Or better yet… feeding your kids??
So this weekend, we were out doing our grocery shopping, and when the girls asked for their favorite pre-made lunch pack, we actually stopped and thought about it for a second. What if we bought our own lunch meats, crackers and cheese and just make our own? We thought we’d get more for our money, and be able to offer a little more variety too! We started looking at the lunch meats and were a little surprised with what we found.
We took at look at some of the Turkeys and Hams we had available. They had some larger packages that were pretty inexpensive. We thought they’d be okay, until we looked at the ingredients, something we’ve really started doing a lot more of lately. We saw things like:
Sodium Lactate, Dextrose, Modified Food Starch, Sodium Phosphates, Sodium Diacetate, Sodium Erythorbate, Sodium Nitrite.
Ummmm… The Doctors always say that if there are things you can’t pronounce on an ingredient label… you should stay away from it… Granted, I can pronounce those things, but my kids can’t! Besides… what the heck is an Erythorbate? It sounds scary!
Anyway… We saw something else on the shelf that looked like it could potentially be better. We found these Oscar Meyer meats that were “Natural”… We took a look at the ingredients list, and to our surprise, we knew everything on the Ingredients list!
Turkey Breast, Water, Contains Less Than 2% of Potassium Lactate (from Corn), Sea Salt, Evaporated Cane Juice, Carrageenan, Celery Powder, Lactic Acid Starter Culture.
Yes, even carragenan… It’s a seaweed extract that’s used as a thickening agent. We took a look at the price, and you know… it wasn’t all that much more expensive than the other stuff. We grabbed one of each packs of the Natural meats. I didn’t want to add as many weird named ingredients to my girls’ diet as I may have had in the past as a child… or even in the last few years when I wasn’t paying attention to labels.
My hubby and I are really checking labels on everything we eat now. We avoid MSG, and as often as possible, premade/processed foods. We’ve stopped ordering out for pizza, and started making our own from scratch, dough and all. We even cut pepperoni because we found preservatives called BHA and BHT in them.. We looked those up on our iPhones at the store and found this:
The same chemical properties which make BHA and BHT excellent preservatives may also be implicated in health effects. The oxidative characteristics and/or metabolites of BHA and BHT may contribute to carcinogenicity or tumorigenicity; however the same reactions may combat oxidative stress. There is evidence that certain persons may have difficulty metabolizing BHA and BHT, resulting in health and behavior changes. BHA and BHT may have antiviral and antimicrobial activities.
Of course, it’s not 100% proven, but if there is some evidence, I don’t want to really take a chance… Now, don’t think I’m going to go completely vegan, natural, organic, etc… and think that everything you buy in stores causes cancer… I don’t know if that’s even possible for me.. I just want to start taking those extra precautions when we are able. I mean… why not? If it’s something that will help my hubby and I get healthier, and keep the girls from becoming unhealthy… I’m willing to do it!
I know, you might save a dollar here, or 50 cents there, and how much of the bad stuff does it take to really make a difference on your health. Well, the best thing I can say when choosing to save a few cents by buying the stuff with weird ingredients is… When it comes down to it… you have to think.. how much is your health worth?
**Disclosure** This post was neither solicited, nor sponsored in any way. This is purely my opinion and personal experience with grocery shopping and the product.
You are doing EXACTLY what I did. I started paying attention to things. I got very disgusted with what was in the aisles at the supermarket. I think this kind of paranoia is a good thing. It protects your family. And even if you get a bit nuts, you will calm down eventually and thenit will all jsut even it self out. lol XXOO
Hi! I'm new to Mamavation and wanted to check out your post!
Food labels are definitely spooky and you have no idea until you start paying attention and read what some of this stuff really is. I found a good book titled Prime Time Health and loved what it taught me.
I'm over at http://youthfultips.blogspot.com Have a great day!
Great job and pausing at those Lunchables. I think with kids the big thing is the packaging, because they really don't taste that great. I mean they could laden with salt and all the other things that bounce off our taste buds. If your girls begin to retaliate consider getting them little bento boxes to package their food in. There are some really cute sets and they are pretty easy to find at most large Asian grocery stores complete with matching utensil sets and elastic bands. And then you can move on to having them make their own bento in time.
Go you! Now I'm going to have to check out those lunch meat labels! My hubs doesn't believe in buying the lunchables. He's nuts about it, but he's right and so are you. You can buy all the cheese, crackers, etc. and make more!