I'm Glad I'm Not You, Cus Then I Wouldn't Be Me

No..I like food as natural as it can be.
apparently the use of annatto to color cheese actually started in the 16th century in England, which is where cheddar cheese originated. cheesemakers who sold crappy quality cheese would color it to make it appear higher quality.

Food dyes are mainly used to give a more pleasing look to foods, take meat for instance. Hamburger would look pretty unappetizing without the red dye they use to color it. Most food dyes come from plant material or in some cases, yup crushed bugs but hey whats a little extra protein added... Seriously, the dye for Mac and Cheese, and yes we have both the white and the traditional yellow up here, has less affect on your health than does most of the processed stuff you eat on a regular basis and I don't see any of you running around with petitions to make your junk food any healthier... Too much time on ones' hands and concentrating on little stuff when the country is going to hell in a hand basket....

We 'taste' food with our eyes before the taste buds. Yes, of course, the look of it matters. You can get a similar nuclear orange Mac n' cheese, with actual cheese, only it's a creamy orange, and just screams out ......... "eat me!"

I'm so put off of frankenfoods. They, like the common supermarket tomato, have great feel, color, ship well, and taste like crap. I grow open-pollinated Aussie tomatoes that are ribbed and taste wonderful. I wish I could grown lettuce, because lettuce matters, but nope. I can't grow spinach either, but grow callaloo, which is a decent leafy, earthy-flavored substitute, and better, since it grows abundantly with little water in our tropical zone.

Agree with Auburn........ I'd rather have real food than colorful frankenfood. If you don't grow it yourself, frankenfood is what you have. Look what the rat bastards have done with bacon -- an American staple. Bacon should have three ingredients: pork, salt, water. I dont eat foods with several ingredients, and thus unless there is local bacon, I don't eat it. All manner of crapola is put into bread to make it pluffy, or shiny or ........ same goes for ice cream and a plethora of otherwise wholesome foods.

What about juices? Do people even remember what real juices look like?? They aren't brightly colored, for the most part. What we have now is juices from concentrate, which translates to fiber-deficient sugar water with yellow and red dye #2 or #4 or whatever the hell makes it look like people think juice looks like. Squeeze the stuff yourself, once, and realize that most juices look shades of yellow and brown, with some rust or purple. Unappetizing to some, but at least there is real value in those juices.

The marketeers of food have sold us a vision of what food looks like, and even have the sand to inform us of what is healthy and what is not. Heartsmart! Low cholesterol! Low sodium! Lowfat! Weeeeee! Want to guess what nonfat cottage cheese is made of?

Once us old farts die off who remember what food grown with your own hands looks like, the stage will be complete to tell the younger generations that our old organic ways killed us, and that the vibrancy and mouthfeel of guar gum and Xanthum gum is what healthy tastes like.

We eat a LOT of wild chickens. They taste severalfold times better than their chemically-induced, artifically-fattened, hormone fed commercial counterparts. They eat mostly coconut and dry cat food, whatever bugs they forage and a few furtive snips of our garden. We are in balance with each other -- they live off of us, and we live off of them.

Rant, rant, RAVE! Viva la vegitation!

Quoting Alleyoops:
Food dyes are mainly used to give a more pleasing look to foods, take meat for instance. Hamburger would look pretty unappetizing without the red dye they use to color it. Most food dyes come from plant material or in some cases, yup crushed bugs but hey whats a little extra protein added... Seriously, the dye for Mac and Cheese, and yes we have both the white and the traditional yellow up here, has less affect on your health than does most of the processed stuff you eat on a regular basis and I don't see any of you running around with petitions to make your junk food any healthier... Too much time on ones' hands and concentrating on little stuff when the country is going to hell in a hand basket....

Some good points!

I think presentation matters. Otherwise, how do all the fancy restaurants get away with charging $40 for 2 oz of stuff that you can buy at the grocery store for 2 bucks?

Really though, I am a pretty good cook. I can pile a bunch of stuff in a bowl and hand it to you, but if I take the time to make a fancy presentation, you'll swear it taste better, even if it's the same food.

I agree with Alley though...too many people on the internet with too much time on their hands...

Fortunately around here, we tend to get real fresh farm food that is not chemically induced thanks to our Mennonite farmers. Perhaps I am spoiled as well, by putting in a little garden of my own when all the tomatoes etc get fertilized with good sheep dung and not some Monsanto product. Bacon now, if your smart you will get it in a slab, smoke it yourself and then you have the real thing our grandparents had. We all know how to smoke don't we? Same goes for any meats. Like HC mentioned, have a few chickens running around in a chicken hut for your own eggs if you want real fresh eggs. There are alot of urban farmers coming into being to save on the high cost of store bought, highly processed foods, if you have the room, chickens are easy to maintain. Learn to barter with your neighbours, another good way to maintain a healthier lifestyle. Even apartment dwellers can have little gardens. Pots on your balcony with tomatoes, etc can give you fresh food. There is no excuse if you want the Real thing rather than the Frankenfoods we find in the grocery stores these days.

A good example are lemons. In Portugal most people had lemon, orange, or apricot trees in their yard. I had a lemon tree which produced about 60 lemons every year.

Very few looked like the perfectly shaped ones you see in a supermarket. Most had distorted, odd shapes, and some were incredibly big. Would you see those in a supermarket? NO. They were not pretty enough and had no artificial color added.

Were they good? YES. I had the best lemonade for about three months every year.

The best part? They were free!