Another reason to minimize highly processed foods
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then they should be re-educated.Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »All that will happen here is that some emulsifiers may be changed provided that the studied translate to humans, which they may or may not.
My concern is that they would just change to another less studied emulsifier which will then later be shown to be just as bad if not worse. It seems like every few years we find out another additive to highly processed foods is actually pretty bad for us (certain food dyes, trans-fats, etc.).herrspoons wrote: »Bottom line is a microwave meal now and then isn't a problem.
No arguments there.
The key phrase being "now and then". I don't think most folks eat heavily processed foods like the microwave meals "now and then".
Forcibly.
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My grandmother use to make butter and of course I did the grunt work manually and it helped her keep an eye on me, instead of watching how close I could get to the bull and get back to the fence in time. Butter is a life saver you know.
It's one of those things that to make a quality product you need both access to good ingredients (which are completely locked up by commercial producers) and technology. granted, said tech is like 200 years old, but it's essential nonetheless.well, if you aren't conching it, you aren't making good chocolate.
(Yes, I just implied Taza is not good chocolate, it's hipster junk.)
The cheapest concher I've seen that was suitable for a home was like $8k used, which is a touch steep for my budget just so I can make some mediocre chocolate. (Because mediocre is the best any home cook can make thanks to the cocao commodity market.)
8k? Yikes. Not likely then! I had no idea making good chocolate at home required anything special. That's a shame.
Butter is another of those classic examples of something seemingly easy to make, but not something for the home cook to make.
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With respect to the heavily processed convenience foods: consider diet plans like Jenny Craig. The entire DIET is made up of such foods.0
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I don't like Trader Joe's for political reasons, but they do seem to have some preservative and additive free chocolate bars. Whole Foods needs to play catch up if they don't.0
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I had a microwaved food product once.herrspoons wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »All that will happen here is that some emulsifiers may be changed provided that the studied translate to humans, which they may or may not.
My concern is that they would just change to another less studied emulsifier which will then later be shown to be just as bad if not worse. It seems like every few years we find out another additive to highly processed foods is actually pretty bad for us (certain food dyes, trans-fats, etc.).herrspoons wrote: »Bottom line is a microwave meal now and then isn't a problem.
No arguments there.
The key phrase being "now and then". I don't think most folks eat heavily processed foods like the microwave meals "now and then".
On what basis? Most people I know do.
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haha, nice.neanderthin wrote: »
My grandmother use to make butter and of course I did the grunt work manually and it helped her keep an eye on me, instead of watching how close I could get to the bull and get back to the fence in time. Butter is a life saver you know.
It's one of those things that to make a quality product you need both access to good ingredients (which are completely locked up by commercial producers) and technology. granted, said tech is like 200 years old, but it's essential nonetheless.well, if you aren't conching it, you aren't making good chocolate.
(Yes, I just implied Taza is not good chocolate, it's hipster junk.)
The cheapest concher I've seen that was suitable for a home was like $8k used, which is a touch steep for my budget just so I can make some mediocre chocolate. (Because mediocre is the best any home cook can make thanks to the cocao commodity market.)
8k? Yikes. Not likely then! I had no idea making good chocolate at home required anything special. That's a shame.
Butter is another of those classic examples of something seemingly easy to make, but not something for the home cook to make.
If I had cattle, i'd probably make my own butter more often, but as it is, the investment for raw cream, the days spent storing it as I culture it, then the volume loss once processed into butter. It just doesn't make sense, particularly since it's easier to just buy better butter, and it's cheaper.
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herrspoons wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »All that will happen here is that some emulsifiers may be changed provided that the studied translate to humans, which they may or may not.
My concern is that they would just change to another less studied emulsifier which will then later be shown to be just as bad if not worse. It seems like every few years we find out another additive to highly processed foods is actually pretty bad for us (certain food dyes, trans-fats, etc.).herrspoons wrote: »Bottom line is a microwave meal now and then isn't a problem.
No arguments there.
The key phrase being "now and then". I don't think most folks eat heavily processed foods like the microwave meals "now and then".
On what basis? Most people I know do.
The grocery store shelves. CHOCK FULL of boxed foods and frozen foods. Someone's eating them. My nephew ONLY eats boxed and frozen meals.0 -
They don't pay a living wage or want to provide decent health insurance for the people who actually make their money for them.Actually scratch part of that, double checked, they aren't so bad on wage, they just got cranky about the health insurance.
