Fixing the process

At a recent family holiday brunch I looked up from my plate to see a colorful plastic container on the table with the words "Great Buttery Taste!" shouting out at me. Why, I wondered, do we need to use a processed product that tries to be butter when we can use actual butter? What has a better buttery taste than that?

This popped back into my head yesterday as I read that some recent studies connect low-fat and non-fat milk to an increased risk of prostate cancer. I don't drink milk at all, but more and more these days I try to avoid foods that are processed in any way, and when I do buy such items I avoid any containing high fructose corn syrup, which is a ubiquitous ingredient in processed foods. The average American consumes 41.5 pounds of it per year.

In the 1950s margarine began to outsell butter and it still does today, though now we know that it is not healthier. For several years I used eggbeaters when cooking, but now I've gone back to actual eggs. I just eliminate a yolk or two from recipes, keeping my cholesterol level in mind.

In many ways we've broken the cycle between food production and consumption, allowing giant corporations to make billions as middle men while, in the same instant, feeding us poisons and other unhealthy things. We need to get back to eating fresh foods and cooking them ourselves from basic ingredients as much as possible.