Fake Food

I was working out yesterday when I randomly began thinking about what food could look like 100 years down the road.  As it is, I don't think someone from the 19th century would recognize a majority of today's typical groceries.  Funny how what we think of as "healthy food" didn't even exist a hundred years ago.  Now that these healthy foods are readily available in every grocery store, are we more healthy?  I think not.

In my day dreaming, I thought of artificial food.  I was thinking of a green pepper.  It was made out of edible wax and then "painted" green.  The paint contained the nutrients to imitate a real pepper.  I thought that this could be practical in case society has problems providing vegetables for the 7 billion people on the planet.  As it is, most conventional fruits and vegetables in the grocery store are coated with an edible wax, for a number of reasons.  I was only thinking of the inverse, a vegetable made mostly of wax, coated with nutrients.  Is this the future of fresh?

After these dreadful predictions, I then realized these products already exist!  I thought about Cool Whip, which is a whipped dessert topping that imitates real whipped cream (although Cool Whip now does contain some dairy).  I thought about vegan food; specifically vegan "meat."  They use fake food such as soy protein or cornstarch to create a meat imitation product.  That kills me.  I wouldn't touch that fake food, yet it is widely considered to be the healthiest option.

I also thought about juice.  Juice is very misunderstood.  While it can provide a lot of vitamins, it also provides a lot of sugar.  Sometimes sugar is even added.  Drinking juice results in an immediate, large spike in insulin because there is no time required to break it down.  At least when you eat an orange, your body must process the meat of the orange to access the nutrients.  This slows the absorption of the sugar, a good thing.  When you drink orange juice, there is no processing needed, hence the immediate spike.  So many believe juice to be healthy and important to drink throughout the day.  I think juice is a joke and just another vehicle for sugar.

What about all the different cereals?  I could write pages on the sins of cereal and how they are currently marketed.  Breakfast in general is dumb idea.  Why do we even need to eat breakfast?  The standard American breakfast is pure carbohydrates, aka sugar.  I don't care what cereal it is.  It is all sugar.  Now they make calcium infused cereal, high protein cereal... these foods are fake.

Fiber, sugar, grains and "low fat," are jokes that I would be laughing at, except I pity all those innocent people who try to do the right thing by eating "healthy," when in fact, they are doomed for failure and a life of full of problems ("Follow the Money...").  I will touch on these subjects again in the near future.

Finally, I have been watching a lot of the food network lately and noticed something.  The fattest, most unhealthy looking chef's, use the most sugar and/or eat the cheapest food.  There is no denying Rachel Ray, who prepares some of the cheapest foods, has ballooned in recent years.  I enjoy Barefoot Contessa, but, she cooks with a ton of sugar, and she is a big lady.  Then there is Giada De Laurentiis, who cooks a lot of real food (she was cooking with lobster meat last show), and she is very healthy looking.  Chef Bobby Flay, is in decent shape and he cooks with real food.  I just noticed some correlation there.