Healthier 2012: Tip #4 --Choose your meats carefully

Healthy Foodie Tip #4: NO SUPERMARKET OR FAST-FOOD MEAT

If you have watched "Food, Inc." or "Fresh," or read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma -- among other sources -- you know that our nation's industrial food system is terribly unhealthful and environmentally irresponsible. One of the worst offenders is how we raise, slaughter, distribute and consume meat -- not just beef and pork, but also poultry and seafood. (Read about CAFO -- concentrated animal feeding operation -- and you'll see what I mean.)

Unless you're vegetarian, it's almost impossible to opt out completely from the industrial meat system. For instance, when eating out you're highly likely to be served meat, poultry or fish that was inhumanely raised, fed ingredients that the animals don't naturally consume, handled in ways that promote dangerous food-borne illnesses and/or farmed (in the case of much seafood). It's daunting, when you think about it.

My response has been twofold. One, I absolutely never eat fast-food meat of any kind, including stuff I used to order occasionally such as an Arby's roast beef sandwich or a grilled chicken sandwich at one of the fast-food joints that seem to be your only choice sometimes. Frankly, this has not been hard since I have never been a fan of fast food.

Second, I try not to buy meat or poultry at supermarkets, and I'm also very careful about where I buy fish. When possible, I buy meat and poultry from local farmers who raise their animals naturally and handle their products with extreme care, or when that's not an option I'll look for organic meat from stores such as Whole Foods or Trader Joe's.

It's very hard to be 100% pure even in these halfway measures, but it's a step in the right direction. 

Is there any such thing as Healthy Fast Food?

"Recently, the New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman examined the nutritional merits of McDonald's Fruit & Maple Oatmeal, an apparently "healthy" breakfast item that actually contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than an Egg McMuffin. Yikes. But while it's easy to supersize our scorn for McDonald's, it's also worth noting that Mickey D's isn't playing the only shell game in town.

"Many other fast-food joints offer healthy-sounding options that aren't exactly health food. What follows are a few examples of health-washing: items that appear wholesome, but don't quite deliver on the nutrition front. The problems with the meals may vary, but the takeaway is the same: always scope out the nutrition information on a fast-food restaurant's website before you show up and order. You may be surprised by what you learn." (from Healthland, a component of Time magazine's online presence)

CLICK ON this link to read what's really in the fast-food dishes that sound like healthy choices when they are anything but. For instance, the piece on Time Magazine's website dissects such entrees as the McDonald's grilled chicken Caesar salad (22 fillers and additives in the chicken); the Jamba Juice "light" mango smoothie (85 grams of sugar in a regular size) and Applebee's sirloin with garlic herb shrimp (only 500 calories, but laden with 21 grams of fat and over 2,000 grams of sodium). It's enough to make you want to eat at home, all the time!

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/03/07/health-washing-is-healthy-fast-food-for-real/#ixzz1G235rHSY

What you (we) can do to change our food system

Instead of only bemoaning our nation's obesity epidemic and food-safety lapses, here are some actions you/we can take to improve things -- however incrementally.

1. Stop drinking sodas and other sweetened beverages
2. Eat (and cook) at home instead of eating out
3. Go meatless one day a week
4. Support family farms by shopping at farmers' markets, in season (from about April through November, in Cincinnati)

5. Know where your food comes from (read labels), and shop at grocers who label the origin of foods.

These are adapted from the list on the website for the movie, "Food, Inc."

Chipotle -- A Healthy Foodie's Hero

I've always liked Chipotle better than any other fast-food restaurant, and now I've learned that they are leaders in supporting sustainable, humane, organic food production methods -- going against the grain of our industrial food system and accepting lower profits as the cost of taking this stand.

From Time Magazine's cover story dated 8/31/09 ("The Real Cost of Cheap Food") --

"[T]he Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle...now sources its pork from Niman Ranch*and gets its other meats and much of its beans from natural and organic sources. It's part of a commitment that Chipotle founder Steve Ells made years ago, not just because sustainable ingredients were better for the planet but because they tasted better too--a philosophy he calls food with integrity. It's not cheap for Chipotle--food makes up more than 32% of its costs, the highest in the fast-food industry. But to Ells, the taste more than compensates....'We put a lot of energy into finding farmers who are committed to raising better food,' says Ells."

Bravo and three cheers, Chipotle!

By the way, early in this decade McDonald's was a majority owner of Chipotle, but it pulled out in 2006. The company has thrived since then and now has more than 500 locations, including more than 15 in metro Cincinnati.

* Niman Ranch "has knitted together hundreds of small-scale farmers into a network that sells all-natural pork, beef and lamb to retailers and restaurants. In doing so, it leverages economies of scale while letting the farmers take proper care of their land and animals."