So my general outrage at the bullshit in all our food starts with foods that I consume on a daily basis. I figure, if I’m putting this into my body every single day, it’s gotta be RIGHT. I deleted fast food and soft drinks long ago, so I decided to analyze my daily vice: coffee.

I won’t even talk about the benefits or detriments of caffeine. Well, maybe I will, but not right now. Let’s just take it as a given that I’m going to drink coffee. Period. So now the question is, what do I put in it?

Some people are purists. I admire these people. They drink their coffee black, they are proud of it, and they look with disdain upon the adulterators who muck it up with cream and sugar. I love cream and sugar. And I also like having white-ish colored teeth, so the cream and sugar issue needed to be addressed.

Here’s my standard cup of coffee (REAL coffee, not that nasty paper filter instant processed yucky garbage shit):

7 parts coffee
2 parts cream
1 part sugar

The cream I used to use was half and half. For those non-Canadians, this is also called light cream; it’s supposed to be half cream, and half milk. It has a fat content of about 10% compared to about 30% in full cream, and 2% in your standard milk. On average, I would add about 2 tablespoons or 30 g of the stuff. What’s wrong with that you ask?

1) It’s a whole bunch of fat. In fact, it’s a whole bunch of saturated fat. My little dollop of half and half is the equivalent of 10% of my daily fat intake, and it’s all saturated. Read as: fat that travels directly to your thighs and creates a new bulge, before you’ve even finished your cuppa (that’s some UK slang for all y’all North Americans).
4 grams of fat…. it’s the same as eating a brownie, or 2 slices of bacon. Plus, other than that yummy cream taste, there is absolutely no other dietary benefit from my cream… a wee bit o’ calcium is all.

I love the internet. You can even find a picture of a brownie AND bacon.

2) Our milk is poisoned. Luckily Canada, Australia, the EU and Japan have banned the use of rBGH in milk, but it’s still perfectly legal (and government supported, silly Obama!) in the USA. This bovine growth hormone is just that… an extra hormone in your milk. The cows get mastitis, and the risk of breast cancer (amongst others) in humans increases, and teenaged boys grow breasts (no joke – it increases estrogen levels!). Even without the rBGH, the estrogen levels in our milk are through the roof. In countries that don’t consume as much dairy (or any at all), hormone related cancer deaths are much less likely (http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/12.07/11-dairy.html)

OK… so I can’t use the half and half. What now?

Coffeemate? The non dairy creamer. Not only is this a write off simply because it’s disgusting, it’s also filled with corn syrup. Corn syrup is nasty. It’s also made with hydrogenated oils, and other chemical compounds of nastiness. Avoid like plague.

I see on Coffeemate’s website that they have come out with approximately 10,000 different product variations. Most of them contain milk, so that doesn’t solve the rBGH and hormone problem. Most of them have as much fat as the regular half and half cream, so that doesn’t solve either problem. Also, since Coffeemate is manufactured in the USA, you can sure their milk solids and other milk content is full of rBGH.

Putting soy milk in coffee is even nastier than Coffeemate. I tried this. Yuck. A soy latte is a delicious item; however, regular soy milk in a home-brewed espresso is just gross. Way too watery. Then, my vegan friend gave me some Silk for Coffee. Looks like this:

It has the same consistency as half and half; it makes the coffee the same colour, for those of you aesthetically inclined in your morning rituals, and it solves the hormone and fat problem. There are no saturated fats in Silk. There’s 2 grams of regular old fashioned fat in my standard 30 ml pour… I can handle a wee bit o’ fat. It’s basically the fat required to make the coffee taste good, without the hormone issues and the saturated fat problem.

I admit, it doesn’t taste as good as half and half. But then I discovered Silk’s competition: So Nice for Coffee. Extra bonus: I get some protein with my coffee! I realize this sounds repulsive to many of you meat eaters, but there is some delicious protein in soybeans. The only discernible difference between Silk and So Nice is the sodium content. For some reason, So Nice is saltier, and it also contains more protein. It also has the same amount of calories as half and half, but again, without the saturated fat, and without the hormonal milk issues.

