The Inconvenience of Convenience Foods
Convenience, who can live without it? We thrive on convenience to get us through our daily lives. We need the convenience of a search engine so we don’t have to take a trip to the library in the middle of the day, we need the convenience of a car to travel from point A to point B, we need the convenience of grabbing lunch from a fast food restaurant or a freezer. Let’s think about that last one, should we really be dependent on a fast food restaurant or processed food company to nourish our bodies on a daily basis? Have we become so lazy that we’d rather fix our children a box of macaroni and cheese with hotdogs instead of taking 30 minutes to whip up a nutrient dense meal?! I understand that sometimes …show more content…
food that has been pre-prepared and preserved for long-term storage.” Mmm mmm, sounds good! (read: sarcasm) Food that has been preserved for long term storage means it contains a ton of preservatives. I think I should talk a little bit about preservatives because we all know what they are, but we have not been taught properly exactly what they do to our bodies. Preservatives can have some pretty abominable effects on the body such as causing heart damage, causing cancer, breathing difficulties, behavioral changes, etc. Convenience foods would not be able to survive transit from the factory to the grocery store and into our homes without spoiling; therefore, food manufacturers must add preservatives to their foods. Sounds reasonable and justifiable don’t you think? The problem I have with food manufacturers adding so many additives to the food they create is that they add too many preservatives and additives, most of them are really not needed. I’m sure a lot of people would agree that we do not need dye added to our butter, we do not need fungicides and pesticides added to our milk, and we definitely don’t need Polysorbate 20 added to our candy (it’s primarily used in cosmetics like cleansers and …show more content…
Preservatives are found in nearly every product your body will ever touch, even lotions and hair products. There are a few naturally occurring preservatives that manufacturers can use like optiphen, but they aren’t usually used by conventional manufacturers. A lot of organic and natural manufacturers use optiphen. The goal is to limit your exposure to dangerous preservatives; you cannot fully eradicate them from your life. The same goes for convenience foods. There will come a point in time where convenience foods are needed, specifically during a time crunch. Try your best to avoid these situations so your exposure to preservatives will be limited. Try to cook as many meals from scratch as possible. I know it takes longer to make things from scratch but 90% of the time from scratch meals taste better than any factory-produced meals you can eat! Buy organic, natural, and grass-fed foods whenever
Convenience, who can live without it? We thrive on convenience to get us through our daily lives. We need the convenience of a search engine so we don’t have to take a trip to the library in the middle of the day, we need the convenience of a car to travel from point A to point B, we need the convenience of grabbing lunch from a fast food restaurant or a freezer. Let’s think about that last one, should we really be dependent on a fast food restaurant or processed food company to nourish our bodies on a daily basis? Have we become so lazy that we’d rather fix our children a box of macaroni and cheese with hotdogs instead of taking 30 minutes to whip up a nutrient dense meal?! I understand that sometimes …show more content…
food that has been pre-prepared and preserved for long-term storage.” Mmm mmm, sounds good! (read: sarcasm) Food that has been preserved for long term storage means it contains a ton of preservatives. I think I should talk a little bit about preservatives because we all know what they are, but we have not been taught properly exactly what they do to our bodies. Preservatives can have some pretty abominable effects on the body such as causing heart damage, causing cancer, breathing difficulties, behavioral changes, etc. Convenience foods would not be able to survive transit from the factory to the grocery store and into our homes without spoiling; therefore, food manufacturers must add preservatives to their foods. Sounds reasonable and justifiable don’t you think? The problem I have with food manufacturers adding so many additives to the food they create is that they add too many preservatives and additives, most of them are really not needed. I’m sure a lot of people would agree that we do not need dye added to our butter, we do not need fungicides and pesticides added to our milk, and we definitely don’t need Polysorbate 20 added to our candy (it’s primarily used in cosmetics like cleansers and …show more content…
Preservatives are found in nearly every product your body will ever touch, even lotions and hair products. There are a few naturally occurring preservatives that manufacturers can use like optiphen, but they aren’t usually used by conventional manufacturers. A lot of organic and natural manufacturers use optiphen. The goal is to limit your exposure to dangerous preservatives; you cannot fully eradicate them from your life. The same goes for convenience foods. There will come a point in time where convenience foods are needed, specifically during a time crunch. Try your best to avoid these situations so your exposure to preservatives will be limited. Try to cook as many meals from scratch as possible. I know it takes longer to make things from scratch but 90% of the time from scratch meals taste better than any factory-produced meals you can eat! Buy organic, natural, and grass-fed foods whenever