powerDOJO

Tag: nitrates

  • Beware of “Natural Foods” (and your brain)

    This past week I picked up my order of beef from my beef supplier. He’s kinda like my drug dealer – we meet in a random parking lot off the highway and make the transaction quickly and discreetly.

    I grabbed about 35 pounds of the good stuff – organic, grass-fed, healthy meat. The difference in taste and appearance is quite substantial. Here’s a pic of some of the ground beef  – I always buy lots and split it up with friends:

    The first thing I wanted to sink my teeth into were burgers on my new charcoal BBQ. 

    I finished my last order of ground beef before I got the BBQ so I was dying to try them.

    I also bought some hickory smoking pellets that had me worried someone would call the fire department after seeing the smoke emanating from my 9th floor balcony:

    [jwplayer config=”512×288 with controls” mediaid=”6166″]
     

    I wanted to go all out, so on the burgers I had:

    • Tomatoes
    • Avocado
    • Sauteed onions and mushrooms
    • Homemade ketchup
    • Aged raw milk cheddar
    • BACON!

    I rarely eat bacon because it contains preservatives that aren’t any good for health or body composition, but I made an exception this time.

    Plus, I found a bacon that claimed it was completely “natural” (and thus, must be healthy) that was on sale, so I grabbed it.

    I’d actually read somewhere before that the natural preservative they use, called “cultured celery extract” was no better than the normal nitrates/nitrites used, but the thought of a bacon cheeseburger made on my charcoal grill selectively deleted this information from my brain.

    After the flavour storm subsided, I decided to look up “cultured celery extract” and found that indeed it was as bad if not worse than normal nitrates/nitrites. In fact, it is really no different, except that there are probably more nitrates/nitrites from cultured celery extract than in normal bacon.

    Oh well, guess I won’t be buying it again, but this time at least, it was well, WELL worth it:

    Click to enlarge and salivate.

    There are 2 lessons here:

    1. Never trust the marketing on food packages. Especially those “seals of trust” from various charitable organizations.
    2. Your brain can trick you. Very, very easily. Be aware!

    Bon appetit my friends.