Another bonus: since most soy is genetically modified, the So Nice label specifically says the soybeans are GMO free, and organically grown without pesticides. The Silk version makes no such promises, and is manufactured in the US, where almost all the soy is owned and controlled by Monsanto (and therefore, it’s all GMO).

A detriment: Both of the soy-based creamers contain maltodextrin: a starch made from corn… GMO corn, and a hugely processed item.

Second detriment: Both the soy-based creamers contain soy lecithin, which is in everything, and which is made from GMO soy, and it doesn’t need to be labelled as such.

So, the conclusion is: there is nothing that you can put in your coffee that is 100% good for you. You might as well pour in a healthy dose of Bailey’s and start your morning off like the drunkard that you are

Actually. Don’t. I just looked up nutritional info on Bailey’s, and you don’t even want to know how much saturated fat and cholesterol and sugar and calories and… well, I’ll leave it up to you. Pick your poison.

Part 2 is coming up soon: what’s wrong with my teaspoon of sugar ?!

The ingredient labels from my breakfast

So I recently traveled through the USA in search of warm tropical lands. It worked! But that’s another story.

While in the airport at Houston, Texas, I ate an eye-opening meal. I decided a proper breakfast was in order. I had just survived a 10 hour journey via San Fran to get to this place… and it was apparently 6:00 AM (although my brain said otherwise). In any case, I picked the fanciest looking airport restaurant I could find. A real sit-down, tablecloth-touting dining establishment.

I ordered some eggs. Over-easy.
“Umm, sorry, ma’am, we don’t have eggs.”
“But there are omelets on the menu.”
“Yes, those are scrambled.”
“OK, well, just don’t scramble them. I just want two fried eggs.”
“We don’t have actual eggs ma’am. We have egg mix.”
“Ooooooookay… I’ll have the veggie omelet… I think…”

In China, they are actually selling fake eggs for profit. Consuming them leads to memory loss and dementia. Wtf?

What the f***, you may ask, is egg mix? Well, according to the USDA, it contains “a blend of dried whole eggs, nonfat dry milk, soybean oil, and a small amount of salt”. All you gotta do is add 1/4 cup of water, and presto! A “real” egg! Ahem…

It was developed for the military, then distributed to Amerindian reserves, then to the school lunch programs, and now, presto! To most major restaurants in the USA.

This was only the beginning of my breakfast experience. I ordered some coffee. Needless to say it was a disgusting brown colored liquid. I reached for the cream. It was warm. Why is this cream warm? Well, because it requires no refrigeration! To save restaurants the electricity costs of refrigerating their creamers, and then risking the cost of them going bad, they have added some Sodium Citrate, Datem, and Sodium Pyrophosphate. Deeeelicious.

What the f*** is that sh**, you may ask? Well…sodium citrate is salt. Also known as “food additive E331″. Yup, salt in your fatty fake cream milk.

Unfortunately true. But this again, is a whole other topic...

Datem? Sounds like a computer component. It is in fact: Diacetyl Tartaric (Acid) Ester of Monoglyceride. It’s some artificial crap that binds with the gluten to make it stronger. Even wikipedia admits that “the exact mechanism is not well understood”. Grrrrreat, and here I am ingesting it with my coffee at 6:00 AM.

Sodium Pyrophosphate contains 2x the toxicity of salt. Large amounts of it are linked to a medical condition called “pseudo-gout” which causes inflammation of the joints. And why is this in my coffee exactly??

What is completely nuts is that these are just the ingredients of my creamer. What the f*** happened to real cream?!

It was kind of like this... minus the bacon

So now that I could barely swallow my coffee, my omelet arrived. I was in Texas after all, so it came with a side of toast, pancakes, and potatoes. Ahem. Food portions in America. That’s a whole other story. I picked up the syrup container, getting ready to douse my pancake with maple syrup in true Canadian fashion. Maple syrup?! That’s a natural product! We don’t allow those! The cops almost came and arrested me for the mere thought of a non-processed food item.

What I used instead was Mrs. Butterworth’s Table Syrup, with the pleasing tagline of “Thick’N Rich.” Sounds like my kind of man! Oh right, I was talking about syrup… Ingredient number one?! Wait for it…. HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP! That’s right. Pure fake sugar poison, primarily responsible for the obesity problem that’s spreading worldwide… but again, that’s a whole other story.

