The Living Clean Guide To Avoiding Glyphosate and Other Bad Stuff in Foods (Part 8) – Convenience Foods
Frozen pizza from Michael Breitbach’s The Food Store.
By Lisa Petrison, Ph.D.
This is part of a discussion of exceptional food products that may be worth considering by those who would like to really enjoy eating while simultaneously avoiding the large amounts of glyphosate, mycotoxins and various other poisons that are pervasive in the modern food supply (and in particular in the modern U.S. food supply).
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All products listed in this article are both organic and gluten-free unless the following notations are present:
(1) – Item may contain gluten or gluten cross-contamination.
(2) – Item may contain products that were grown with non-organic herbicides/fungicides/insecticides (or where the involved animals may have consumed such products).
(3) – Item consists of dairy or meat from a largely grass-fed animal receiving some supplemental feed, including a small percentage of feed with the potential of having been glyphosate-contaminated.
Wheat Bread
By far my favorite kind of bread is real sourdough. The fermentation process digests the fructans in the bread (meaning that it is low in FODMAPs) and also helps with other toxicity problems (such as with mycotoxins, antinutrients and gluten).
I’ve yet to find a frozen version of real sourdough made with good ingredients, however. I therefore have to make an effort to find good locally made organic sourdough bread and then freeze it until I am ready to use a slice or two.
(Hint: Real sourdough bread should not list yeast in the ingredients. It also should be unlikely to go moldy due to the antifungal activity of the sourdough process.)
Sprouting the wheat or other grains before making the bread – as Food for Life and Silver Hills Bakery do – also helps to reduce the amount of toxicity present. I have known many people who have said that they were very reactive to regular wheat but could eat certain sprouted breads and/or sourdough breads with no problems.
Food for Life’s wheat breads are all sprouted and free of GMO’s, with ingredients that are almost 100% organic (and for most of the breads wholly organic). The only ingredient that I have been able to find that is not listed as organic in any of their sprouted-wheat breads are the chia seeds in the Genesis bread.
In addition to breads, Food for Life sells sprouted buns, English muffins, waffles, pockets and tortillas (plus sprouted-wheat cereal and pasta). I have tried many of their sprouted wheat products and thought they were pretty good across the board. These are virtually all 100% organic as well.
All of the products made by Food for Life and Silver Hills are sprouted, free of GMO’s, and use mostly organic ingredients. Silver Hills also produces a few certified-organic breads.
Silver Hills (which is based in Canada) sells sprouted-wheat breads, buns, and bagels. While everything that I have tried from them has been good, I would suggest sticking with their organic products since their non-organic products contain small amounts of wheat (including non-sprouted, non-organic vital wheat gluten) that has the potential of being glyphosate contaminated.
Finally, I would like to note that some of the worst food reactions that I ever have had were to sprouted-wheat organic breads being sold at low prices in mainstream food stores. My guess here is that these companies buy low-quality organic ingredients in order to keep costs down and that these can be badly contaminated with mold toxicity or glyphosate contamination. I never have had these kinds of problems with Food for Life or Silver Hills, but suggest proceeding with caution with regard to the other brands out there.
Recommended Sprouted Breads:
Gluten-Free Bread
Food for Life also sells quite a few gluten-free breads, including two versions (a brown rice and a multi-seed rice) that are free of yeast, corn, soy, dairy, gluten, animal products, GMO’s and refined sugar. I have never seen their gluten-free products in stores and so have not tried them. Although these have more non-organic ingredients than the wheat breads, I am not seeing any non-organic items that seem to present a glyphosate contamination issue.
For Silver Hills,
Silver Hills also used to sell some good gluten-free bread (based on sprouted sorghum flour, millet and chia), but it has been discontinued.
The best other gluten-free bread I have tried so far is Udi’s Millet-Chia, which has a nice texture and decent taste. It is stated by the company as being non-GMO, and none of the non-organic ingredients in it seem to be at risk of carrying much glyphosate contamination. However, it contains some food-science-type ingredients such as dough conditioners, and so I have a hard time exactly recommending it.
Grindstone Bakery (based in Rohnert Park, CA) makes a line of organic, gluten-free breads (as well as organic spelt/rye/barley breads) that I would really like to try. Free standard shipping is available throughout the U.S. (with a four-loaf minimum required for all orders).
