If there’s one thing in the world that the food industry is completely against, it’s allowing you to retain some level of control over what you eat . You see, they have a warehouse full of everything they drunkenly bought last week that they need to get rid of – and they do that by feeding it to you. And it doesn’t matter how many annoying “ingredient lists” and consumer protection measures separate you from it.
#6. Secret ingredient: wood. Do you know what’s great?Newspaper.
Or more specifically, his absence. The Internet and other electronic media have almost completely replaced traditional print media and the circulation of almost all newspapers has declined. Tell me, have you ever wondered what they do with all that excess pulp? “But Cracked,” you ask, “what does that have to do with food ingredients?”» And we look you directly in the eyes, then slowly turn our gaze to the half-eaten bagel in your hand. Oh shit… Horror: What are they doing with all that pulp? They hide it behind a stupid name and tell you to eat it, that’s what it’s all about. And everyone does it. Aunt Jemima pancake syrup?Cellulose. Pillsbury puff pastry? Cellulose.
Bagels filled with kraft paper? Fast food cheese?Sara Lee’s breakfast bowls? Cellulose, cellulose, damn cellulose. It turns out that cellulose can add texture to processed foods, which is why food companies like to use it to replace inexpensive, wasteful ingredients like flour and oil. Since cellulose, which is 30% cheaper, is edible and non-toxic, the FDA has no interest in restricting its use or, for that matter, the maximum amount that food companies can use in a product. It occurs almost everywhere and even organic food is no salvation: cellulose was once wood and can therefore be described as organic, at least to a limited extent.
But the worst thing about cellulose isn’t that it’s everywhere. The worst part is that it’s not food at all. Cellulose, unlike the normal foods you supposedly pay for, is completely indigestible by humans and has no nutritional value. If a product contains enough of it, you can literally get more nutrients by licking the sweet fingerprints off the packaging.
#5.Zombie Orange Juice Quickly name the healthiest drink your nearest store has to offer. You said orange juice, right? This is what everyone tells you to drink when you get sick. Damn, this shit must be like medicine or something. And the labels still talk about health benefits: the packaging says “100% natural!”», “No concentration!” and “No added sugar!”
And why shouldn’t you believe him? In terms of preparation, orange juice is not a sausage. You take an orange, squeeze it, put the result in a box, with or without pulp. End of story, beginning of joy. But what if we told you that your “freshly squeezed” juice could very well be a year old and has been exposed to factors that would make Re-Animator vomit?
The Horror: Ever wonder why every carton of natural, healthy, 100 percent, not-from-concentrate orange juice manages to taste exactly the same, yet ever so slightly different depending on the brand, despite containing no additives or preservatives whatsoever? The process indeed starts with the oranges being squeezed, but that’s the first and last normal step in the process. The juice is then immediately sealed in giant holding tanks and all the oxygen is removed. That allows the liquid to keep without spoiling for up to a year.
That’s why they can distribute it year-round, even when oranges aren’t in season. This process only has one disadvantage (from the manufacturer’s point of view, of course): it removes all flavors from the liquid. Now they’re stuck in barrels filled with very old, watery fruit sludge that tastes like paper and nothing else. What can a poor, giant beverage company do? Well, they flavor this shit with a carefully curated blend of chemicals called flavor packs, made by the same perfume companies that make CK One and other perfumes. Then they bottle orange flavored paper water and sell it to you.
And, thanks to a loophole in regulations, they often don’t even bother mentioning the flavor pack chemicals in the list of ingredients. Hear that low moan from the kitchen? That’s the Minute Maid you bought yesterday. It knows you know.
#4.Ammonia Hamburger Every burger restaurant does their best to assure you how pure and natural this burger is. Restaurant chains like McDonald’s (“All of our burgers are 100% beef and come from farms accredited by nationally recognized farm assurance programs”) and Taco Bell (“Like all American beef, ours is 100% premium beef, USDA tested, i.e. passed 20 quality control points, we are happy to guarantee the authenticity of the animal cuts. Their statements about the healthiness and fullness of the meat sounded like they were talking about a damn filet mignon. Aside from a rare E. coli outbreak, the meat is clean. The way they clean is disturbing.
Horror: , ammonia. Do you know the harsh chemicals used in fertilizers and oven cleaners? Kills E. coli very well. So they invented a process in which the hamburger is passed through a tube and immersed in ammonia gas.And you’ve probably never heard of it, except for those moments when batches of meat smell so strongly of ammonia that the buyer returns them. The ammonia process is an invention of a company called Beef Products Inc., which originally developed it to use the cheapest parts of the animal instead of the stupid “better cuts” offered by the competition (and chain restaurants).
I swear we still have them.) As a result, Beef Products Inc. has virtually cornered the hamburger market in the United States.S. to the point that 70% of all burgers are made by them. Thanks, ammonia!