National Syrup Pride

The high fructose corn syrup was not enough, because the second ingredient was its brother, regular corn syrup. Just in case the corn cooperatives weren’t making enough money on this product… This was followed by some water, some delicious salt (in case the triple dose of salt in my coffee creamer wasn’t enough), cellulose gum, molasses, caramel color, potassium sorbate, sodium hexametaphosphate, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, and finally some scrumptious mono and diglycerides.

Working on the creation of food taste enhancer EP5432120

Why the f*** are there so many things in this syrup??? I won’t bore you with ALL the chemical details, but I do feel an obligation to mention caramel color which can be derived from lactose (milk products), dextrose (corn products), starch from wheat, or from barley (think of brewery left-overs). Basically it’s cooked carbohydrate, from various mysterious sources. Found in… nearly everything: soft drinks, bread, doughs, cookies, cough drops, alcohol (dark liqueurs especially), potato chips, donuts, desserts… damn, it’s in everything. An extra dose of mystery-sugar. Just what we all need.

Potassium sorbate is a known eye, skin, and respiratory irritant. Sodium hexametaphosphate is mostly used in the soap industry, in metal finishing, in pulp and paper manufacture…. and, apparently, in my pancake syrup?!

So I take a piece of toast. It’s bread right ?! I’m glad the ingredient list is not available, because I’m certain this “bread” was made mostly from high fructose corn syrup. I pick up the butter package. Oh no wait, sorry, the “Fresh Buttery Taste Spread”. Made from… water, soybean oil, palm kernel oil, butter!, salt, natural and artificial flavors… sodium this, diglyceride that, artifical this, potassium that… you get the picture?

On top of my yellow chemically infused “taste spread”, I lathered on some Concord Grape Jelly not really made from grapes, let alone from concord grapes, but made indeed from our friend, High Fructose Corn Syrup, appearing once again with his brother, Corn Syrup, followed by some kind of fruit pectin, and some sodium. Yup, some salt with my sugar.

At this point, not only was I wishing that I couldn’t read (for then I wouldn’t have been tempted to read the ingredient list), I was thinking about picking up my luggage, and getting on the first plane to my own personal island where I could live as a hermit and grow my own food. What the f*** is going on people?! Real food is going, going, and soon will be gone. Worst part is, we don’t even realize the consequences of our processed, manufactured, chemically derived additive dependence… I apologize for depressing you. But please, go raid your cupboards and get rid of all that processed shit.

This is funny but it's real. Read The Jungle!

For some reason google image search for man reveals this Saved by the Bell relic first.

In response to the question “What does it mean to be a real man?”, I received the following from the guys in the class:

“To be a man first of all you need a penis, an adam’s apple and testosterone.”

See, I told you so!

Thanks to the Viagra website for this sampling of men who cannot sustain their erections.

“To be a man is to be able to take all the risks for your family. A real man is not emotional and does not cry.”

And here you thought gender stereotyping was dead! Read on…!

“Men are really simple because they usually don’t care about small things. Men care about what is important in life and not about small details like women do.”

Women are genetically wired to be concerned foremost with what is unimportant.

“A man is usually muscular and is able to protect the ladies”

Here he is, a real man protecting ALL his ladies. Thanks to www.faisalkutty.com

“Women are more complicated than men and tend to avoid simplicity.”

“To be a man means, in our society, that you have to be your own master, make your own decisions, try to control all the women you’re in a relationship with and be big and strong.”

Damn, controlling all those women must be a real strain…

“Being a man means that you have to be rugged, grow a beard, and enjoy sports”

“We may try to hide it, but men are all secretly emotional rollercoasters”

And from the women in the class:

“Men are wild dogs. From the day they hit puberty and discover their erect penis, they prey on women of all ages and think about coitus all day long and every single day for the rest of their lives. They hump like dogs. They moan like whales until we, women, bring them freshly cooked food. They follow pretty women around like wiggly tailed puppies following their new master. Their penis always runs ahead of them first.”

wiggly tailed indeed...

