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| Helsinki 2005 |
Today I did pretty well. Dawn came over in the morning and made Padmatara, Pasadini and I yummy cornmeal pancakes and eggs. Then Dawn and I meditated, which was wonderful, and wandered around the neighborhood a bit (not too far!) It occurred to me that I could set up meditation buddies on Lotsa Helping Hands website.
If I knew where I was going to be living in 6 months, I'd find a book on all the food additives and what they are. For example, xanthan gum. So much weird chemically engineered stuff goes into food.
Nap time.
This seems useful (EU-based, but seems generally applicable): http://www.foodreactions.org/allergy/additives/
ReplyDeleteAs non-resident curmudgeon, I will point out that xanthan gum is an entirely natural additive, produced by feeding sugar to a bacteria, fermenting it, letting it grow into long molecular chains, and drying it out. It seems to have some very interesting and useful properties. According to the article problems arise b/c people may be allergic to the particular medium it is grown in (e.g., dairy, soy, corn). It's not very weird.
It's a little weird in that it comes from a bacteria, but I'd rather it were processed, than put in my food directly as a "slimy substance which acts as a natural stabilizer or thickener."
Well to me it seems extremely weird!
ReplyDeleteI guess I was thinking relative to a giant freaky molecule that is totally lab-made. I think it's kind of cool that someone would look at some slime on spinach, notice it has useful properties, and figure out a process for making it useful in a consistent and stable way.
ReplyDeleteAlthough natural source or lab-made doesn't inherently mean something is more or less harmful or more or less allergenic.