Last week I was invited to lunch by the folks at Stonyfield Farm yogurt. We are big consumers of their products in my house and I was happy to go. The guest speaker was Robyn O’Brien, and her story moved me.
Robyn talked about how a couple of years ago, as a busy mom of four kids, she felt that just feeding her clan was hard enough and that she didn’t need to beat herself up over what they actually ate. She tried to keep their grocery bill in check. Blue tubes of yogurt were frequently on the menu.
One day, her daughter had a frightening allergic reaction to eggs. As she started researching food allergies, and discovered the lack of free information, she decided to create a resource for families who face them, and a few months later AllergyKids was born.
But wait, there’s more.
Robyn kept learning more and more about what exactly is in our foods and discovered a bunch of unhealthy and upsetting truths. A self-described patriotic Conservative, she felt devastated to discover that the United States permits a whole bunch of ingredients in our food that are not allowed in other countries. Even nations that rely on the U.S. for food assistance do not allow some of these ingredients because they are not proven safe. It’s no wonder our little kids are demonstrating allergies at rates unheard of when we were growing up.
I am half-way through Robyn’s book, The Unhealthy Truth, and it’s kinda rocking my world. I am glad to have met her and heard her story straight from her mouth, a mom who was moved to action because of a gut-wrenching journey she experienced. She said that to realize her child had suffered from food that she herself had prepared and offered her was simply heartbreaking.
To make it real for you, let me share this example that I came across on Healthy Child Healthy World. It’s a US vs UK: Mac ‘n Cheese Smackdown. Basically, in the UK, Kraft makes a different, safer Mac and Cheese formulation. Take a look:
U.S. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:
Enriched Macaroni Product (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Ferrous Sulfate [Iron], Thiamin Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2], Folic Acid), Cheese Sauce Mix (Whey, Modified Food Starch, Whey Protein Concentrate, Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Salt, Calcium Carbonate, Potassium Chloride, Contains Less Than 2% of Parmesan Cheese [Part-Skim Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes, Dried Buttermilk, Sodium Tripolyphosphate, Blue Cheese [Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt, Enzymes], Sodium Phosphate, Medium Chain Triglycerides, Cream, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Enzymes, Yellow 5, Yellow 6).
U.K. Version of Kraft Mac & Cheese:
Macaroni (Durum Wheat Semolina), Cheese (10%), Whey Powder (from milk), Lactose, Salt, Emulsifying Salts (E339, E341), Colours (Paprika Extract, Beta-Carotene)
Thank you for posting information on this book! I have been looking for a great read that sheds more light on the information that Healthy Child Healthy World discusses around processed food and certain items that we don’t think about, like food dyes. Can’t wait to read it!
I need to read that book. The food thing really scares me, all the hidden stuff in our foods.
I appreciate the time and effort you put into gathering credible information for us. Thanks again!
Truly awesome mom- I want to get that book and have every family member read it. The comparison between the US & UK mac&cheese is pretty staggering.
I hope this is a move to be more proactive about food safety. How many more, “I didn’t know until it affected me” stories do we need to make a change?
Cheers!
I grew up with a mom who cooked mostly from scratch (often from our own garden) foods. My husband grew up with a mom who hardly ever cooked and when she did it was almost exclusively from a box. I would give anything to get him to eat “real” food but he is so darn stubborn and picky about what he eats. He’s definitely in the “don’t tell me what to eat” camp. Mac and cheese, spaghetti, and helpers from a box are just not real food! I make an effort to feed myself and our toddler better food when I can, and sneak in real food add ons when he’s not looking.
I am very concerned about this growing epidemic. I am irritated by people who think I am over the top with what I don’t allow my children to eat and their philosophy of “a little of that stuff won’t hurt.” My thought is, “yes it will.” Why put something in our mouths that isn’t safe? And I won’t lie, I have purchased some of those products like everyone else. I do my best to keep it clean though. People are so uneducated about all of this and I think in denial. It has become such a world of convenience that no one wants to know what’s in our food because of our busy schedules. You can pop dinner in the microwave and it’s ready in 5 minutes. So sad. I will fight the good fight and stand my ground about what I will buy for my family and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer at the young age of 43. Not sure if it is in the family, but I do believe that all of the processed food that people eat is a large contributor of these growing illnesses. I will do what I think is right for my family. I would like for him to be with us for a long time and I believe whole food will help. Good luck to you Susan H in your quest. Check out Jessica Seinfeld’s book, Deceptively Delicious.
I read this book last year when my son was a newborn and it totally changed the way I feed my family. Luckily my kids are 3 and 1 now, so we didn’t really have too many bad feeding habits. I am now so much more aware of what we eat, what it has in it and where it comes from.
I’m glad you are reading this book and talking about it here! Way to spread the word.
I saw Robyn a couple of years ago when she spoke at my workplace. I read her book and went on to read a couple of Michael Pollan’s books and watch Food Inc. It’s really moved me in the direction of modifying my family’s diet. She really got me looking at the horrible state of the food system here and what my family was eating. I’ve made several changes based on what I’ve learned since then and am working on incorporating more.
My foray into educating myself about food began when I was learning about when to introduce solids to my daughter. The history of how and why we give nutritionless grey goo as our first food was certainly eye opening to me. Other posters have made good points, so I will not go on too long. I did want to say that two of my favorite blogs are (ironically named) Marion Nestle’s website http://www.foodpolitics.com and another at http://www.fooducate.com/blog/
Learning about food in the US lead me to investigate other items in my life. Did you know the lax laws you mentioned in your post also apply to cosmetics? Some of the things we smear on our bodies (and our baby’s bodies) are downright frightening. The Environmental Working Group is a great resource on many topics, but my favorite is the link where you can search by item and see it’s toxicity rating. It has definitely changed the way I shop.
