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Low Fat Bread and Gluten Free Potato Chips
jgnatca
Posts: 14,464 Member
in Debate Club
I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
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Replies
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I home school my kids and they know how to read nutritional labels, know what macros/micros are, know how CICO works etc. My son is also on an ADHD med, so calories/his weight is something we talk about regularly, on top of going in every few weeks for weigh-ins at the pediatrician's office. His pediatrician has been very upfront with him as well about his weight, why he needs to eat more calories, even when he doesn't feel hungry etc.
eta: for clarification, my son is 10 and is underweight. He's always been 'small' (failure to thrive as a baby etc), and has struggled to stay at the 10% mark on the growth chart. We've figured it's because of his ADHD-he simply forgets to eat, even if it's right in front of him. On top of that the ADHD med is an appetite suppressant. Getting the kid to eat is like a part time job for me
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In the US, I think we'd benefit greatly from some sort of life skills class requirement that would encompass things like basic finance, reading contracts, reading ingredients lists and nutrition labels, vetting sources of information, etc. Course requirements are left to the individual states here, so the Federal government has little ability to standardize that sort of thing. I'm not sure how much Ottawa can influence the curricula in the provinces in Canada.8
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I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
I think nutritional label reading is a life skill and I'm a strong advocate of teaching life skills at all levels through high school graduation.
I picked up a 5 pound bag of russet potatoes at Sprouts this weekend. It's labeled "gluten free". I just rolled my eyes.5 -
I'm super distilling a batch of gluten free water. None of that highly processed water for me, it has too much GMOs in it, and addictive sugar poison. Not to mention all the mind control corporations big pharma puts in it. No sir, only small batch, cage free, grass fed organic water for me.8
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I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?8
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.6 -
HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
This.3 -
It's the flavouring on the crisps that can contain gluten, not the potato itself.4
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We had a few units on calorie counting, reading labels, etc in health class and well as a class called "home ec" in elementary, middle and high school that were required. I think most schools do have programs nowadays. I don't know how good they are though.0
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I give you the point regarding the potato chips.
There is a mandatory life skills course in Alberta. Being mandatory I think makes it automatically unpopular.
http://www.learnalberta.ca/ProgramOfStudy.aspx?lang=en&ProgramId=317412#0 -
It is also possible for a potato chip to have been processed in a facility that also processes gluten on the same equipment, resulting in cross contamination.
I'm unsure if the labeling requirements proposed or even passed ever required avoiding that situation for gluten free labeling.
I think there were also proposals that would limit using low fat that way - at best a brand could advertise "a naturally low in fat food".
I'm waiting for the day someone starts offering caffeine free bread. Until then I'll settle for lactose free, no cholesterol:
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People with legitimate gluten issues can be effected by cross-contamination. This is why thinks such as oats are labeled "gluten free". I think it's great for those that need the information.
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magnusthenerd wrote: »It is also possible for a potato chip to have been processed in a facility that also processes gluten on the same equipment, resulting in cross contamination.
I'm unsure if the labeling requirements proposed or even passed ever required avoiding that situation for gluten free labeling.
I think there were also proposals that would limit using low fat that way - at best a brand could advertise "a naturally low in fat food".
I'm waiting for the day someone starts offering caffeine free bread. Until then I'll settle for lactose free, no cholesterol:
This one requires some careful label - reading. There's no wheat but it's not gluten free, it contains rye. Gluten isn't considered a common enough allergen to be disclosed on it's own. I get the lactose-free claim, some breads are made with dairy products. And Kosher is good to know for what foods it can be eaten with. The rest is the usual "make it sound as healthy as possible" bs - they missed "No GMOs!"
In the US, the FDA requires most labels to include the common name of any of the covered allergens ("milk" for instance as opposed to "whey" or "lactose". This can be done in the ingredients list or as a separate disclosure. It doesn't look like disclosing using shared equipment or facilities is required, (one of my pet peeves - celiac). I do notice that most products are pretty scrupulous about disclosing possible nut contamination.
I sometimes see a product labeled "No Gluten Ingredients" only to find it was processed on shared equipment or in a shared facility. So disappointing and misleading.
