No matter what, unless you are a commercial bakery or food manufacturer you cannot buy the ingredients that go into most low carb breads, bagels, and a thousand other products. For what it’s worth I pretty much consider these ingredients FrankenFoods.  They have been, and are being, developed by companies like Cargill, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) and the infamous Monsanto.  The names are innocuous enough but the idea of eating them turns my stomach.  These products list like a who’s who from some horror novel:  soy fiber, pea fiber, cellulose fiber, rice fiber, corn fiber, stabilized bran, and multifiber.  What is multifiber?  Some combination?  Think about this:  These products are not just in breads and bakery items; they are in hundreds and hundreds of processed packaged and fast food products and include beverages, candy, cereals yogurt, and ice cream.  Ice cream?  Last I knew ice cream had four basic ingredients:  Eggs, cream, sugar, and vanilla.  And then…there are all the modified starches in foods.  To name just a few:  Instant puddings and desserts, canned soups, gravies, low fat foods, salad dressings, jellied candies, baby foods, infant formulas, and liquid cheese.  Yeah, lets get them babies started off right early in life with some of them modifies starches…and what is liquid cheese?

Cellulose Fiber From Wood:  Manufacturers use cellulose wood fiber in foods as an extender, providing structure and reducing breakage in a variety of processed foods and meats meant for human and pet consumption, as well as for plastics, cleaning detergents, welding electrodes, pet litter, automotive brake pads, glue and reinforcing compounds, construction materials, roof coating, asphalt, and even emulsion paints, among many other products.

Manufacturers are able to remove as much as 50% of the fat from some cookies, biscuits, cakes and brownies by replacing it with powdered cellulose but still end up with a very similar product in terms of taste and appearance.  Some of the largest offenders are:  PepsiCo, Kellogg, Weight Watchers, General Mills, McDonalds, Sara Lee, Yum Brands, Jack in the Box, Kraft Foods, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Sonic, Dole, KFC, Nestle, and get this-Atkins.  These are just the biggies and each of the above individual companies produce multiple products with wood cellulose.

Most consumers might be horrified to find these types of filler products are used as substitutes for items that they believe to be good for them.   Shouldn’t we perhaps expect increased disclosure to follow increased use of cellulose and other filler products as these practices increases?

Why are these fillers used?  Simple-MONEY, MONEY, and more MONEY.  You know the old saying:  Money makes the world go round.  They are far less expensive that real food and if people will eat it, bring it on.

Why the hell are we all eating this crap?  All it takes is to stop!  Companies are complacent because people keep buying their products.  You can bet that these same companies would perk right up if people, en masse, stopped purchasing all of this FrankenFood.  It is my best guess when you are told you need more fiber they are not talking about these wood fibers and fillers.  I don’t know about you but I’m not to keen about eating something that also goes in roof coating, asphalt and glue.  Am I missing something here?

Ronald Reagan famously said, “Trust but Verify”.  At the signing of the INF Treaty, his counterpart Mikhail Gorbachev responded:  “you repeat that at every meeting,” to which Reagan answered:  “I like it”…I like it too.