However, back on topic, I went and reread the article:
"The team fed mice two very commonly used emulsifiers, polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulsose, at doses seeking to model the broad consumption of the numerous emulsifiers that are incorporated into almost all processed foods. They observed that emulsifier consumption changed the species composition of the gut microbiota and did so in a manner that made it more pro-inflammatory. The altered microbiota had enhanced capacity to digest and infiltrate the dense mucus layer that lines the intestine, which is normally, largely devoid of bacteria. Alterations in bacterial species resulted in bacteria expressing more flagellin and lipopolysaccharide, which can activate pro-inflammatory gene expression by the immune system."
Unless one of those two chemicals is a fancy way of saying soy lecithin or is identical or nearly so to it, a lot of chocolate might be okay.0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »All that will happen here is that some emulsifiers may be changed provided that the studied translate to humans, which they may or may not.
My concern is that they would just change to another less studied emulsifier which will then later be shown to be just as bad if not worse. It seems like every few years we find out another additive to highly processed foods is actually pretty bad for us (certain food dyes, trans-fats, etc.).herrspoons wrote: »Bottom line is a microwave meal now and then isn't a problem.
No arguments there.
The key phrase being "now and then". I don't think most folks eat heavily processed foods like the microwave meals "now and then".
On what basis? Most people I know do.
The grocery store shelves. CHOCK FULL of boxed foods and frozen foods. Someone's eating them. My nephew ONLY eats boxed and frozen meals.
... parenting?0 -
These kind of studies come out all the time and a fair amount of the time the effects cannot be reproduced in humans. Just like every week we get a new THIS THING CAUSES CANCER! headline. Then the week after, it'll be the same food, just that now it'll apparently CURE cancer.
I've never been sensitive to gut problems. I'm not worried.0 -
I hear ya. I'm going back to the 50's and 60's where my parents dropped me off at my grandparents farm for the summers, did that for years. We had some dairy cows and used it raw for butter, yogurt, cheese, cream and they were mostly pastured, supplementing with hay, I remember the hay and alfalfa. Anyway back to your point in making it yourself. Definitely easier to buy a good quality one like kerrigold or an organic pasture butter but it's certainly a good practice to make yourself aware of butter in general. I remember the washing and paddling she did, not as easy as it appears, especially in the summer. She also let the cream go a little sour, which made all the difference in taste imo.
haha, nice.neanderthin wrote: »
My grandmother use to make butter and of course I did the grunt work manually and it helped her keep an eye on me, instead of watching how close I could get to the bull and get back to the fence in time. Butter is a life saver you know.
It's one of those things that to make a quality product you need both access to good ingredients (which are completely locked up by commercial producers) and technology. granted, said tech is like 200 years old, but it's essential nonetheless.well, if you aren't conching it, you aren't making good chocolate.
(Yes, I just implied Taza is not good chocolate, it's hipster junk.)
The cheapest concher I've seen that was suitable for a home was like $8k used, which is a touch steep for my budget just so I can make some mediocre chocolate. (Because mediocre is the best any home cook can make thanks to the cocao commodity market.)
8k? Yikes. Not likely then! I had no idea making good chocolate at home required anything special. That's a shame.
Butter is another of those classic examples of something seemingly easy to make, but not something for the home cook to make.
If I had cattle, i'd probably make my own butter more often, but as it is, the investment for raw cream, the days spent storing it as I culture it, then the volume loss once processed into butter. It just doesn't make sense, particularly since it's easier to just buy better butter, and it's cheaper.
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So I take it you don't go to restaurants very often as well?
They don't pay a living wage or want to provide decent health insurance for the people who actually make their money for them.Actually scratch part of that, double checked, they aren't so bad on wage, they just got cranky about the health insurance.
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So many comments, where to start?
Mouse models are pretty good for lots of human gut flora research with two major exceptions, where the model is fair at best. Those exceptions are inflammatory bowel disease and obesity.
dmm.biologists.org/content/8/1/1.full
The cheapest concher I've seen that was suitable for a home was like $8k used, which is a touch steep for my budget just so I can make some mediocre chocolate. (Because mediocre is the best any home cook can make thanks to the cocao commodity market.)
