You are currently browsing the daily archive for March 16, 2009.
Nothing cheap about this trip to the drive-thru
It’s been our habit to eat out once a week on our way to church on Saturday nights. This gives Mom a break in the kitchen (I call it a Sabbath rest) and gets us out the door in time to make service at 5:00. Because our family is large-ish, we usually choose fast food to keep the expense down. Up until the last couple weeks, we’ve averaged just over $20 for a meal for all of us.
I don’t know if it is because the kids are growing and hungrier, or because after a couple months eating very healthy foods they were too excited about fast food to contain themselves, but this week’s dinner out cost over $40. Not a bite of it went to waste, they ate every chip, every shred of cheese, and every scrap of tortilla. But still, $40 was more than my budget allows for that meal. We didn’t order drinks, choosing water that we had brought with us.
And what did we get for our money?
6790 calories (almost 1000 per person)
2510 of the calories were fat, 75 of them saturated fat and 3 transfat, most of them from used and re-used canola oil
18,560 grams of sodium (I was unprepared for this figure)
841 grams of carbs, entirely processed and nearly bereft of fiber
And I wring my hands and whine about the price of grassfed meat? Shame on me. For $40, I could have fed my family a feast suitable for royalty with several servings of leftovers.
By now, most parents know not to give their children antibiotics unless an infection is actually present. We know that years of misusing antibiotics have left us with weakened immune systems, autoimmune disease and superstrains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria with the capability to kill.
In this New York Times Op-Ed by Nicholas D. Kristof, you will learn why Pathogens in Our Pork are a major concern. It was originally published March 14, 2009.
And while I agree that giving antibiotics to healthy animals is unwise, I also understand that it is not solely politics that drives this decision. In CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) so many animals fall ill due to poor care that antibiotics are often required just to keep the animals alive until they are slaughtered for our food. Appetizing, isn’t it?
Probably the scariest statement in the article: “Five out of 90 samples of retail pork in Louisiana tested positive for MRSA — an antibiotic-resistant staph infection — according to a peer-reviewed study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology last year.”
The Dark Side of Fat Loss