A few other suggestions of companies baking GMO-free, gluten-free breads that I have received include Canyon Bakehouse, Genuine Bavarian, Kim & Jake’s, O’Dough’s, Paleo Bread, Rudi’s Bakery, Sami’s Bakery and Three Bakers.
I also received a positive comment about the Siete brand of gluten-free tortillas.
Many people who are unable to tolerate gluten report baking their own bread. This recipe from Against All Grain is popular, and Andrea Fabry of the It Takes Time blog offers a gluten-free sourdough bread recipe.
Recommended Gluten-Free Bread:
Wheat Pasta
After a lot of trial-and-error with North American pasta products, I finally gave up on them entirely and decided to stick solely with Italian and Asian products.
I frequently choose Einkorn wheat pasta, produced by Jovial. Einkorn is an ancient grain that is tolerated by many people who do not do well with modern wheat (and that was brought as a good option by Dr. William Davis in his book Wheat Belly).
Einkorn was virtually unavailable until the owners of Jovial decided to focus their efforts on bringing it back to life – first by arranging to have large amounts of it grown in Italy and then by getting the products made from it distributed on store shelves. In addition to the pasta, the company also sells Einkorn flour, tea cookies and sourdough snack crackers.
I find Jovial’s Einkorn pasta to be very tasty and clean, and I have done really well with it. Although it does contain gluten and thus is not suitable for those with true celiac disease, I have encountered quite a few people who are ordinarily much more reactive to wheat (including organic wheat) than I am who nonetheless can tolerate these products.
Although I really like Einkorn, my experience has been that it is much better suited to heartier pastas such as fusilli or penne than it is to spaghetti. For the latter, I prefer either Bionature Durum Semolina or one of the Italian gluten-free pastas.
I especially like Bionaturae Traditional Egg Pasta. I usually cook it until soft, then fry it in a skillet with some coconut oil until golden brown (flipping the whole thing just once to make a large noodle cake), and then finally top it with stir-fried vegetables with lots of sauce.
Recently, just as an experiment, I tried several random non-organic wheat pastas from Italy. They all felt fine to me – much better than the organic wheat pastas from the U.S. or Canada. Although I still am planning to stick with the organic Italian brands for home use, I think this could be useful information for eating in restaurants.
Finally, I really like the Mugwort Soba (a greenish pasta that includes wheat) imported from Japan by Eden Foods. Though it is not marked as organic, I am not especially surprised that it feels okay since allowable pesticide levels in Japan across the board are very low.
Recommended Organic Wheat Pasta from Italy:
Recommended Non-Organic Wheat Pasta from Italy:
Barilla Classic Blue Box (1, 2)
Recommended Non-Organic Wheat Pasta from Japan:
Eden Selected Soba & Udon (1, 2)
Wheat-Free Pasta
In comparison taste testing, it is always surprising to me how much I like the two major Italian brands of organic, gluten-free pastas.
The Bionaturae Gluten-Free Pasta (which includes rice flour, potato starch, corn starch and soy flour) is especially close to Italian wheat pasta, but even the Jovial Gluten-Free Pasta (which contains only brown rice) is pretty good.
I recently was especially impressed by the Jovial Gluten-Free Egg Pasta, which makes a great substitute for the Bionaturae wheat product that I usually use.
Although I seem to do perfectly fine with the Jovial and Bionaturae wheat pastas too, I do not feel that it is a sacrifice at all to eat these non-gluten pastas.
Another brand of gluten-free Italian-style pasta that I have tried a few times is Tinkyada, which is produced in Canada. It is a non-organic brown rice pasta with a good bit of rice bran added in order to facilitate longer cooking times. It has not felt as good to me as the Jovial Gluten-Free Pasta, but it is pretty widely available and I would be willing to eat it in a pinch.
Moving on to Asian-style pasta: recently I tried eight different flavors of King Soba’s gluten-free and organic Japanese-style rice noodles, including sweet potato/buckwheat, black rice, wakame and pumpkin/ginger as well as some plainer varieties. Although the noodles are made in China, they felt fine to me and all the flavors tasted quite good.
(A discussion of King Soba’s Ramen products – which I also liked quite a bit – is in the Quick Meals section of this article.)
