Every once in awhile the media grabs hold of some piece of information about something shockingly gross in our everyday food, and runs with it. Remember pink slime in 2012? It should come as no surprise that almost all food in this country, processed or not, has something gross about it. And is it any wonder that we're one of the wealthiest but sickest nations on the planet? Here's some of the weirdest gross things in your food, and what you can do about it...
- Your Fruit is Shellacked to a High Shine. There's nothing more appealing than a shiny red apple, right? Wrong! Shellac is a resin secreted from the female lac bug in India. This is scraped off, made into flakes, and mixed with ethyl alcohol to then spread on your fruit and vegetables to improve the appearance and prolong the shelf life. Because shellac can even be used on organic foods, you can either scrub it off with a veggie brush before eating it, or start growing your own!
- Your Poultry is a Substance Abuser. Looking at a whole organic chicken next to a conventional one, the organic one might seem small and sickly, but the opposite is true. According to research from Johns Hopkins University, poultry is rife with "banned antibiotics, antidepressants, allergy medications, arsenic, the active ingredient in Benadryl, caffeine, and other prescription and over-the-counter drugs." This means it's in the eggs too! The solution is to either buy organic, or to raise your own - now an option in urban areas like Somerville, which allows residents to keep up to 6 hens.
- Your Dough is Full of Feathers. 80% of the dough softener used in bagels, cookies, breads and other baked goods is derived from duck feathers (L-cysteine). Say what? That just doesn't fly with us! Unfortunately this ingredient is often not on labels, but you can call the manufacturer and ask, or bake your own! There's a grain CSA called NOGMO (Northeast Organic Grain and Malt Offering), organized by co-founder of Valley Malt Andrea Stanley, which will have a pick-up in Boston as part of the Clover Food Lab CSA.
One way to avoid the shock of finding out what gross things are in or on just about everything sold in a grocery store is to go straight to the local source or to BECOME that source for yourself (unless you shop the rooftop farm section of the produce aisle at Whole Foods Lynnfield). It's easier than you might think! There's an Urban Farming Course in Somerville this weekend, March 21-23, that covers everything you need to know about small-scale urban farming; including chickens (provided by Khrysti Smyth) and beekeeping (provided by Boston's Best Bees). Only a few seats left!
To figure out what to create from your harvest once you have it, check out From Scratch with Joe Gatto - he makes cooking from scratch local, easy, and fun.