And finally, one young woman’s nightmare:

“You will never guess what happened to me: I woke up with an erect manhood this morning. No kidding. It was sticking out of my own body. And where are my small asian breasts? What’s up with these hairy caveman legs? Hell, NO. I want to be able to wear dresses and put on make up just like I do every day to piss off my boyfriend and make him jealous and make myself happy. I was happy to sit down and pee. I don’t want to play aim and score at the toilet bowl by moving a freaking stick in my hand! This must be a nightmare… this has to be a nightmare…”

so if that’s the definition then yes, damnit, i am a hippie

enjoy a bit of ben for yourself:

From: http://osuemed.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/death-telling/

Today’s random thought…

Since we all know we’re going to die, why don’t we talk about it more often?

From: http://dark.pozadia.org

“With the media’s influence, I really hope that I don’t become a psychopath…”

From: http://www.best-horror-movies.com/psycho.html

“Music made properly has no boundaries.”

From: http://i-love-music-images.pics-grabber.appspot.com/

From: http://ourtakeonfreedom.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/sharing-love/

Some thoughts on love from 17 year old minds:

“What does Jersey Shore tell us about beauty? The girls should have boobs bigger than their heads.”

“Love is when a guy knows how to use words, not a guy who is good in bed.”

“Love is what you feel when you know someone cares for you and they’d do anything for you. You should love the way you feel in their arms.”

From: http://cut3chikot.blogspot.com/2010/04/love-is-cinta.html

“Love is supposed to be a feeling, not a quantifiable, measurable thing written in a magazine.”

“That player they used to call Alex is now in a very deep game of love…”

“According to popular movies, only pretty people find love and all the gorgeous people also happen to have amazing personalities.”

From: http://chintyaveronika.blogspot.com/2011/01/love-sign.html

“Even though the chick flicks tell us ridiculous things about love, I will keep hoping and waiting for my own fairytale story.”

“Love can be found anywhere, it can sprout up from nothing and consequently flourish on… well… nothing.”

“Even though this is a love story, he didn’t ride up on a beautiful white horse. He rode down Sources Boulevard on a blue bike.”

From: http://www.layoutsparks.com/1/212585/peace-love-hand-sweet.html

“Love is when you find the right person who understands why you do things the way you do.”

“From what I’ve heard, love is a feeling you can’t resist and can make you sick to your stomach.”

“The world is falling out of love.”

From: www.manipalblog.com

“When you step into the real world, you realize there is no magic, no peace, and no background music.”

“Love? At our age? Ha ha.”

“Love is beautiful. Everyone should experience it.”

From: http://funyug.com/tag/everything-has-its-beauty/

“It is my opinion that love exists but achieving it is beyond our understanding.”

“Love: you can’t go running after it because it’s running after you.”

From: www.chowminghan.com

While walking through the halls of the college (where I now magically work), I pass by two girls. With a look of disdain, approaching pure disgust, one says to the other: “Why are guys such noobs?”

I’m about 14 years older than these girls, and my (internal) reaction was: “YEAH. Why ARE guys such noobs?!”

Good question. Bonus marks.

The Breakfast Club... a classic.

For my elderly, non-hip readers, a definition from urban dictionary:

Contrary to the belief of many, a noob/n00b and a newbie/newb are not the same thing. Newbs are those who are new to some task and are very beginner at it, possibly a little overconfident about it, but they are willing to learn and fix their errors to move out of that stage. n00bs, on the other hand, know little and have no will to learn any more. They expect people to do the work for them and then expect to get praised about it, and make up a unique species of their own.

Napoleon Dynamite... the upside of being a total noob

For more n00b distinctions, click here.

I’m officially swamped with stuff to do… and that doesn’t even include all the stuff I’m procrastinating on. This is brand new stuff. Adding to my accumulation of stuff. Lots of mental stuff.

In efforts to extradite some mental space, and since I am low on time lately, I have decided to regurgitate my random thoughts here… in no particular order, and with no particular thematic continuity implicit or explicit…
yeeeeeeah.

In any case… for the next little while you will be treated to random thoughts and random art or photos or comics for your contemplation and / or shaking-of-head-in-disbelief / horror / bewilderment.

Today’s thought:

I am glad I’m not tall enough to see the dust on top of the refrigerator.