King Soba also makes what it calls Pad Thai Noodles and Vermicelli Noodles. The noodles contain corn starch and potato starch as well as rice, which makes them seem more like wheat noodles than the plain rice noodles usually used in Pad Thai. Both of these products are really good though.
For classic rice noodles, I likely will continue to use the stir-fry rice noodles or thin rice noodles from Thai Kitchen. They are made in China from non-organic white rice and have always felt reasonably clean to me.
Considering how much glyphosate is used in China and how toxic the country supposedly is in general, it at first was perplexing to me how consistently clean all the pasta products from there have felt to me. My best guess here is that especially since China engages in substantial trade with Taiwan (where allowable glyphosate levels in foods are very low), they likely are being very careful to make sure that exported foods do not have any substantial amounts of glyphosate contamination so that their reputation is not ruined.
The 100% Buckwheat Soba (non-organic and non-GMO) that is imported from Japan by Eden Foods is a denser and heavier pasta that I have thought was pretty good. I would be interested in trying more of the traditional Japanese pastas imported by Eden.
Recommended Rice Pasta:
Recommended Buckwheat Pasta:
Eden Selected (Japanese Imported Only) (1, 2)
Recommended Corn Pasta:
Recommended Rice/Potato/Soy Pasta:
Pizza
Virtually all frozen pizzas are filled with toxic ingredients and also do not taste particularly good. Because frozen pizzas have the innate potential of being healthful and tasty as well as convenient though, I put a good bit of effort at one point into looking into good options to the usual brands.
The only pizzas that we thought would be worth serving when we were doing taste-testing at Mercey Hot Springs were from Full of Life Flatbread, an award-winning, mostly organic pizza restaurant that has received a great deal of media attention (including mentions in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times).
The restaurant is located in the tiny town of Los Alamos on the Central Coast of California. Almost all ingredients are sourced from small farms that are located within a 400-mile radius of the restaurant and that use sustainable and humane practices. The crust, veggies and herbs are 100% organic; the cheeses are made by local artisan producers.
The pizzas that go in the boxes and then are frozen are the basically the same as the ones that are served in the restaurant. Flavors include Margherita with Buffalo Mozzarella & Pesto: Mushroom with Carmelized Onions & Tomatoes; and Tomato Sauce with Three Cheeses.
Despite the fact that the cheeses are not certified organic and that I do not know for sure what the animals producing the milk ate, the pizzas in general felt really clean to me and were certainly very tasty. If I had access to them, I would eat them frequently.
For a number of years, Full of Life Flatbread frozen pizzas were being carried by the large natural-foods wholesaler UNFI, meaning that stores across the country had the option of carrying them. The retail price point in most stores was between $7-9 (for a small pizza serving 1-2 people).
More recently, subsequent to some changes in management at UNFI, the pizzas are no longer being carried by them. Full of Life is still producing a much more limited quantity of the pizzas, which it sells through a few nearby stores (including New Frontiers in Solvang and El Rancho Market in Santa Ynez). The restaurant is also shipping the pizzas independently to a few additional retailers in other states.
Looking at this from the perspective of a marketing professional, I think that this is rather a tragic story due to the missed opportunities that I am seeing and am hoping that there is still a chance for things to be rectified.
These pizzas are so good that I believe that if they were marketed correctly, they would serve as a reason for people who care a great deal about food quality and who are relatively price-insensitive to visit particular stores on a regular basis to pick up the pizzas (and then to buy a variety of other items with a larger markup while in the stores).
In addition, I believe that buying and serving the pizzas could be a simple and cost-effective way for mainstream restaurants to satisfy the needs of the growing segment of people who are looking for non-toxic and tasty menu choices and who are willing to pay a premium to get them (and who will bring their friends along to restaurants where they can find something on the menu to eat).
Our experience at Mercey was that even though the pizzas are not gluten-free or dairy-free, a high percentage of the very picky customers and staff were really looking forward to purchasing them on a regular basis. That makes me think that there is a big potential market of other people who also would be excited about the pizzas – provided that they are appropriately marketed so that people know how extraordinary they are and then have access to them, of course.
