WSJ Article: "What's really in a lot of 'heathy' food"

My father-in-law forwarded me this interesting article from the Wall Street Journal. The article is not very detailed but does cover make some good points about our perception of the food we are eating and what we are actually eating. It talks a bit about how many times the marketing comes before the science.

The part of the article that really caught my eye was about chicken. I know, more bad news about commerically raised and processed chicken. Since the article might not be available for more than seven days I am going to copy a portion of it:

"...roughly one-third of the fresh chicken sold in the U.S. is "plumped" with water, salt and sometimes a seaweed extract called carrageenan that helps it retain the added water. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says chicken processed this way can still be labeled "all natural" or "100% natural" because those are all natural ingredients, even though they aren't naturally found in chicken.

Producers must mention the added ingredients on the package -- but the lettering can be small: just one-third the size of the largest letter in the product's name. If you're trying to watch your sodium to cut your risk of high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke, it pays to check the Nutrition Facts label. Untreated chicken has about 45 to 60 mgs of sodium per four-ounce serving. So-called enhanced or "plumped" chicken has between 200 and 400 mgs of sodium per serving, almost as much as a serving of fast-food french fries.

Adding salt water became widespread when big discount stores began selling groceries and wanted to sell chicken at uniform weights and prices. Plumping packaged chicken helps even out the weight. But that means consumers are paying for added salt water at chicken prices -- an estimated $2 billion worth every year, according to the Truthful Labeling Coalition, a group of chicken producers that don't enhance their products."

I have already been having a hard time eating chicken from the grocery store after the last article I read about arsenic in chicken and this additional information about the salt content is not making the matter better. No wonder Americans are suffering from weight problems - everything we eat is loaded with salt and/or growth hormones. Personally I prefer the taste of pastured chicken myself, and it looks like that is what we will be sticking with in this hosue.