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I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
I have a kid, and am working at teaching label reading!
Labels are all about marketing, of course, and GF seems to be trendy right now.
That said, for those with serious food allergies, those labels can be useful. Example -- frozen french fries can be gluten-free or not. Many manufacturers dust them with what flour, and it's enough to cause a reaction for those who are allergic. I have seen it happen and had to administer the Benadryl.
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Lots of potato based crisps have gluten in the flavourings.1
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.
I went to secondary school in 1984 and home economics was a mandatory course. We covered finances, nutrition and cooking, home maintenance, and all the other elements required to live on your own.
Education needs to decide what it's mission is.
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
Yes.
And you would be surprised as to how many brands of crisps/ chips they manage to crowbar wheat starch into. There are so many kinds of crisps I cant eat. Most of the good ones.
Nutrition labels have been/ sometimes still are on the curriculum. It's Home Economics. We don't need new life skills classes, we need to stop considering HE a "how to be a housewife" class and appreciate it for what it actually is.
I went to secondary school in 1984 and home economics was a mandatory course. We covered finances, nutrition and cooking, home maintenance, and all the other elements required to live on your own.
Education needs to decide what it's mission is.
When I was in jr high school, home ec was an elective, as was shop, and involved sewing and cooking. It would have been taken instead of, say, a language, so most people didn't take it. In high school (class of '87), "personal finance" was a requirement but could be replaced by "economics," which was what you took if you were on the college bound track. My understanding is that personal finance was supposed to cover things like budgeting (as well as how to write a check, which really doesn't seem that complicated). Econ did not, it was more like a college Econ 101 class (but at a high school level). We read The Worldly Philosophers, which was fun.
Back when my mom was in school, in her school anyway, home ec was required for girls and shop for boys, and it was a "how to be a housewife" class.
That said, I don't really feel like I missed out by not learning how to read nutrition labels in school, as they seem pretty self explanatory. A lot of this is common sense.3 -
I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?
The potato chips thing can be useful to those that are very sensitive to small or cross-contamination amounts. (Presumably means the company was somewhat more careful about cross-contamination; and that they didn't lightly coat with any wheat to avoid sticking or add extra crisp). As others have pointed out, it could also be mixed into some of the flavorings (and possible for someone to miss it if a really long ingredient list).0 -
..but I have seen it slapped on whole, unprocessed foods that are very obviously not wheat or rye (like a bag of whole potatoes in the Produce section, etc). definitely shake my head at that one.1
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..Oats do however make sense to be labeled GF. High cross-contamination is typical between wheat and oats.0
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HeliumIsNoble wrote: »I hear you about the bread, but isn't the chip thing to do with cross-contamination in the factory and the content of the added flavourings?
This. GF popcorn and GF oatmeal confused me also until read about cross contamination.0 -
I have seen Gluten Free on a bags of apples before, SMH. I also laugh when I see it on cheese but from what I understand, pre-shredded cheese may potentially contain it in the additives that keep the cheese from clumping?
There are a lot of silly labels to be seen if you are paying attention.
Also, labeling in general is geared towards the diets that are trending. I used to see "low carb" on cheese. Hmm, no kitten?
I've also seen "cholesterol free" on canned vegetables (that was a while ago). Also should fall in the no kitten category.0 -
Walmart has low carb butter on sale, only $4.99 a pound! I'm stocking up.4
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People already hit the chips thing. With regards to bread, not all bread is low fat - setting aside banana bread, any bread made with an enriched dough has egg, milk, and/or butter in it.I’m triggered this week. Two misleading food labels in a row.
All bread is low fat! Other than banana bread.
Gluten Free potato chips? Really? Guess what. Potatoes are born gluten free.
In my diabetic classes I was taught to read the regulated nutrition labels.
Lining up comparable products can be a real eye opener. It turned out that our generic brand of hot dog was lowest in sodium and fat. The gluten free all natural smokies? Ha, not so much.
Do you think that nutritional label reading should be on the national curriculum?0 -
That said, I don't really feel like I missed out by not learning how to read nutrition labels in school, as they seem pretty self explanatory. A lot of this is common sense.
