the incidents of hypertension has/have gotten.

Well, I'll get off my soapbox. BTW, I'm not meaning to point this at you personally, Osso.

The "fattest city" distinction was given to Philly about 3 years ago and was a big deal in all the local papers and TV stations. There were many followups until the next survey that took Philly off as number 1. New Orleans may have been no 1 bck sometime but Philly had been working on becoming the fattest cilty in US , and finally made it. They couldnt do it the next time because Im sure the TV scared everybody into eating two less pizzas a week. I used to live in New Orleans and there were many fat people down theah.


PS, one of the worst ingredients for the "factory food" invasion has been high fructose corn syrup. This is absorbed directly into the system without any digestion needed. Consequently it spikes the need for insulin and many nutritionists tell us to watch any intake of foods with high fructose corn syrup. I actually have to hunt around for sodas THAT DONT contain any. I like STewarst Ginger Beer and some other brands that are made with CANE SUGAR.

HFCS =bad
Cane Sugar=better(still not a great diet with so much sugar)



This was in 2003 I believe. NO is coming in at no 5.

Thanks for your corrections. Furthermore, I thought that Boston was one of the leanest and fittest on average, like in top 25% of cities surveyed.

You'll notice in my previous post the info about high fructose corn syrup. I didn't know the particulars about why it was so bad. I recall seeing an interview with the head of Ocean Spray who apologized for their contribution to this problem.

That was news to me about Philly, though. My visit to New Orleans in Sept. 200o, I was taken aback. The food was far too rich for my blood. Eyeballing the people (not just in tourist areas) confirmed a lot about locals fitness. I even searched for health food stores and none were to be found on a admittedly-quick-search.

That being said, I still ate well but I avoided places like NOLA's (Emerill Legasse's restaurant). I read their menu and decided I didn't want to take a year or two off of the end of my life. "Please pass more butter my way, thanks."

Its interesting ..
I often used to have Fresh food because fresh food have more nutrition content than Factory food .

The one thing that I absolutely love at the Olive Garden is their zuppa toscana- I guess that means Soup Tuscany style or something like that in Italian.

It's a potato soup dressed up with kale and some sort of Italian sausage- depending on the chef that day - it's either more or less peppery- but for me, it's always the only sure bet at the Olive Garden which I do go to quite a lot when I'm at home in the US as there's one down the street from my parents and my father liked their seafood al fredo.
So for gifts, since he had everything he could ever use already, people would give him gift cards to the Olive Garden and we'd go out for lunch there at least once a week while I was visiting.

I made potato and leek soup the other day and I happened to have some fresh spinach I needed to use, so I threw that in at the end, after I'd seasoned and pureed the soup/potatoes. And then I remembered that I had this lincolnshire sausage in the freezer - put there because someone brought it to a pot luck cook out and it didn't get eaten. I don't like or eat sausage and I thought that my daughter would really, really like it if I tried to make the Olive Garden soup because we all have fond memories of the Olive Garden at this point (Grandpa having died recently).
So I cooked the sausage and crumbled it into the soup - and oh my goodness - what a hit it was. My daughter, her boyfriend, her best friend - now I'll have to put sausage and spinach in every pot of leek and potato soup I make.
I don't really eat sausage, so I take my soup out of the pot after the spinach and before the sausage goes in.

I didn't get the broth just like their's though. I think their's is more water-based and I use cream - yeah, real cream- as part of my potato soup broth.
(None of us are overweight or have high cholesterol - if we were, I wouldn't- it's just an extra special treat to have cream once in a while in our house- but next time I do the sausage and spinach thing in the soup - I'm going to try to see if I can replicate it more exactly by making the broth thinner).

My friend who's a chef calls the kitchens of restaurants that use those prepared, frozen servings 'ping kitchens' because all you hear in the kitchen is the slam of the microwave door and the 'ping' when the microwave timer goes off.

Same thing has happened with DUNKIN DONUTS. They used to make donuts in eaxh shop but it was found to be more economical to bake in some local center and ship them to their stores where they are nuked to life.

very clever. I'll use it -- ping kitchen.