Very recently, I found in the organic freezer section of my local supermarket an organic roasted vegetable pizza sold under the name Monteli. It is made by an Italian frozen pizza company called Roncadin, which is located in a rural area near the Dolomites mountains. They claim that the pure water in the area and their other high-quality ingredients make for an exceptional pizza, and I will say that I thought that product I tried (especially the sourdough wheat crust) was quite good. All the ingredients listed are just normal foods that would go into homemade pizza, and the end product was really tasty.
The version that I tried contained spinach, red and yellow peppers, broccoli and zucchini. There were a reasonable number of vegetables, but I grated a good bit of extra cheese on top. With a salad, I thought that the pizza was a decent size for two people. There seem to be a few additional varieties available in the U.S (including arugula and cherry tomato; margherita; and three cheese), but otherwise I have been able to find out pretty little about this brand so far. Regardless, if my grocery store keeps stocking this pizza, I’m going to be buying it pretty frequently, I think.
I’ve never encountered any other frozen pizzas that I thought could be worth eating and so don’t have any other recommendations for this category, unfortunately.
One more thing that I realized about pizza while doing taste testing: as it turns out, by far the best way for the consumer to cook frozen pizza (or to re-heat leftover restaurant pizza) is to just pop it into a covered barbecue grill. The pizzas can go right on the metal grill (no pan needed), and they come out almost exactly like they were just baked in a wood-fired brick pizza oven.
Full of Life Flatbread (1, 2, 3)
Monteli Roasted Vegetable Pizza (1)
The Food Store Pizza
Spreads & Dips
I really like hummus and often make my own from scratch, using a food processor or high-speed blender.
Although we sampled many different hummus products when I was living at Mercey Hot Springs, the only one I liked very much was Hope Hummus. It tasted really clean and fresh, and will last for quite a while in the refrigerator prior to being opened.
The basic version of Hope Hummus contains just a few ingredients (garbanzos, tahini, olive oil, sea salt, lemon juice, spices, garlic, citric acid), and there are many flavor choices available.
I’ve always enjoyed the Spicy Avocado Hummus product from Hope, and now the company has just released a Green Chile Guacamole (in regular and spicy versions) as well. It contains only avocado, vegetables, herbs, lime juice and sea salt – no beans and no preservatives. (It will keep for quite a while in the refrigerator before being opened, but the package suggests finishing it off quickly once it’s opened up.) As packaged products go, it’s pretty good stuff.
Two promising newer hummus products that I have yet to try are Kirkland Organic Hummus (sold only at Costco) and Tribe Organic Hummus.
(Note that I discuss shelf-stable hummus in the Quick Meals category rather than here, because that seems a product with a different purpose than the much better refrigerated hummus.)
Another company that I am very enthusiastic about is Cultured Kitchen, which makes a line of delicious flavored cashew spreads under the name Cashew Reserve. We tried many of their products when I was at Mercey and everyone (vegan or not) really liked them.
The products (which are not stated as organic but use high-quality clean ingredients) are now being sold in Whole Foods markets and other health-oriented stores throughout California. I am hoping that eventually they will go nationwide.
A cultured cashew cheese product that already seems to be pretty widely distributed is Heidi Ho, a line of several certified-organic spreads. I’ve only tried one product of theirs so far, but the quality is obviously high enough that I feel comfortable recommending it (and will buy it again myself). The products do seem a little plain in comparison to the ones from The Cultured kitchen, but this would be easy enough to address by adding some ingredients to them.
I also tried a couple of cashew cheese products by Miyoko’s Creamery. Both of these products had a distinct tang – apparently from the miso and the nutritional yeast – but they are certified organic and felt really clean. A focus for this company seems to be especially on creating interesting textures – for instance, while the Double Cream Garlic Herb is a soft and spreadable cheese, the High Sierra Rustic Alpine is crumbly like fresh goat’s milk cheese. Although I enjoyed trying this company’s cashew cheeses, I sort of doubt I will buy them again since they are pretty expensive and since I’m not all that crazy about nutritional yeast.
The Cultured Kitchen Cashew Reserve (2)
Quick Meals
Especially for camping or other travel, but also for convenience reasons, it would be nice to have some clean and relatively healthful and tasty packaged options for meals not requiring any work.
Despite having spent a great deal of time looking for such products though, my list of acceptable alternatives in this category is pretty short.
