We had an interesting discussion about packaged food in our house last weekend. After watching 60 Minutes with our 16-year-old and seeing that "flavourists" distil and "create" the flavours of packaged foods, our teen made a declaration: "I'm going to try not to eat anything packaged all week!" Can you do it?" she challenged.
I am trained and committed to the pleasures of real food and we don't rely upon packages all that much but I had to admit, it was going to be an interesting week. Hubs remained silent.
What I discovered was that we all had different perspectives of what a packaged food was.
To me:
•Anything that had artificial flavours or seasoning never makes the cut.
•If it is in a package, but it is of the highest quality, real-food grade, it sometimes saves me steps.
•I use mostly whole foods in their natural state that are quick and deliciously prepared.
•When I am on the go, I do my best to choose wisely, but am sometimes at the whim of my BlackBerry and traffic patterns.
•In restaurants I almost always choose sustainably seafood and vegetables if I can. I avoid the white carbs.
To the teen:
•A pre-made sandwich at the deli counter was OK as long as it looked like real food.
•Frozen fruit for a snack with real whipping cream was a better choice than chips.
•Lunch is a pain in the pants and is getting smaller and smaller as a result.
•Packaged all-natural roasted seaweed did not make the cut when mom tossed it in to replace missing vegetables (pretty sure that was an excuse).
•Baby carrots were OK on the way to dance class even though they were cut and cleaned by someone else and they required pre-made hummus.
To the hubs:
•Whatever is put in front of him was fine.
This set me to thinking about our cultural collective definition of "processed" and "packaged." Is there a cut off that we can agree upon? If the packaged food is the same thing that you would make at home using pre-made bread, bottled sauces and grated carrots, is that "processed"?
In a perfect world, I would have the time to bake/make each one of these items separately and likely create something that tastes a bit better, has less salt and more fibre. But whose world is perfect? In a teenaged world that is engulfed in peers drinking Big Gulps and eating cheesies is there a skewed perception that lowers the bar? Is there a male/female divide, and if so, why is that? Each and every one of us has choices to navigate the day, I just wonder if a definition was set, would you care to follow it?