A conch is a commercial machine designed to handle 100+ lbs of chocolate at a time. Home chocolate making is entirely possible with a home-sized "conch" costing well under $500. In the home market a conch is usually called a mellangeur or a wet grinder.
shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment/products/spectra-11-chocolate-melangerMarziPanda95 wrote: »These kind of studies come out all the time and a fair amount of the time the effects cannot be reproduced in humans.
A voice of reason!0 -
Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »Sabine_Stroehm wrote: »herrspoons wrote: »All that will happen here is that some emulsifiers may be changed provided that the studied translate to humans, which they may or may not.
My concern is that they would just change to another less studied emulsifier which will then later be shown to be just as bad if not worse. It seems like every few years we find out another additive to highly processed foods is actually pretty bad for us (certain food dyes, trans-fats, etc.).herrspoons wrote: »Bottom line is a microwave meal now and then isn't a problem.
No arguments there.
The key phrase being "now and then". I don't think most folks eat heavily processed foods like the microwave meals "now and then".
On what basis? Most people I know do.
The grocery store shelves. CHOCK FULL of boxed foods and frozen foods. Someone's eating them. My nephew ONLY eats boxed and frozen meals.
... parenting?
Parenting? yeah. That's a given. With him. With lots and lots of kids his generation. His mother ate entirely Jenny Craig for years (same stuff in there). My point: folks are eating it. And then there's fast food. I'm going to safely assume Dominos, McDonalds, Wendys, Taco Bell.... are all using the same stuff.
The average american is not ingesting it "once in a while".0 -
This was right after your quote.
They don't pay a living wage or want to provide decent health insurance for the people who actually make their money for them.Actually scratch part of that, double checked, they aren't so bad on wage, they just got cranky about the health insurance.
However, back on topic, I went and reread the article:
"The team fed mice two very commonly used emulsifiers, polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulsose, at doses seeking to model the broad consumption of the numerous emulsifiers that are incorporated into almost all processed foods. They observed that emulsifier consumption changed the species composition of the gut microbiota and did so in a manner that made it more pro-inflammatory. The altered microbiota had enhanced capacity to digest and infiltrate the dense mucus layer that lines the intestine, which is normally, largely devoid of bacteria. Alterations in bacterial species resulted in bacteria expressing more flagellin and lipopolysaccharide, which can activate pro-inflammatory gene expression by the immune system."
Unless one of those two chemicals is a fancy way of saying soy lecithin or is identical or nearly so to it, a lot of chocolate might be okay.
Overconsumption may play a significant role and losing weight might or not over consuming might make this a mute point, who knows, but it would be interesting to some human trials.Such changes in bacteria triggered chronic colitis in mice genetically prone to this disorder, due to abnormal immune systems. In contrast, in mice with normal immune systems, emulsifiers induced low-grade or mild intestinal inflammation and metabolic syndrome, [bold] characterized by increased levels of food consumption [/b], obesity, hyperglycemia and insulin resistance.
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Norfolk and Way.In the home market a conch is usually called a mellangeur or a wet grinder.
shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment/products/spectra-11-chocolate-melanger
This is sofa king amazing. This is not a product I knew of. I may need to get one...
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Norfolk and Way.In the home market a conch is usually called a mellangeur or a wet grinder.
shop.chocolatealchemy.com/collections/equipment/products/spectra-11-chocolate-melanger
This is sofa king amazing. This is not a product I knew of. I may need to get one...
If you get one, promise to message me and tell me how it is!
I roast my own coffee and my wife likes homemade "V8" so I've got a juicer and a bean roaster... the only thing preventing me from home chocolate making is a wet grinder. I don't live in the USA though, so that $500 for me is $1000 plus shipping and no warranty, so for now, no chocolate for me. But I've been wanting to do this for YEARS! When I first started reading about this there was another model of wet grinder on the market for about $300, hence my "well under $500" comment which I guess isn't accurate any longer.0 -
Last I checked into it was about 8 years ago, and I couldn't find any home units.
I *just* got an immersion circulator, so it would go well with it... nothing like a pot de creme from my own chocolate... oh man...
I'll message if and when I do get one.0 -
Yeah, I wish that were more surprising.0
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