I want to warn my friends..

[Les C]

Isn't high-fructose corn syrup one of the corn products, like ethanol from corn, that corn lobbyists spend a lot of money getting congressmen to promote and legislate for business protections? When there is that much influence by industry in our gov't via lobbying and campaign funding, I think it's absolutely foolish to say "don't legislate what I can or cannot eat". They are already legislating for the benefit of corporate profits and not us, the consumers. If you think that the food industry cares more about your health than corporate profits, then what can I say, you're fooling yourself. No, they really don't care if their customers are getting sick or dying. They just care that it can't be traced back to them. That's why they lobby for legislation that will protect them from what they like to brand "frivolous" lawsuits and will allow them to not fully divulge what they are actually putting in "food". If and when this happens, you will not be able to make a good choice about what you consume, even if you want to.

[Gee, when you can't break it up into paragraphs, it comes off as a rant, doesn't it!]

Edited by - Les C on 06/08/2007 11:09:49

[emorata]

I agree with Les - its highly unlikely that you would be able to ban these corn, soy products when they are doling out big farm subsidies to those same huge Ag/Farm conglomerates courtesy of our federal government and supporting big business not to say large lobby groups and farm communities instead of the smaller family farmer.....thats what happens when you have a pro-big business president who wants to reward his business buddies.....anyone want another twinky to go?

Whats the answer???? The real answer is to know where your food stuffs are coming from.....supporting local growers/producers and growing your own stuff....avoid the junk food!

noel

[Greg]

One thing to think about when buying food is how far it traveled to get here. (How much petroleum was burned to deliver it?) Whenever possible, it benefits us to eat locally produced food. If it costs a little more now, it is going to help us become more self sufficient in the future. This Aina is capable of producing everything neccessary to sustain us. Eat your view! Support Hawaii agriculture.

[Da Stef]

I've been actively reading labels and buying food for me and my family that doesn't have HFCS, but it's all so much more expensive. A loaf of bread costs about double if you buy the local brand or the high end loaf (which usually uses honey or sugar, instead of HFCS). And seeing how much bread we go through...

I get that little mom and pop setups don't have the economies of scale, but I always feel like I'm getting ripped off buying local/organic ... I went to the store yesterday and organic ginger cost 3x what the regular ginger cost. I can understand broccoli costing more (I spend all spring picking catapillars off my broccolli), but ginger is a root. it's got to be more protected naturally.

sorry for my vent. My grocery bills have been driving me crazy. $76 for a weeks supply of veggies. all because I'm trying to buy the healthier version.

[Hotzcatz]

Somewhere I read that the average distance the average bite of food on the average plate in the United States travels to get there is 1,500 miles. Rather appalling!

I've found bread making to be a very satisfying way of getting bread without any additional chemicals. I'm still not certain about the purity of the flour - I don't know if there were GMOs near the wheat or not, but I get 25# bags of it from Costco until I find a better source. There is 3# bags of dried yeast available there, too, which is significantly cheaper than getting the small yeast packets. I've also gotten some sour dough starter so about half of the bread doesn't even require additional yeast. A traditional sourdough bread is almost literally flour, water and sourdough starter and that comes out to less than fifty cents a loaf. Also, when making bread, you can add in good stuff like additional wheat germ, molasses, eggs and herbs and the stuff is healthy and good for you. Which is a good thing since home made bread seems to disappear pretty quickly.

There is a bit of skill level involved, but with practice it gets easier. Making bread doesn't take all that long, either, in actual work time. There is a bit of time between the processes though. And the bits of time between processes can change the flavor of the bread. Extending the yeast softening time and letting it rise longer before shaping the loaves changes the flavor of the final bread. It is a really interesting process as well as has tasty results. Once you can make bread, then stuff like pizza dough, dumplings, biscuits and noodles are easy, too. It's all basically the same ingredients, too.

To get away from the HFCS, we now make our own mayonnaise and drink ice water and ice tea made from brewed tea. Del Monte ketchup doesn't have HFCS otherwise we would be making ketchup, too. We buy all our meat from J.J's Meat Market in Honokaa since they have only grass fed local beef. (And their prices are very reasonable, too!) KTA has milk free of growth hormones and they stock a lot of locally grown produce.

