Pandora’s Lunchbox Email to my Boyfriend, Ian
Hey, Ian:
The past couple of weeks I've been talking to you a lot about what I've been learning about food, especially information I've learned from Melanie Warner's book Pandora's Lunchbox. So, it only seemed natural that you would be the recipient of this email. (As an assignment for class, I have to email someone about what I've learned from Warner's book and about the food industry in general.)
As you know, one of our favorite food topics to bicker about is white vs. wheat bread. You love wheat bread and lecture me about how it’s healthier, and I sort of roll my eyes and keep eating delicious white bread. But I’ve learned some not-so-great things about bread that may finally cause me to cross over to the wheat bread side of life. White bread today (like Wonder Bread) is so processed and puffed up with air that it can rolled up into tiny little balls, a process described by Warner in her book (102). Puffing the bread up with air makes it so that companies are selling less real product and more...well, air. Another popular thing to do to processed bread is fill it with chemicals that cause it to bake quicker (100). Even the more "natural" companies that claim to bake fresh bread every day, like Subway or Panera, just ship in frozen bread that can be baked quickly through these shortcuts (101). To relate this back to our white vs. wheat bread debates, this type of processing leads white bread to be enormously unhealthy when compared to wheat bread! And surprisingly, this is something that most Americans don't realize. Sure, we all sort of know wheat is healthier, but the difference is more extreme than we know.
In class we analyzed and discussed a chart put together by The New York Times called "Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree." It compared how many Americans felt a certain food was healthy/unhealthy to how many nutritionists felt those same foods were healthy/unhealthy. There was a definite difference in opinion regarding the gap between white and wheat bread. About 20 percent of Americans surveyed said white bread was healthy and about 80 percent said wheat bread was healthy. But only around 15 percent of nutritionists said wheat bread was healthy and 90 percent said wheat bread was healthy! Now, these numbers are approximate based on my reading of the graph, but Americans definitely feel like the two types of breads are closer to being the same than nutritionists say.
Another type of food on the chart with a similar result is cheese. About 40 percent of Americans say American cheese is healthy, and about 60 percent say cheddar cheese is healthy. But only 20 percent of nutritionists say American cheese is healthy, while around 55 percent say cheddar cheese is healthy. That's an even more extreme result than the bread! In both cases, American AND cheddar, Americans believe cheese is healthier than nutritionists say. The biggest and most important difference, however, is how healthy we think American cheese is. A good deal of American cheese isn't even actual cheese--did you know that? Warner describes the evolution of Kraft cheese in Pandora’s Lunchbox. Back in the early twentieth century, James Kraft (the inventor of Kraft cheese) saw how quickly cheese went bad and wanted invent a type of cheese that could stay fresh longer, saving food and money (39-40). He succeeded and, obviously, his business thrived and expanded well past his death.
Throughout the decades, Kraft cheese received a lot of hate for being "fake" or "not as good as real cheese", mostly because it was sold in tins. But despite Kraft cheese containing some additives, it was always real cheese--at least, until the 1990's. In The New York Times article "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," author Micheal Moss discusses how food companies cut corners to save money. One popular name he writes about is Dr. Pepper: the company shows in its own research that they can use 1.69 milliliters of flavoring in their drinks instead of 2 milliliters without changing consumers' opinions of the drink. This change saves Dr. Pepper a small percentage of manufacturing costs, but it adds up (7). This money-saving technique is what Kraft executives took advantage of. In order to save a couple cents per cheese slice, the company replaced the natural cheese in Kraft singles with "milk protein". This led the FDA to contact Kraft, since the company was claiming to sell cheese that wasn't really cheese. Kraft's solution was to start calling their cheese "cheese product", something most consumers didn't even notice (44-45). With food companies making sneaky decisions like this, it almost seems hopeless to try avoiding processed or "fake" foods. But not all hope is lost!
At the end of Pandora's Lunchbox, Warner directs readers to the website 100daysofrealfood.com. This site helps people make a change in their diet regarding healthier, less-processed meals. To most, this might sound unappealing--what is it, just a website full of kale recipes? But the food isn't all necessary "rabbit food." It's just real food. Real cheese, not "milk protein." Real bread, not puffed-up-with-air bread. Most of the recipes on the site look delicious, and I'm personally excited to try out some of the pasta recipes (you know how much I love pasta). My favorite portion of the site is the "lunch ideas" page, which helps families make yummy packed lunches so they can avoid the processed world of Lunchables. Each lunch idea looks better than the last, and it excites me to know a resource like this exists the next time I need to pack myself a lunch.
So, what do you say? Want to cook some whole-wheat pasta with me soon?
