Goodbye, White Rabbit.
In the last decade we have witnessed the surfacing of previously invisible dangers in the food we eat. Some of these things were dangers that the industry put into the food to make plants and animals unnnaturally highly-productive, to prolong shelf-life, to make products that are stripped bare of essential vitamins and minerals appear healthier or "fortified", and to make it cheaper for transnational companies to sell processed food all over the world.
Now is a good time to rediscover fresh, locally grown food in your palengke or neighborhood talipapa.
Over yesterday's lunch of chicken curry cooked in kakang gata with a salad of winged beans, tomatoes, and sili, my nanay and I started drawing up some rules of thumb for choosing food. So yesterday's thoughts on food were:
1. Don't buy it if your lola would not recognize it as food.
2. The less distance the food had to travel to get to your table, the better.
3. If it's known not to change appearance in a number of days, then it's packed with preservatives and you probably don't want to eat it. (I suspect Kraft cheese is non-biodegradable.)
4. Freshest is bestest.
This list will surely grow over the next few meals we have together, especially since nanay has raised us to snob processed food (I have wised up since my canned pork and beans days, alright?), is appalled by recent discoveries of tainted industrial foods across the globe, and has just had her food convictions reaffirmed by this book.
In the last decade we have witnessed the surfacing of previously invisible dangers in the food we eat. Some of these things were dangers that the industry put into the food to make plants and animals unnnaturally highly-productive, to prolong shelf-life, to make products that are stripped bare of essential vitamins and minerals appear healthier or "fortified", and to make it cheaper for transnational companies to sell processed food all over the world.
Now is a good time to rediscover fresh, locally grown food in your palengke or neighborhood talipapa.
Over yesterday's lunch of chicken curry cooked in kakang gata with a salad of winged beans, tomatoes, and sili, my nanay and I started drawing up some rules of thumb for choosing food. So yesterday's thoughts on food were:
1. Don't buy it if your lola would not recognize it as food.
2. The less distance the food had to travel to get to your table, the better.
3. If it's known not to change appearance in a number of days, then it's packed with preservatives and you probably don't want to eat it. (I suspect Kraft cheese is non-biodegradable.)
4. Freshest is bestest.
This list will surely grow over the next few meals we have together, especially since nanay has raised us to snob processed food (I have wised up since my canned pork and beans days, alright?), is appalled by recent discoveries of tainted industrial foods across the globe, and has just had her food convictions reaffirmed by this book.
Comments