Shopping for the basic goods of life has gotten so complicated it’s no longer much fun. I used to love to stroll through a farmers’ market, choosing the ripest fruit, fresh herbs, salad greens and exotic vegetables.
When I moved to the ranch the first time, the nearest store was almost an hour away; so shopping had to be done once a week, carefully. If I forgot something, I did without until the next week. Because I also had to cook for our ranch hands, shopping was done at Smart & Final. Meat, other than venison and game birds, came from a provision house in Bakersfield. Packaged products were selected for shelf life and price more than quality. What began as an adventure became a real drag. I guess I never wondered what was in all those packages and even if I did, the labels didn’t tell much.
Then came nutrition labeling, primitive at first, but interesting. As labels got more inclusive, it took longer to figure out what products had in them that were good. And what ingredients should be avoided. Protein was good. Sugar was bad. Fat was not yet an issue. Primitive. Shopping didn’t take much longer than the drive to town.
Then came the first reports about unhealthful additives: dyes (anything with a color and a number), flavor enhancers (MSG, monosodium glutamate) and preservatives.
I thought preservatives were good. Necessary even. Wasn’t that what we’d been taught? Preservatives were in there to keep mold off the bread, to keep the baking mix from going bad. Maybe even to keep bugs out of the cereal. Primitive.
Then I found out about pesticides and herbicides. I met a farmer whose whole family had cancer. He warned me not to ride past his fields for two weeks after they were sprayed. Not to let the horses eat the grass growing at the edges of his fields. Scary.
When I moved back into town during the ’70s, I started shopping at “health food” stores. Selection was decidedly limited. Most labels touted “No MSG” and “No Preservatives.” My friends thought I was nuts.
I started growing my own vegetables and herbs, using horse manure and compost, and using soap and tea to discourage garden pests. I still didn’t think fat was bad. When Xanadu bakery opened just across the street, I began having fresh croissants for breakfast every day. Well, that did seem more civilized than biscuits and bacon gravy. I was still skinny. What did I care about saturated fat and cholesterol? Ah, the innocence of youth.
Nowadays, a trip to PC Greens or Whole Foods Market reveals all sorts of things about the food supply that may harm us in labels that tell us what the product doesn’t contain. Diary products from cows not treated with bovine growth hormone. Beef and chicken not given hormones and antibiotics.
Nutrition labels tell us more than we ever wanted to know. Ingredient lists, however, are still something of a crapshoot. How many ways can they rename a suspect ingredient? MSG is a “natural flavor” and preservatives have unpronounceable names followed by “to maintain freshness.”
One such preservative, methylchloroisothiazolanine, was listed by the Center for Science in the Public Interest several years ago as a probable carcinogen. It could be found in almost all popular brands of shampoo and hair conditioners. I started reading those labels carefully and found Aubrey and Whole Foods brands free.
So I was shocked to discover methylchloroisothiazolanine in a brand of diaper wipes sold exclusively in health food stores. Now, I distinctly remember reading the label a while back and noting that Tushies wipes contained “all natural” ingredients. I called the company. The representative said the actual manufacturer, whose name she would not divulge, would no longer use the all-natural formula. They had found a new manufacturer who would produce Tushies wipes with an “almost all natural” formula available soon. I asked if the retail stores selling the product had been informed when the product was first changed. She said the distributors were told. But five store managers, including Mike Osterman at PC Greens, said they were never informed the product was changed to include the chemicals.
So does this mean we have to read the labels of everything we buy every time we buy it? Even when we’re shopping in “natural” food stores? I spent weeks reading labels of every brand of diaper wipes and discovered the two “natural” brands, Tushies and Seventh Generation, contain methylchloroisothiazolanine. Huggies, Luvs and other national brands contain other preservatives about which I could learn almost nothing. However, if you can stand the price of buying the small travel packs, you don’t have to have any preservatives at all. Or you can use a washcloth soaked in California Baby soap and water. Stay tuned.