"All Natural" Plastic Pick-up sticks

We took a walk over the lunch-hour today and stopped in a local toy store. It's a nice store, the Red Giraffe of Woodbury, MN, as they have a lot of wooden toys. But, like most toy stores or sections of a department store, they stock some junk as well.

I was too shocked to pass this one up... a plastic tube of plastic sticks made to look like wood. The worst thing about it is that it's labeled "All Natural" which of course only lends credence to the fact that the word Natural means absolutely nothing at all in any kind of manufacturing or production sense.

I've seen worse toys, but this is just ... an insult to children and parents. To the children for their legacy. Someone in this world thinks so little of them that they would make plastic replicas of STICKS to be played with, bent and thrown away, or just lost. For the parents, this is yet-another cheaply-produced toy comprised of, again, easily-lost pieces that the parents would spend forever cleaning up.

Made in China.

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Not So Sweet Martha's

We went to the State Fair a week ago and while we were there we bought a bucket of Sweet Martha's chocolate chip cookies, which is almost a requirement of attending the fair. They're not that cheap - $14 for a bucket, although they top those buckets off so high you'd think you were getting two for the price of one. The cookies are, of course, delicious. They're made to taste good.

I was feeling pretty good about the day we were there. We didn't eat too much junk, you see: NO fried foods, or soda pop, and so forth. There were one or two SMALL items that we ate - like a snow cone shared amongst the family or some free ice cream samples from Kemps - that were obviously indulgences, but otherwise we stuck to things whose ingredients were simple: Turkey. Fruit. Water. Nuts.

But now... now, a week later, I feel really, really bad about the Sweet Martha's. Why? Because a couple of days ago, I decided to check out the website for the cookies, hoping to find the ingredients list. Baked goods in America can often be filled with deceptively vile ingredients and I just wanted to find out for sure. I was frustrated to realize that Sweet Martha's does not list their ingredients or nutrition information on their website, like many a food manufacturer. This is a point in itself which could inspire a large rant, but I didn't let it get to me and decided an email request was in order. I got the response a day or two later, and just now finally got around to opening it.

I'm throwing the rest of the cookies away. And now I'm stuck with another plastic container I didn't need. What was I thinking?

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To save anyone else the time of writing to the company to request this information, here are the ingredients of the cookies:

INGREDIENTS: ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, IRON, NIACIN, POTASSIUM BROMATE, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), CHOCOLATE CHIPS (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE LIQUOR, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN ADDED AS AN EMULSIFIER, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR ADDED), SUGAR, BROWN SUGAR, VEGETABLE SHORTENING (PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND COTTONSEED OIL), WATER, WHOLE EGG SOLIDS, BAKING SODA, SALT, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS. (09/05/06)

If you're accustomed to reading ingredients lists, you'll know instantly that this is practically a purchase order for poor health. If you're unaccustomed to manufacturing tricks, here's what is wrong with this (at least as much as I know):

"Enriched" wheat flour: You might think that "wheat flour" is generally okay for you - but besides the obvious gluten reactions that some may have, the problem is that no food should be enriched. Again, that probably doesn't seem sensible just on the surface; why NOT enrich foods with vitamins and minerals? Because usually the food in question is being enriched because the natural nutrients have already been stripped away by the manufacturing process, and also because the vitamins and minerals often added are nowhere near as good as the naturally-occuring nutrients.

Potassium Bromate: Do. Not. Eat. If you really need to know why, let me just Google that for you: http://bit.ly/1gYqI7

Sugar: It IS only listed three times, at least! But, kidding aside, sugar disrupts your digestive processes so horribly that you should cut it out of your diet as completely as possible. Force yourself to switch to natural replacements (NOT artificials like Splenda).

Soy: Contrary to what soy milk manufacturers may be trying to tell you, soy is, in most forms, NOT good for you. Please learn about it; start with the Whole Soy Story (http://www.wholesoystory.com/). Additionally, soy - like corn - is abusing the land as it is grown in a monocrop fashion, genetically modified and with lots of pesticides.

Vegetable shortening: TRANS FAT.

"Natural" and Artificial Flavors: Who knows what the natural flavors are; after all people everywhere seemingly agree that "natural" means absolutely nothing to food manufacturers. Artificial flavors - that definitely means chemically-created flavors, and you do NOT need added chemicals in your body.

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