See ya,
Paulina
The past couple of weeks I've been talking to you a lot about what I've been learning about food, especially information I've learned from Melanie Warner's book Pandora's Lunchbox. So, it only seemed natural that you would be the recipient of this email. (As an assignment for class, I have to email someone about what I've learned from Warner's book and about the food industry in general.)
As you know, one of our favorite food topics to bicker about is white vs. wheat bread. You love wheat bread and lecture me about how it’s healthier, and I sort of roll my eyes and keep eating delicious white bread. But I’ve learned some not-so-great things about bread that may finally cause me to cross over to the wheat bread side of life. White bread today (like Wonder Bread) is so processed and puffed up with air that it can rolled up into tiny little balls, a process described by Warner in her book (102). Puffing the bread up with air makes it so that companies are selling less real product and more...well, air. Another popular thing to do to processed bread is fill it with chemicals that cause it to bake quicker (100). Even the more "natural" companies that claim to bake fresh bread every day, like Subway or Panera, just ship in frozen bread that can be baked quickly through these shortcuts (101). To relate this back to our white vs. wheat bread debates, this type of processing leads white bread to be enormously unhealthy when compared to wheat bread! And surprisingly, this is something that most Americans don't realize. Sure, we all sort of know wheat is healthier, but the difference is more extreme than we know.
In class we analyzed and discussed a chart put together by The New York Times called "Where Americans and Nutritionists Disagree." It compared how many Americans felt a certain food was healthy/unhealthy to how many nutritionists felt those same foods were healthy/unhealthy. There was a definite difference in opinion regarding the gap between white and wheat bread. About 20 percent of Americans surveyed said white bread was healthy and about 80 percent said wheat bread was healthy. But only around 15 percent of nutritionists said wheat bread was healthy and 90 percent said wheat bread was healthy! Now, these numbers are approximate based on my reading of the graph, but Americans definitely feel like the two types of breads are closer to being the same than nutritionists say.
Another type of food on the chart with a similar result is cheese. About 40 percent of Americans say American cheese is healthy, and about 60 percent say cheddar cheese is healthy. But only 20 percent of nutritionists say American cheese is healthy, while around 55 percent say cheddar cheese is healthy. That's an even more extreme result than the bread! In both cases, American AND cheddar, Americans believe cheese is healthier than nutritionists say. The biggest and most important difference, however, is how healthy we think American cheese is. A good deal of American cheese isn't even actual cheese--did you know that? Warner describes the evolution of Kraft cheese in Pandora’s Lunchbox. Back in the early twentieth century, James Kraft (the inventor of Kraft cheese) saw how quickly cheese went bad and wanted invent a type of cheese that could stay fresh longer, saving food and money (39-40). He succeeded and, obviously, his business thrived and expanded well past his death.
Throughout the decades, Kraft cheese received a lot of hate for being "fake" or "not as good as real cheese", mostly because it was sold in tins. But despite Kraft cheese containing some additives, it was always real cheese--at least, until the 1990's. In The New York Times article "The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food," author Micheal Moss discusses how food companies cut corners to save money. One popular name he writes about is Dr. Pepper: the company shows in its own research that they can use 1.69 milliliters of flavoring in their drinks instead of 2 milliliters without changing consumers' opinions of the drink. This change saves Dr. Pepper a small percentage of manufacturing costs, but it adds up (7). This money-saving technique is what Kraft executives took advantage of. In order to save a couple cents per cheese slice, the company replaced the natural cheese in Kraft singles with "milk protein". This led the FDA to contact Kraft, since the company was claiming to sell cheese that wasn't really cheese. Kraft's solution was to start calling their cheese "cheese product", something most consumers didn't even notice (44-45). With food companies making sneaky decisions like this, it almost seems hopeless to try avoiding processed or "fake" foods. But not all hope is lost!
At the end of Pandora's Lunchbox, Warner directs readers to the website 100daysofrealfood.com. This site helps people make a change in their diet regarding healthier, less-processed meals. To most, this might sound unappealing--what is it, just a website full of kale recipes? But the food isn't all necessary "rabbit food." It's just real food. Real cheese, not "milk protein." Real bread, not puffed-up-with-air bread. Most of the recipes on the site look delicious, and I'm personally excited to try out some of the pasta recipes (you know how much I love pasta). My favorite portion of the site is the "lunch ideas" page, which helps families make yummy packed lunches so they can avoid the processed world of Lunchables. Each lunch idea looks better than the last, and it excites me to know a resource like this exists the next time I need to pack myself a lunch.
So, what do you say? Want to cook some whole-wheat pasta with me soon?
See ya,
Paulina