Happy Halloween!!

Best day of the year!!! More photo's to come!!!

Torula Yeast

The other day Andi was reading a couple of products I had bought at the store and she came across an ingredients she couldn't pronounce. When I looked at it, I realized I had never heard of it either. The word was "Torula Yeast." Torula yeast is an additive that is rich in glutamic acid which lends a smoky, savory, umami flavor to foods. It started replacing MSG years ago when people found out about all the side effects from consuming MSG. Torula yeast grows on wood sugars obtained as a byproduct of the paper manufacturing process, on sugar cane, or on sulfite liquors. Sounds weird to me that I would want to eat wood sugars that end up being a "byproduct of the paper manufacturing process" but so far no side effects have been found. These wood sugars are also used in bee keeping and as a trapping agent for olive flies.

However back to the food. The product I had bought was:

I know, I know I bought pesto. It was on sale and in the long run it was cheaper then making it from scratch. However, I never would have known about Tourla Yeast if I wouldn't have gotten it. I started rummaging through our cupboards to see what else we have that might contain the yeast.

Zatarain's Red Beans and Rice is one of my favorites and sure enough,

 it's in there.

It's also in Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts.

So what's in your cupboard???

Pink Slime

Pink Slime. Sounds gross and kinda weird when you first hear it. You definitely aren't thinking about eating it. However, you most likely already have! It's been around since 2001 but didn't really become noticed until the beginning of this year. So what is pink slime???

"Pink slime is beef trimmings. It is made from waste trimmings that are simmered at a low heat until the fat separates from the muscle. It is run through a machine to separate the fat and muscle then it is sent through pipes where it is sprayed with ammonia before being packaged into meat bricks. The bricks are then frozen and sent to grocery stores where it is added to most ground beef as a filler."

Yummy huh!?  Pink slime a.k.a. "soylent pink" was in approximately 70 percent of ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets as of March 2012. As pink slime became known to consumers, controversy and concern over health and sanitation issues became huge. The USDA had approved the use of "pink slime" in 2001 and allows that "beef that contains up to 15 percent of pink slime can be labeled as "100% ground beef." So, who was using and selling pink slime? Well, just about everyone! Safeway, Krogers, Stop and Shop, Target, Hy-Vee, Market Basket, Walmart, Jewel-Osco, and Carr's just to name a few. Fast food restaurants such as Burger King, Taco Bell, and McDonald's all had used it. McDonald's even took the process overseas to their locations in China.

It was also in many school lunches across the US. Parents started petitioning to the USDA to have pink slime removed from their children's school lunches. The USDA responded by stating that the U.S. National School Lunch Program will allow school districts to decided whether they want to purchase beef with pink slime or not. The problem here is that most school districts purchase their beef straight from the USDA and have no idea what there getting. Several cities and states opt-ed out immediately- Miami, New York, Boston, D.C., and Anchorage to name a few. North Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa continue to use pink slime today. The USDA reported earlier this year that they plan on purchasing 7 billion pounds of pink slime just for school lunches. 

So.....the final question is....what's in your beef???