Thought note: Food ingredients?

I remember when food was simply mixtures of ingredients like flour, milk, sugar, and eggs. You cooked them, sat down and ate your meal. Now I am not a TV chef with recipes from around the country and abroad. I am the chef in my house and I do cook from scratch, using basic ingredients. If I eat out and enjoy a dish that tastes good I will go home and find the recipe on the internet and cook it at home. In my house we eat very few prepared foods from the grocery store.

I understand that today lifestyle moves at faster pace that when I was younger. Both mothers and fathers have to work to make ends look like they meet. Everyone is doing more to fill up the time in their lives. Kids have schedules that rival their parents. It is not just filling up all available time. It is the rushing to do it fast as possible. No matter fast the movement, there is never enough time. We feed with quick spurts to get something in the stomach. The microwave oven has become the major appliance in a kitchen. Our food ingredients reflect this pace of life. They have become chemical compounds designed in labs.

I don’t understand what is advertised as ingredients in food. You need a scientist to explain what they are. Corn maltodextrin, hydrolyzed soy and wheat gluten protein, sodium acid pyrophosphate, monoglycerides, sodium sulfites and sodium bisulfites (preservatives), disodium inosinate and disodium guanylate, sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, yellow 5 and yellow 6 are ingredients. What food group they belong to? I have a sense that ingredients in today’s prepared foods are for the time they spend on shelves. But I’m sure that some government agency said it is okay for human consumption which I think means it’s okay to eat

Thought Note: Product Recalls

I have had friends call and get on my case about not consistently writing my blogs (Lostsurvivor.com and TJThoughtsthings). My reasons, job and writing new manuscript (Ghost Watcher) was not good enough. I have to agree, especially when I wrote in TJThoughtsthings I would. I have to admit it was good hearing there are readers out there that wanted me to spill thoughts out of my mind.

So here is a thought note:

What happens to things that are recalled?

The media lets us know about products that are recalled, but I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing about what happens to the products. For example, meat recalled receives attention of being pulled off store shelves. I, like many others, assume it is send back to the company that made it. Then what? Do they destroy it? I have seen and heard of diseased cows and chickens destroyed in the media. But I don’t remember the media saying what happens to recalled packaged meats. It is a vast distribution system for these products, consisting of warehouses and delivery trucks before they get on the shelves. How do they handle recalled products in these cases?

And what about those toys that were recalled? What happen to them? Were they put a boat and shipped back to the manufacturer? If a recalled product is not good in American, does that mean it is not good in other countries?

Perhaps there are simple answers to these questions and I just missed it in the news.