I think perhaps we need more 'food industry awareness' lessons, not just labeling. Because labels have more than you'd think that are not self-explanatory nor based on common sense in the slightest. On purpose. While there are obviously little tricks that are used by companies, aimed at those simply not paying attention to labels (like a 'diet' food that in reality simply has an extremely small suggested servings size to get the desired low calorie per serving), there are a lot of shady and deceptive practices used by companies all the time to get around having to be honest about what they have, or don't have, in their food.
And one common way to deceive the public makes use of labeling regulations, and the precise way terms are defined by regulations, or not defined at all. Because if a company can make you THINK you are getting something special, while they don't have to pay extra for that 'something special'? They are all over that.
As some examples:
Gluten free doesn't actually mean 'no gluten.' It is a regulatory label that actually means 'contains less than X amount of gluten.' The actual amount of gluten that is shown to be safe for all people who need this label (like celiacs), is actually lower than the allowed amount. Instead, the regulators picked the 'safe for most' amount, which coincidentally happened to be much easier, and cheaper, for companies to comply with.
For labels like nut free, corn free, etc... it has even less meaning. There are no regulations on how much is allowed for any 'free' label except for gluten. So what the label means is literally up to the company to decide. Typically, it means that the company didn't add any nuts, corn, etc... deliberately, but that there is X amount of contamination allowed. And the amount can differ pretty widely by company.
Non-dairy doesn't mean no dairy - it means it contains less than a certain % of dairy.
No nitrites means no artificially created nitrites. But what companies are often doing instead is adding celery juice treated with a bacterial culture that turns the nitrates in it into nitrites...typically as much, if not more, as the previously added man-made nitrites. But most folks who are worried about nitrites are not going to recognize celery juice as a problem unless they've done more research.
An 'extract' on a food label is not necessarily what most people are thinking. Vanilla extract and others like it are used for flavoring in our kitchens, and sometimes that's what they are used for in foods as well. However, in labeling regulations, all an extract means is that the substance was originally from the ingredient. So if you can get chemicals from an ingredient while staying within certain processing boundaries, you can call those chemicals an extract. For example, a type of rosemary extract that has none of the scent/flavoring left, but has the chemicals remaining that are useful preservatives, and is often used in foods trying to seem more natural. People trying to avoid preservatives...not going to be looking at rosemary extract.
100% orange juice - Companies take oranges and extract chemicals to make up flavoring agents that they then add to all the orange juice. This is why all orange juice from the same company tastes the same: they are using the same flavoring packets. It's still officially all from oranges, so they can use the label, but it's not what most of us would consider '100%.'
A similar issue for 100% maple syrup. Anything that is added but is officially used for processing is not an ingredient, officially, and so does not alter the '100%' label, as that applies to ingredients, essentially. All maple syrup in the USA has defoaming agents added to prevent foaming and build up of pressure during processing, but since it's for processing, you won't read about it.
All of the above is not something you are going to be able to find out just from reading the label. Much of it isn't on the label at all, and what is on the label may be using terms people have to be educated about to know.
Not only is this a problem for simply being more educated about our food, it's honestly a big problem for many people's health. In large part because hiding things in our food, or obscuring what they are, make it quite dangerous for anyone who medically has to avoid them. As one example, I know of someone who had an allergic reaction to 100% maple syrup because the folks they got their local maple syrup from used cream as their anti-foaming agent. Doctors don't even know all of this, so they can't help their patients stay safe, either.
I actually think education is very much needed, but at this point in time, we don't even have consolidated information enough to teach people about it - there have been a few people in the industry trying to track down and collate data on all the different oddball things that are used, added, or altered and added to our food, so people can know what they are (for allergy and medical purposes), and after years, they still have not yet managed to do so because there is so much confusion and lack of cooperation.
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Tinabob777 wrote: »My ground beef last night said "0 Carb!"
Hilarious.0 -
@shaumom -- there's a difference between a food label and what you are seemingly mostly talking about (disclosures) and what this thread is about, which is marketing labels on foods to try to promote their healthful properties (like "heart-healthy grains!" or "fat-free" or "no sugar added!" on a bag of dried pasta made with only wheat.
