Fake Food vs Real Food

Prologue:

Supermarkets, restaurants, and even our kitchen cabinets are like treasure hunts, but instead of gold, you find artificial foods. It's a mystery what we're actually eating these days!

Surprise! Twins arrived, each weighing in at a whopping 3 1/2 lbs. As a new mom, I wanted to feed them the good stuff, so I turned to "Gerbers," thinking it was the holy grail of baby food. But at 29, my inner detective discovered they were sneaking in sugar and other additives. So, I donned my chef hat and started making their food from scratch. Fast forward, and my twins, now 55, are healthy, successful men, all thanks to the diet I whipped up for them from day one.

Knowledge is power! 

For this Italian Diva, cooking at home is the easiest way to chow down on real food. Sure, it takes some elbow grease, but it's worth it in the end.

The golden rule of shopping? Read those ingredient labels like they're the latest gossip magazine. Anything listed as a "category," like artificial colors or natural flavors, is probably hiding something fishy. With over 10,000 mystery ingredients lurking in processed foods, it's like playing a game of "What's That Chemical?"

Spoiler alert: consuming a buffet of unnecessary chemicals is a big no-no, as they can lead to cancer and other nasty conditions.  My mission? To enlighten everyone who wants to eat healthier and live long, fabulous lives. “Una vita senza buon cibo, non è vita” (A life without good food, is not life)

Take a moment to read on and give your eating habits a makeover.

Real Food vs. Fake Food, written by Larry Olmsted, .  https://minacones.com/real-food-fake-food-larry-olmsted/

He brings readers into the unregulated food industry, revealing the shocking deception that extends from high end foods like olive oil, wine, and everyday staples such as coffee, honey, juice, and cheese. It's a massive bait and switch in which counterfeiting is rampant and in which the consumer ultimately pays the price. 

ABOUT FROZEN PIZZA OR PIZZA DOUGH

Pizza is like America's best friend—always there for a cozy night in and conveniently chilling in the freezer aisle of your local grocery store. It's the go-to option when your family is hungry and you’re feeling lazy. But let's dig into what’s really going on with those supermarket pizzas or a lab product shaped to look like pizza.

Now, let’s talk dough. In many frozen pizzas, the dough is probably made with flour that's been processed and bleached more than a Hollywood smile, and sprinkled with artificial flavors and colors that are mysteriously absent from the label. The sauce might come with a side of pesticide residues and chemical fertilizers, and those tomatoes? They might have been green little rebels, forced to ripen with a puff of gas. Even if the cheese is legit mozzarella and not a "cheese-like" impostor, it’s likely from cows that have seen more steroids, growth hormones, and antibiotics than a bodybuilder on a bad day, and dined on animal byproducts.

SEVEN BRANDS TO AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE:

Tortino's Party Pizza, DiGiorno, Trader Joe's, Tony's Pepperoni Pizza, 802 VT, Numero Uno. Mamma Cozzi, These frozen delights boast at least 52 ingredients, including some that sound more like science experiments than food, like butylated hydroxytoluene. Apparently, Italy and England have given it a one-way ticket out of their countries, and the FDA is side-eying it for potentially turning other ingredients into toxic villains.

And then there’s the pepperoni, the star of the show, but also the biggest worry. Most folks don’t know that the USDA has two pork grades: acceptable and "what-on-earth-is-this?" Consumers only get the "acceptable" stuff. So who’s snapping up the mystery pork if not us? Ding ding ding! It’s the processed food producers. And that’s if the pepperoni is even American-born. It might just have a passport from a factory in China.

Request my no-fail, very easy pizza dough recipe. Email: theitaliandiva77@gmail.com

FISHY FISH

Scientists in the Big Apple discovered that 58% of retail seafood joints and 39% of restaurants are swimming in fraud and shenanigans

With 70% of the nation's seafood being gobbled up in restaurants, you might want to reconsider that sushi craving. Unless you're splurging at the fanciest places like Nobu or Masa, brace yourself for a fishy surprise. When you order white tuna or red snapper, you're probably getting an imposter. Most sushi is so sketchy that unless you're dining at a top-notch place, it's best to steer clear of those sushi spots. But hey, it's not just sushi; the whole seafood scene is a bit fishy.

Turns out, every sushi spot they checked was serving up fake fish. They didn't check every joint in NYC, but they saw enough to make you think twice. When you order white tuna, you're likely getting something entirely different. In fact, 94% of the time, you're served something called Escolar; a fish nicknamed EXLAX fish because it can give you a one-way ticket to digestive distress city. It caused a wave of 600 tummy troubles in Hong Kong and has been banned in Japan for nearly 40 years. When folks complain about bad sushi, it's not the raw fish; it's the fact that they never had tuna in the first place.

To put it bluntly, the seafood biz is swimming in fraud, swaps, and shenanigans. While sushi takes the cake, you should probably be suspicious of any seafood you come across.

Fish labels are all about the moolah, and seafood fraud can lead to some fishy health issues.

Another sneaky way to fish out your cash is by messing with scallops. They bulk them up with water and chemicals to make them weigh more, meaning you're paying $15-$18 per pound for H2O. This trick also turns your scallops into wet scallops. Phosphates help them soak up more water, making up as much as 25% of their weight. Of course, you won't find any mention of phosphates or water on the label.

This trickery is so common that when you find dry scallops at fancy stores, they're just regular scallops, but they cost a pretty penny. When you cook them, they brown nicely and taste delicious. But when you cook wet scallops, which means most scallops, they leak water like a broken faucet, turn white, shrink, and taste like nothing.

Most red snapper in this country is a scam

The most common imposters for pricey fish like red snapper are tilefish and tilapia, often farmed and drug filled. When tilapia isn't pretending to be red snapper, it's masquerading as catfish. Steelhead trout often plays the role of salmon, and many other fish try to pass off as the expensive stuff, including tilefish, which is so mercury-laden it's on the FDA's do-not-eat list for kids and pregnant women due to birth defects. Tilefish also moonlights as pricey halibut.  

IN CONCLUSION

So, what's the game plan? It's a double whammy - become a label detective and channel your inner chef! Cooking at home gives you more control over your culinary masterpiece than grabbing it off a store shelf.

In this book, REAL FOOD VS FAKE FOOD,  https://minacones.com/real-food-fake-food-larry-olmsted/ they've laid out specific shopping details at the end of each chapter.

In general, I suggest shopping at better stores, whether it be Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Costco, or at the local fishmonger you trust.

Ciao!  Chef Dedee Royale www.TheItalianDiva.com

OTHER NOTES:

“How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalists to tell us where our food comes from? -----Michael Pollan “The Omnivores Dilemma’.  Click or copy and paste in your search bar for more information on how to stay young and healthy. 

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-omnivore-s-dilemma-a-natural-history-of-four-meals