by Anita Bailey, Survival Blog:
Most of us who read SurvivalBlog likely have some food – maybe a lot of food – stored up for the proverbial “rainy day” or other possible situations. Storing food has increased in public interest over the last few years. An internet search on “food storage” produces 1.6 billion hits at this writing, averaging about 1 search per minute all day and night. That’s a lot of interest. It’s not slowing down, either.
I’ve been storing up for well over five decades. When I started, I lived in a major city. Now I’m rural on a farm. I continue the process because having food set back has been a life-and-stress-saver multiple times over the years. My process of storage has changed significantly over time, too, as I explored and adapted to changes in my personal economy, the world situation, and my dietary preferences.
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
Now, food storage is changing again – for reasons that I never anticipated, and still can hardly believe is happening.
It started in 2020, with a little incident at home: a relative who had spent his 40 years consuming and enjoying fresh onions, suddenly had a horrific reaction after eating some – severe burning sensation in his throat and stomach, as if he had chowed down on a plate of habanero peppers. It took a week of severe gastric effects for him to recover. His symptom reappears whenever he tries anything with onion in it, but only for commercially-grown onions. Homegrown and wild onions don’t produce the same effect.
It’s unlikely that onions themselves have changed substantially in a year, especially when homegrown and wild ones haven’t. But, the way commercial onions are handled, stored, sprayed, and grown has changed. The same is true of other produce. The use of particularly insidious preservative coatings by large corporations, funded by billionaires, is part of this picture.
But there’s something else: general conversation among friends, people in line at the supermarket, and in online chat forums registers the sense that “food just doesn’t taste the same,” or “food doesn’t taste right,” or “I used to like it, but now it makes me feel awful.” Sometimes people can pinpoint a texture difference (less crunch or more, too thick or chalky, sticky or gummy feeling in one’s mouth), or perhaps a flavor that seems odd (slight bitterness, cloying sweetness, lack of remembered flavor, unexpected blandness). Sometimes it’s hard to be specific; the food just seems to have changed.
One reason for that may be the FDA ruling in May 2020 during the height of the virus-response food shortage crisis. This ruling allowed food manufacturers to utilized “substitute” ingredients in their products if they could not access what they actually listed on the label, as long as that constituted 2% or less of ingredients and that it “should” not potentially be a common allergen (gluten or sulfites, for example). This was done in a claimed effort to ease food shortages, since relabeling products could have caused further food shipment slowdowns.
The rule continued in effect until November 8, 2023. In other words, since 2020 manufacturers were selling products that were often labeled as containing one thing even though they incorporated something else, with those ingredients unknown to the consumer. That’s you and me. Spices, flavorings, emulsifiers, and other components of packaged food might not be whatever is on the label. Perhaps that “pure” olive oil contained canola. That “pure” honey may have included corn syrup. We just don’t know.
Ideally, the substituted ingredient “should” not be a common cause of health issues – but the ruling didn’t say it “must”. That’s a big difference. Might up to 2% of the wheat flour in a cracker be “substituted” with rice flour? Or cellulose fiber? Or cricket powder? That’s unknown. Since the rule continued until just a few months ago, it is likely that most of the products currently on supermarket shelves were manufactured under the “substitution” ruling.
THE NEW “SALT”
Also, in 2020, the FDA ruled that the populace was consuming too much salt in prepared foods, which they said might contribute to high blood pressure. While that concept can be questioned from multiple angles, the ruling was that manufacturers may substitute potassium chloride for common table salt (sodium chloride), in such items as canned tuna and peas, cereals, and cheese. The one caveat added was that producers could call the chemical “potassium salt” rather than the more accurate “potassium chloride.” I suppose the “salt” sounded more friendly than “chloride”.
My palate is not gourmet-level-sensitive, but I can certainly taste the difference between sodium salt and potassium. Potassium, to me, is sharply bitter and sometimes metallic. Salt is not. Substituting potassium chloride for table salt dramatically changes how foods taste to me.
Anyone who has made cheese or butter or sauerkraut at home knows that sodium chloride salt doesn’t only contribute flavor. It also has some preservative action, slowing molds, and helping to reduce excess fluid in the product. Salt is used in fermenting other vegetables. Potassium chloride does not have the same action, though – so are manufacturers using something else to accomplish salt’s action? That is also unknown.
ANTIBIOTICS
Stranger still, the use of antibiotics in the food supply has been on an uptick. Sixty-nine percent of antibiotic use in the US is credited to the livestock industry, specifically hogs and cattle – not because of disease, but because the animals tend to grow faster when routinely dosed. There was a significant decline in antibiotic use from 2020 to 2022, but since then it has tended upward. Interestingly, the national livestock numbers have declined at the same time (cattle numbers are near the lowest since the 1950s), which means the doses per individual animal are actually higher than when herd numbers were elevated.
There is also routine use of the antibiotic natamycin, in various products to prevent fungal growth. This includes cheese products including shredded cheese, cream cheese and mixes, cottage cheese, sour cream, yogurt, and cheese slices. In addition, natamycin is used in packaged salad mixes, wines, juices, sausages, and other items as well. As with any drug, some people may be allergic to this one. This makes me wonder how many people think they can’t eat cheese but actually experience a reaction to the particular antibiotic.