There are specific gov't regulations re certain marketing terms (which is why KIND bar got a warning about its use of "healthy"), and also about labeling to disclose the presence of the 8 common allergens (milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nut, wheat, and soy). The specifics of those laws has nothing to do with marketing games, but with what the regulators (FDA) determined, so your beef is with them.
I would personally tell people interested in things like nutrition and calories and avoiding added sugar and/or sat fat to IGNORE marketing labels as they are normally stupid or puffery and should not be taken any more seriously than a commercial. If they had a medical condition, I'd say talk to a registered dietitian and doctor about how strict you need to be and how that lines up with the label disclosures, if they are sufficient as to your specific issue. But most people just need to read a basic label with the nutrition information and ingredients (and if you don't know what an ingredient is, I think it's useful to look it up and use a reputable source for understanding it, not some woo-filled site, of course).
These are all more about common sense and reading and understanding information more broadly (and being aware of marketing) than food-specific issues.3 -
@shaumom -- there's a difference between a food label and what you are seemingly mostly talking about (disclosures) and what this thread is about, which is marketing labels on foods to try to promote their healthful properties (like "heart-healthy grains!" or "fat-free" or "no sugar added!" on a bag of dried pasta made with only wheat.
There are specific gov't regulations re certain marketing terms (which is why KIND bar got a warning about its use of "healthy"), and also about labeling to disclose the presence of the 8 common allergens (milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, peanut, tree nut, wheat, and soy). The specifics of those laws has nothing to do with marketing games, but with what the regulators (FDA) determined, so your beef is with them.
I would personally tell people interested in things like nutrition and calories and avoiding added sugar and/or sat fat to IGNORE marketing labels as they are normally stupid or puffery and should not be taken any more seriously than a commercial. If they had a medical condition, I'd say talk to a registered dietitian and doctor about how strict you need to be and how that lines up with the label disclosures, if they are sufficient as to your specific issue. But most people just need to read a basic label with the nutrition information and ingredients (and if you don't know what an ingredient is, I think it's useful to look it up and use a reputable source for understanding it, not some woo-filled site, of course).
These are all more about common sense and reading and understanding information more broadly (and being aware of marketing) than food-specific issues.
^^This
The marketing claims are less common in UK packaging but their use is on the rise. The traffic light system used by many brands is also a useful way to quickly pick out the most important information if you don't want to read through the whole nutritional information.1 -
@shaumom -- there's a difference between a food label and what you are seemingly mostly talking about (disclosures) and what this thread is about, which is marketing labels on foods to try to promote their healthful properties ...
...But most people just need to read a basic label with the nutrition information and ingredients (and if you don't know what an ingredient is, I think it's useful to look it up and use a reputable source for understanding it, not some woo-filled site, of course).
These are all more about common sense and reading and understanding information more broadly (and being aware of marketing) than food-specific issues.
Point on there being differences between disclosures vs. promotion of food to promote healthful properties. Honestly, I didn't view the OP's question to be solely about the latter. Gluten free and low fat were the two labels mentioned, and both labels are the type based on regulations, that involve disclosure of ingredients/properties of the food in question. So I personally took that to mean that the thread was about labeling from a standpoint of what the labels say and what meaning the labels actually have and also the marketing games involving that.
If that's not the tact you were taking, okay, no problem. I think I can see what you were focusing on.
So to shift over to people who have no health issues at all simply trying to be able to understand exactly what they are eating?
I still think we could use education. My view is that the label is there so I can know what my food contains. What I would consider an ingredient - so what is added to my food from the time it was an empty bowl to the time it's food I am eating. What the calories, fat, etc... are. That's what I view the purpose of the label for the consumer.
How I use that information is up to me, but if I don't need to be educated about the label, then the label should have the information I need (what's in it) in a way that I can, without too much research, put into an understandable context.
I personally do not believe, at this point in time, that we can read our food labels and accurately know what the food contains without knowing a lot more about labeling, ingredients, the food industry, and even the labeling process. So I think we need education for that.