#3. Mock Blueberries Imagine a blueberry muffin. Even with the newfound knowledge that cellulose may or may not be present in cake batter, it’s impossible not to drool at the thought. This is mainly due to the berries themselves. Plus, they’re so healthy that it’s almost inappropriate that they taste so good. Everything tastes better with berries: That’s why they are added to many dishes.
Now that we think about it, it seems like there are a lot of berries in a lot of foods.You’d think we’d see more blueberry fields around the area… , Horror: , … not that it would do any good since the number of blueberries you ate last year actually came from such a field, is probably close enough to zero. Research into products that claim to contain berries shows that many of them do not come from nature. All of these dangling, chewy, juicy bits of berries are completely artificial, made from various combinations of corn syrup, food coloring, and other chemicals, and have a whole bunch of numbers and letters in their names.
You can also pretend very well – you need your apothecary equipment to be able to talk nonsense. You can also distinguish them from the ingredients list if you know what to look for, although manufacturers tend to obscure them with meaningless terms like “blueberry chips” or “blueberry chips.”» There are several key differences between a real berry and a cranberry: Fake berries have the advantage of having a longer shelf life and of course being cheaper to produce.
But they absolutely do not have the health benefits and nutrients that the original has. Of course, that doesn’t stop manufacturers from taking the “blueberry health train” to the bank and sticking pictures of fresh berries and other nonsense on product packaging.
Here’s the good news: the law requires manufacturers to make all of these artificial elements available to customers. The bad news, however, is that they succeeded there too. First: Kellogg’s Mini Wheats Method: It’s pretty recognizable. They just stick the picture of berries on it and don’t even bother to hide the fact that the cereal appears to be made of cardboard and Smurf dough.
Many Betty Crocker products and Target cupcakes use the second method, which further increases the extent of fraud because it actually contains an indeterminate amount of real berries.This allows them to legally promote natural flavors and replace the vast majority of berries with artificial ones.
Or you can just go the “who cares” route, as General Mills’ Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal proves. The biggest advantage of this product is that it contains an entire bucket of blueberries and pomegranates, and the packaging contains every buzzword the marketing department can think of. Actually, not only are the berries fake, but also those damn pomegranates.
#2.“Free Range” Chickens That Are Crammed Into a Giant Room Buying “free range” eggs is one of the easiest ways to feel good as a consumer — they are at least as readily available as “normal,” mass produced eggs from those horrible giant chicken prisons Big Egg maintains. Hell, they even cost pretty much the same.
There’s literally no reason not to buy free range even though, now that we think about it, we’re not actually sure what that means. But the animals must live in pretty good conditions. In fact, let’s buy our meat and poultry free range, too! According to the law, the definition of “free range” means that chickens raised for meat have “access to the outdoors.” Okay, so it’s not as free as we thought and seems to only apply to meat chickens.
But at least they still have some freedom when it comes to looks and other things. Horror: Words have power, and “free range” in its original meaning means without fences and without restrictions. This makes for a powerful phrase that, no matter how smart we are, conjures up subconscious images of free-range chickens riding tiny free-roaming horses across the plains, wearing chicken-sized cowboy hats, and leaving happy trails of delicious free-roaming eggs in their eggs. wake up.Maybe mandolin music. However, the reality is that there are no regulations governing the use of the term “free range” to refer to anything other than meat chickens. Your Snickers bar could be a free field for all things government.
#1. Bullsh-t Health Claims Walnuts reduce the risk of heart disease. Yogurt improves digestion and prevents illness. Baby food that will protect your baby from atopic dermatitis, whatever it may be. These types of products are everywhere these days and we have to admit that it’s difficult to find fault with them.We eat yogurt anyway, so why not make it good for our stomachs? We just can’t help but wonder where all these magical foods suddenly come from. One day it turned out that your peanuts were peanuts, and then suddenly it turned out that it was just coronary heart disease and a reduced risk of heart attack.
Maybe food science had a really, really productive day in the field a while ago? Or of course we could be deceived again. The Horror: The vast majority of health claims on products use a slightly older technology than most of us realize: the ancient art of bullshit. The “health effects” of miracle yogurt and most other supposedly medically useful health products can be completely, thoroughly and easily debunked. So why can they keep selling this stuff? It all started in 2002, when many common food products suddenly gained surprising, never-before-seen superpowers.
At this point, the FDA introduced us to a new category of pre-approved product claims.This was called a “qualified health claim” and was just another list of marketing nonsense that a company could use if their product met certain requirements. It was nothing new. What was new, however, was that the list noted that it was not necessary to reach a consensus on the scientific evidence to support a product’s health claims. Since “no consent required” is as legal as “pay the man in the lab coat enough to say your product is magic and we’ll take his word for it no matter what anyone else says,” companies immediately go crazy, T Suddenly everyone had a respected scientist or six at their side, and the articles they published made almost anything they wanted to use in marketing and packaging possible. We are not saying that all products with health benefits will work. There are a lot of them, but they are pretty hard to find in the constant flood of nonsense claims. Come on, food industry, just tell us the truth. Don’t you realize we’re going to eat it anyway? Damn, people still buy cigarettes, right?