The Mediterranean Organics Dolmas (grape leaves with seasoned rice stuffing) is a pretty good instant food option with no clean-up required, which makes it appropriate for – say – eating in the car.
I’ve had good experiences with basically every flavor of Pacific Soup that I have tried, which is most of them.
Recently I discovered King Soba Ramen Noodles, which contain only minimally processed organic buckwheat or rice. These regular ramen noodles (or other quick-cooking pasta) can be prepared almost as easily as incredibly unhealthy instant ramen noodles, just by pouring boiling water over them and letting them sit in a covered bowl for 10-15 minutes.
The water at this point will be pretty tepid, and so I suggest draining the noodles after they are soft. With the use of a thermos, the soaking water will stay hot longer (meaning that the noodles will cook faster and draining the tepid water will not be required), though the noodle cake will need to be broken into pieces to fit in the opening.
After the noodles are cooked and drained, a sauce consisting of some healthful flavoring ingredients – such as soy sauce, sesame oil, nut oil, miso paste (thinned in a little hot water), hot sauce, gomaiso, fish sauce, ponzu sauce, seaweed or umeboshi plum paste – can be added to them. I often add a touch of sugar to the sauce as well.
For a hot soup-type dish, the flavoring ingredients can be mixed with hot water and then poured over the cooked noodles. (A good bouillon product also could be used to flavor the hot water, though that would not be my choice since I don’t really like nutritional yeast.)
The above are the only “Quick Meals” products that I ever eat myself (except when I am taste-testing products), and thus are the only ones I am including on the recommended list at the bottom of this section.
Following is a discussion of some other products that seem clean enough that they might be worth considering in certain circumstances.
Canned baked beans have a long history of being a good convenience meal, and there are several products available that are labeled organic and gluten-free. In tasting three different brands recently, I thought the Walnut Acres one (maple/onion) was a little better than the others, but the Pacific and Amy’s versions were fine too.
Amy’s Soups (organic and gluten-free) are by and large not too bad, though some flavors are much better than others. The mixed-vegetable ones (such as French Country or Southwestern) and the legumes (such as lentil or split pea) seem to be the most reliable.
Amy’s Chilis (labeled organic and gluten-free) are edible, especially if you add grated cheese and maybe a little onion to them.
Wild Garden Hummus (which is gluten-free but not stated as either non-GMO or organic) is pretty good in terms of taste and texture; is made from simple ingredients relatively unlikely to be contaminated with glyphosate; and is available in single-serving pouches as well as glass jars. My feeling about it is that it is clean enough that I would not be afraid to eat it occasionally, but not clean enough that I would want to eat it very often.
Eden makes a variety of rice-and-bean combinations (labeled organic and gluten-free) that are tolerable, especially if you add some extra ingredients such as sauteed vegetables and cheese. Of course, at that point, a real meal could have been prepared instead.
Annie’s boxed macaroni-and-cheese dishes are available in several organic options (including one that is both gluten-free and organic). They are somewhat tasty and fairly easy-to-prepare. I still would much rather have a bowl of pasta with some butter and actual grated cheese on top, but I could see them as an option to take on a camping trip where refrigeration is not going to be available.
Crackers – Wheat/Rye
I seem to do consistently fine with the Dr. Kracker line of organic wheat crackers. They include many large seeds and are crunchy and flavorful. Boxes of smaller crackers as well as these large crispbread ones are now available.
The Jovial Einkorn wheat sourdough snack crackers are sturdy little squares that I suspect may be tolerable to many people who usually don’t do well with wheat, due to their starting with Einkorn (an ancient grain) and then making it into sourdough. They definitely seem to be high-quality but (at least for the plain version) do not have very much flavor. I suggest serving them with strongly flavored dips (such as hummus) or spreadable cheeses.
Finn Crisps (from Finland) and Wasa Crispbread (from Sweden) are two GMO-free but non-organic products that are worth considering. I especially enjoy the rye versions of the crackers.
The Back to Nature Organic Stoneground Wheat Crackers are tasty and elegant for a cheese tray, and I have occasionally bought them for that reason. (Note that Back to Nature is a brand that is partially owned by Kraft and that based on my own previous experiences and the relatively high levels of glyphosate that came up in a test of one of their crackers, I would not suggest any of their other products at this time.)