Perhaps the biggest crime in all of this is that the more dangerous an item it is, the less expensive it is. You shouldn’t have to be rich, in America, to be healthy.
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I applaud Robyn O’Brien for being brave enough to take on Big Food, and I completely agree with a lot of the harmful things she points out. I also have a child with food allergies and am very sympathetic to that, and appreciate her work to help get at the root causes.
But the fact remains that it’s an area (food allergies, that is) that still needs a TON more research, and it seems to me that she is stating as proven fact theories that at this point in time are still considered theories by the scientific community.
That’s not to discount the general advice she’s giving, I’m all for more home cooking from scratch, fewer additives, and eating whole, organic foods. And I get it that you can’t always wait for the “scientific community” to catch up with what you already know or beleive to be true — sometimes you have to go ahead and change your personal habits regardless, especially when you’re talking about the food industry considering that food regulations are so heavily influenced by lobbyists in this country. But I read this NY Times article about Ms. O’Brien and thought that at least some of the criticisms in the article seemed valid. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/dining/09alle.html?pagewanted=2
For those interested in Ms. O’Brien’s work, it might be worth reading.
Suzanne Summers wrote a book a while back. I think it was one of her first, but anyway she breaks down mayonnaise, purchased and then made homemade. That was my first SHOCK on realizing how much garbage we put into our bodies… It was a great read !
The different ingredient lists for US/UK are shocking and frustrating.
It wasn’t that long ago that anything I “cooked” at home came from a can, box or bag. Now we eat mostly real, whole food. I’m proud of how far we have come, but it has certainly been a huge effort. Learning to read ingredient labels has really changed my shopping habits!
I really appreciated this article. The area of what is really in our foods and what we eat is something we have been researching and changing quite dramatically.
However, I too agree with Kate on the allergy issue. I think that Ms. O’Brien has many good things to say and things that we need to be aware of and realize in our diets, but I do think that she is jumping to conclusions as to the allergy issue – foods might not be the only potential problem. I haven’t read her book and this is the first time I have heard of her, so she might not fully be pinpointing foods as the sole source.
Just as Kate said, there is A LOT of research and discoveries yet to be made in regards to what causes allergies to develop in children. We have 5 kids and our first has mild allergies (food and environmental), but our second has an extremely high sensitivity to peanuts and is off the charts as far as exactly how allergic she is, which means that it would be very deadly if exposed. In addition, she has a high sensitivity to tree nuts, cats and dogs, and many more mild allergies to other foods and environments.
We racked our brains trying to figure out if we did something wrong to cause this life altering situation. We have researched and talked to many allergists and doctors and there is no definitive reason and all resources have said that we have nothing to do with it.
However, in the course of 6 years of personal research, I feel as if it is the “sterile” environments we live in and all of our chemical cleanings that do not allow young children to build up the proper immunities necessary to tolerate certain foods (even in their natural state). I have seen and read many articles on this particular cause, but this too is still just a theory.
In the pattern of our own lives, the reason I tend to lean towards the sterile environment and chemical cleaning theory as a cause is because when I was 8 months pregnant with our second, I went fanatic about sterilizing (nesting I guess!) and was bleaching everything. In fact, at 8 months pregnant, I was bleaching my kitchen floors with a very strong bleach/water. This pattern of sterilizing continued through her birth. Then at 1 year old, we discovered all of these allergies.
Since then, we have had 3 more children, I became relaxed about sterilizing and started switching all of my cleaners to natural or homemade versions and we haven’t had allergy problems with the following 3 yet! Also, growing up, both my husband and I had poor diets and many processed foods and we don’t have food allergies along with many other people we know in the same situation. our children live in a “cleaner” environment today and our food allergy rates are increasing at alarming rates.
So I tend to lean more on this theory as it rings most consistent with what was going on in our lives.
However, I whole heartidly agree that there is major problems with the food industry in America and I am fully convinced that this has led to many health issues and we, as a family on a tight budget, are doing our best to eat as much healthy, organic as possible and change our lifestyle because of this.
The difference in the ingredients for the 2 Kraft macaroni and cheeses is disturbing, definitely! It is a challenge to be able to feed our family affordably and also healthy. I am not really into cooking, but I do try to avoid the boxed processed products as much as feasible. I feel like all I ever do at the store is look at labels.. and grimace… There’s food coloring and artificial flavors in almost anything anymore, and that’s before you even venture into whatever preservatives and miscellaneous barely pronounceable ‘ingredients’ are in there too. I do believe that so much of the garbage in our foods is contributing to many of the growing health problems we have in the U.S. So for me, it is a challenge. I’d love to feed my family healthier, but the cost of foods is prohibitive too. I’m just trying my best. Sometimes you honestly feel like there’s information overload and you can’t win for losing, that no matter what you do, somehow you’re not doing enough.
As a general rule, I don’t give much weight to anything written in the NY Times. And as Ms. O’Brien is a Conservative, I don’t doubt that the Times has an issue with her. My kids don’t have food allergies and I still avoid all that stuff. Better safe than sorry. If eventually we figure that all these man made ingredients are “bad” for us, oh well. Instead we’ve eaten more fruit and vegetables and less carbs (regardless of what the new USDA “food plate” says, wrong again USDA!).
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