Food Warning

As part of my procrastination and general lack of productivity this rainy, wait - now sunny - Monday, I feel compelled to write about a food topic that came up over the weekend. If you prefer to remain blissfully ignorant about what is really in your food, this post is NOT FOR YOU. Move your mouse to the 'x' in the upper-right corner of your browser and say good-bye now.

If you're still here, I'm warning you again that most of you are not going to like me for this info, but here goes nothing... A good friend yesterday at church graciously gave me a bag of fruit snacks for Kiley, who was as hungry as we were unprepared. I read the ingredient list and that sparked a conversation about gelatin, which is the ingredient for which I was checking. My friend is very knowledgeable about nutrition, and yet didn't know what is in gelatin, which is what prompted me to write.

"The gelatin you eat in Jell-O comes from the collagen in cow or pig bones, hooves, and connective tissues. To make gelatin, manufacturers grind up these various parts and pre-treat them with either a strong acid or a strong base to break down cellular structures and release proteins like collagen. After pre-treatment, the resulting mixture is boiled. During this process, the large collagen protein ends up being partially broken down, and the resulting product is called gelatin. The gelatin is easily extracted because it forms a layer on the surface of the boiling mixture."  read more...

The biggest culprits that have effected me day-to-day since I learned about gelatin many years ago are jello and pudding - you'd be surprised how many recipes use them in some way. More recently, however, I became aware of gelatin in yogurt, gummy bears, and fruit snacks (the chewy kind for kiddos). And, just today, I found out and confirmed in my pantry that gelatin is also in marshmallows.

Most food facts I am fine with knowing; I can't eat mayo knowing how much fat there is, I know real men's men who work in the meat industry and won't touch a hot dog, you get the idea. But all I'm asking for is a rice krispie treat and a good cup o' hot chocolate with marshmallows, without the mental image of a pig hoof stuffed in my mouth - *sigh*. I guess the moral here is... next time you find yourself eating a chewy treat with no fat that surprisingly retains its shape, you'd be wise to check the label and please comment back here so we can all be sadly better informed!