Common sense only goes so far when you have to deal with as large an industry as we have, one whose goal is to make a profit. Because there is always someone willing to sell that metaphorical bridge to someone else, and if they can use labeling to do so, or to hide the fact that they are doing so, all the better.
And people are not naturally born knowing what to look for when it comes to this sort of thing, you know? I mean, in the 1800's, if you were the person who shopped at the market, you would have to be taught that some sellers will put their finger on the scale to make it seem like you are buying more than you are, that some meat has that red dye added, that some flour is cut with talcum, etc...
We don't have as direct a connection with the sellers of our food, and our ingredients aren't as simple any longer. But we still have companies that will do their own version of adding red dye. It is simply that in the modern world, we have to learn about how people use labels to deceive and obfuscate, instead of putting their finger on the scale. And that's not as easy or simple as using common sense, reading closely, or even an awareness of marketing in general.
And it's not like the industry is going to help us. As an example...you mention looking up ingredient information, but there is no site you can do that for reliably, for all ingredients. There is no consolidated list, anywhere, of all the ingredients used in our foods. The FDA doesn't even have one - there are some ingredients they don't require companies to disclose that they are using (law in 1997 or so, ostensibly to help with the decreasing backlog in the FDA, was made saying that companies could do their own testing to decide if an additive was viewed as generally recognized as safe (GRAS), and they don't even have to inform the FDA if they have done so.).
This is not something I used to think about, until some of my family developed allergies - which is when I started having to find out exactly what was in our food. Trying to find out if X food contains Y allergen was so much more involved that I could have imagined. Not even from a contamination standpoint, but literally just figuring out what ingredient names meant in terms of what they actually were made of.
Or finding out about processing agents - just to know these are IN foods in a crazy process. I've called up multiple companies and if you ask if X food contains Y, they'll say no. Until you ask if it's added 'as part of processing,' and THEN you may get a yes. But they'll often add 'but it's still not an ingredient.' And because 'what's in the food' is not, it turns out, the definition of 'ingredient,' that's not a problem for them. And these substances that we would absolutely consider ingredients, many times. Like yeast, for example.
I know that this, not being even ON the label, might not qualify for how some folks are approaching the discussion. But IMHO, if simply reading the label won't even tell us what's in our food, then either we need new labeling, or we need some education to understand what the labels do and do not tell us. Because close reading and a little research is not enough to give us the information we need, at the current time.3 -
So to shift over to people who have no health issues at all simply trying to be able to understand exactly what they are eating?
I still think we could use education. My view is that the label is there so I can know what my food contains. What I would consider an ingredient - so what is added to my food from the time it was an empty bowl to the time it's food I am eating. What the calories, fat, etc... are. That's what I view the purpose of the label for the consumer.
How I use that information is up to me, but if I don't need to be educated about the label, then the label should have the information I need (what's in it) in a way that I can, without too much research, put into an understandable context.
I believe it does.And people are not naturally born knowing what to look for when it comes to this sort of thing, you know? I mean, in the 1800's, if you were the person who shopped at the market, you would have to be taught that some sellers will put their finger on the scale to make it seem like you are buying more than you are, that some meat has that red dye added, that some flour is cut with talcum, etc...
I do not think it is a difficult thing to figure out if one is interested.And it's not like the industry is going to help us. As an example...you mention looking up ingredient information, but there is no site you can do that for reliably, for all ingredients.
We have the internet, and if you have any understanding of how to research properly -- which should be taught in school, and was when I went to school, even though I had to figure out myself how to apply those skills to the internet, since I'm old -- you can easily do this.
Your issue seems to be levels of things that must be disclosed, and you can research what those levels are and decide if you care and petition the gov't for a change if you don't think they are strict enough. That doesn't seem to me to have anything to do with how difficult to understand our labels are in general or whether we should be spending time in school scaring kids about the ingredients in their food, which honestly seems more like what you want to do. I am basically kind of a "the wholer the better" in my personal life, although I think telling people that's inherently more healthy or better is total woo, it's more a lifestyle/preference thing for me. So how do I do this? I limit the packaged stuff I buy, I buy from local farms when possible (in season for produce, all year for eggs, much of my meat and some dairy), I am careful about sourcing things. Also, I read labels, and I research.0
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