In another year or so, we can see if this new regimen is effective for health and weight loss.

[Carey]

Hotzcatz, you could make your bread more local by subsitituting much of the wheat flour with cassava root flour (aka tapioca flour). It is VERY easy to grow cassava in Puna. If anyone wants cassava stems, email or stop on by.

[Beachboy]

with the exception of "live food",and even that can be a risk because of pestacides sometime. What else is out there that we can eat that doesn't have harmful chemical in it, or hasn't been proccessed?

But it to expensive to eat healthy via "health food stores",here in Hawaii. In Hawaii it can really become expensive trying to eat healthy.

[sansei]

Making bread is very satisfying. Chemicals are used to bleach flour so stick with unbleached, better yet use whole wheat and you don't have to add bran or wheat germ. The only problem with whole wheat flour is that the oil in the germ can turn rancid with time so it is best to use it fresh. I have been using an organic whole wheat flower grown in Montana that my local (Sierra Foothills) Walmart sells with great success.
Try adding herbs like rosemary, nuts like Walnut or brine cured olives to the bread. You can also add other grains like rye and flaxseed (omega 3) in moderation since too much affects the glutten.

I like to use 1/4 or less of the yeast recommended plus salt for flavor and to retard the growth of the yeast. I like a yeasty flavor and doing this extends the development time.

You can make your own sourdough starter by mixing some live culture yogurt with flour. It turns out the agent in sourdough is a bacteria (not yeast which is a plant) also found in yogurt. I find it takes a few cycles of refreshing the starter to get the bacteria adapted to flour instead of milk. I refresh the starter every week and so I make sourdough pancakes when I don't need to make bread. When a recipe calls for buttermilk (like cornbread), I have found that you can substitute starter and plain milk in a pinch.

[allensylves]

Just do not add cinnamon to yeast bread - it greatly inhibits the yeast growth.

I do not add salt because I do not need it and then I can use about 1/2 as much yeast, which is one of the more expensive components.

I use a bread machine - an old DAK - because I do not have the time nor inclination to knead bread.

I add gluten, nuts, bran, ground flaxseed, wheat germ, and dried fruit. The only problem is it does not keep well - my wife eats it too fast. With all these additions or with whole wheat, adding 1000 mg of vitamin C and a split open 1200 mg lecithin capsule makes the bread rise much better.

Allen
Baton Rouge, LA & HPP

Edited by - allensylves on 06/10/2007 12:49:10

[Hotzcatz]

We have quite the "slow food" group here, don't we? I didn't realize there were that many bread makers out there.

I think there's some cassava already growing in the back yard, Carey. This has been a plantation camp house for about 100 years so there's all sorts of things growing in the back yard. Doesn't cassava need some sort of processing before it is edible?

There is some sourdough starter available at the health food store next to Borders. I think it is dried, but it reconstitutes easily. Once you get a good variety of sourdough started, dry some of it out and save it in case something happens to your starter. Once I forgot to take out the starter for the next batch and used it all so having the backup copies available was really handy. We will be vacationing near San Franciso this summer, maybe there will be some starter available there which can be brought back.

I've noticed sunflower seeds in bread are really tasty. They somehow come out really sweet somehow. Sometimes I add a lot of garlic, olive oil, rosemary and olives to a real loose dough and that is really tasty. Other times just a hint of cinnamon (I didn't know about yeast not liking cinnamon), mace, nutmeg and brown sugar for a sweet bread. If I make broccoli bread, my DH eats it all right away, so I have to make three loaves of that if I want any myself.

I used to knead all the bread by hand, but we got this Kitchen Aid mixer at a garage sale. It is a wonderful thing and it can knead dough with a bread hook on it. I've noticed that the machine kneaded doughs are not at stiff as the ones I used to do by hand. Probably because less flour is necessary to handle the dough.

What sort of bread is everyone trying for? I keep trying for a yeasty crunchy chewy crusted bread. Sometimes it gets pretty close.