Back to Nature Stoneground Wheat Crackers (1)
Jovial Einkorn Sourdough Crackers (1)
Crackers – Gluten-Free
Probably my favorite gluten-free crackers are the light-as-air crispbreads by Le Pain des Fleurs, which are made in France and particularly appropriate for spreadable cheeses. The ones made with chestnut puree are my favorites. Admittedly they are a little expensive though.
The gluten-free crackers that I eat most often are based on rice and seeds – Edward & Sons rice snaps, Lundberg rice cakes, and Mary’s Gone Crackers.
Although the brand is not stated as being GMO-free or organic and also contains a few specific suspect ingredients (such as “natural flavors”), Blue Diamond Nut-Thins is a gluten-free cracker brand that feels pretty good to me, and that is widely available and inexpensive.
Chips, Popcorn, Pretzels & Snack Crackers
Snack foods tend to be a category where a lot of really toxic products get used surreptitiously. Even when products are labeled GMO-free, they have in some cases been found to contain large amount of GMO ingredients anyway and they also often feel poisonous to me.
For that reason, for my recommended list for this category, I have been especially vigilant about including only products that I have eaten many times myself and where the manufacturers seem to have a commitment to making products in the right way because it is something they believe in (rather than just because they think it will create more sales).
Of course, kale and beet chips seem on the surface to be healthy foods, and though they are high-priced, those are the snacks that I tend to eat the most often.
But even the potato chips and the tortilla chips and the pretzels on the list below are clean enough that I do not believe that they need to be limited just to unusually special occasions.
I’ve been satisfied with the quality of Late July’s multi-grain chips over the years and thus am happy that they are now also selling plain corn tortilla chips, which I prefer for serving with salsas or in taco salad. I recently tried a bag, and they were really good.
I also just tried the plain version of GimMe’s new seaweed chips and liked them quite a bit. Ingredients are brown rice; sunflower, safflower or red palm oil; lentils; roasted seaweed; sesame seeds; millet; sea salt; and caramel color. I’m looking forward to eventually trying out the sriracha, teriyaki and wasabi versions as well.
I’m not generally a fan of any kind of pre-packaged popcorn, but I have to say that the organic cheese in the Lesser Evil Buddha Bowl bagged popcorn (also flavored with coconut oil and Himalayan salt) has really impressed me in terms of how clean it feels as well as the taste. The other versions (plain and lightly sweetened) also feel really clean. Although this is no replacement for fresh-popped popcorn, I do see the appeal.
Annie’s Homegrown makes pretty good packaged popcorn (in plain and cheese versions) too.
I usually eat the organic potato chips from Kettle. However, their non-organic potato chips (which are verified non-GMO and which come in snack sizes and a wider variety of flavors) also feel okay for occasional eating.
Occasionally I also have eaten potato chips (non-organic but non-GMO) from Boulder Canyon or Jackson’s Honest as well.
Lundberg’s Rice Chips is another non-organic, non-GMO product that I have eaten a few times and that has felt okay to me. (Plus I feel good enough about Lundberg as a company that I trust that their chips likely are fine.)
Although I rarely eat regular U.S. wheat unless it has been soaked/sprouted or made into sourdough, the Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies and Pretzel Bunnies (available in organic versions) are tasty and fun, and might be especially appealing to children not reactive to gluten.
Farmhouse Culture – which is one of my favorite companies – just announced a new certified organic line of Kraut Krisps that I am really looking forward to trying.
Vegetable Chips:
Potato Chips:
Corn Chips:
Farmhouse Culture Kraut Krisps
Frito-Lay Organic Doritos/Tostidos
Rice Chips:
Popcorn:
Pretzels:
Newman’s Own Spelt Pretzels (2)
Cheese Puffs:
Luke’s Cheese Clouds & Lightning Bolts
Snack Crackers:
Seaweed
Seaweed has the potential of soaking up toxic metals, radiation and other contaminants from the sea and thus of being toxic to those who eat it.
On the other hand, seaweed is said to have a wide variety of health benefits including reducing inflammation, which I would guess is at least in part a result of its ability to grab hold of metals and other toxins in the body and then to carry them out of the system. It also contains substantial amounts of iodine (usually helpful for the thyroid) and many other nutrients.
Because I do not feel that “science” has a good grasp on whether or not seaweed is a healthy food, I have been relying on my own intuition with regard to whether it is a good thing for me at particular points in time. Sometimes I really crave it.
And I will say that at least with regard to the nori seaweeds that I list below, I have never felt like the products have been toxic at all. They actually feel really clean to me.
From time to time, I also crave other kinds of seaweed, such as the kind sometimes offered as a side dish in Japanese restaurants. I’d like to find a good mail-order supplier of this kind of seaweed, as well as some good information sources for learning more about this whole product category.
Meat Snacks
Tanka Bar is a Native American company with the goal of producing meat snacks made of 100% grass-fed buffalo and cranberries. Their website suggests that they currently are only able to source 75% grass-fed animals and that the rest have eaten at some point in their lives some other kind of unspecified feed. (The website also notes that the cranberries are sweetened with non-GMO cane sugar.)
Despite my concern that some of the buffalo may have eaten glyphosate-tainted feed at some point during their lives, Tanka bars taste quite clean and good to me. In addition, from what I have seen, Native Americans seem even more opposed to the use of chemicals in their foods and on their lands than I am, and so my guess would be that they also are concerned about the toxicity of any supplemental food that the animals are still getting and doing their best to minimize it.
I thus am feeling reasonably good about the Tanka Bar products and hope that they will continue getting even better as time goes on.
Mighty Bar is a new product in this category, offered by Organic Prairie (a fairly large member-owned cooperative of smaller farmers committed to raising organic meat). The organic-certified bars are made of 100% grass-fed beef, along with either cranberries and sunflower seeds or organic bacon and apples. I thought that the bar that I tried felt really clean and tasted good. I think that I still slightly prefer the Tanka Bars, but that may just be a personal preference of liking the taste of buffalo more than beef.
Another new meat snack product is Wild Zora, which places a lot of emphasis on the larger amount of fruit and vegetables in the bars. All the Wild Zora beef bars include 100% grass-fed meat and organic vegetables (with some non-organic spices); however, the Parmesan Beef version also contains regular cheese that has the potential of being contaminated with glyphosate. Unfortunately, the company does not seem to be sourcing lamb or turkey that ate only non-GMO or organic feed, and so I am not planning to sample those bars. I did try the Chili Beef bar (which includes kale, apricot and cayenne pepper), and I thought it felt quite clean to me and was pretty good-tasting. Especially for those who like spicy food, the Chili Beef or the BBQ Beef bars from this company could be worth a try.
A company that is currently competing fiercely with Tanka Bar for market share is Epic Bar, which started as an independent company but was bought by General Mills in early 2016. Epic sells a wide range of meat bars, including bison, pork, chicken, beef, wild turkey, lamb, venison, salmon and wild boar.
A few of the bars are stated as being from 100% grassfed bison, beef or lamb. Although I spent quite a lot of time searching, I was not able to find information on what exactly the other animals are eating, and the company did not respond to my email inquiry.
I purchased a half-dozen of these bars and sampled them all. Some (such as the wild turkey) felt so problematic to me that I could not eat more than a tiny bite. The ones stated as being 100% grassfed did feel better, but still, not as good as the bars from the companies mentioned above.
So all in all, my guess here is that many of these animals are getting substantial amounts of gyphosate in their feed. I’m pretty disinclined to purchase any more of the Epic bars after my taste-testing experience, but insofar as people do buy them, sticking with the 100% grass fed ones would seem safest.
I also tried two other snack products from Epic: their bacon bits and their pork skins.
The bacon bits felt toxic to me in the way that meat from animals that ate glyphosate-contaminated feed always feels toxic. This confused me at first, since upon my original reading the website made it sound like the hogs were getting only GMO-free feed: “Bits are created from non-GMO fed chicken and heritage breed Berkshire pork bellies.”
But in looking more closely at the website, it actually does not say that the pork bits got a GMO-free diet – just that they use Berkshire heritage breeds. The chicken bits are stated as having a GMO-free diet though.
The pork skins, on the other hand, felt great to me. I was stunned at how much I liked them.
In looking at the website, it states that the pork skins originate from “a blend of organic, non-GMO, pastured and antibiotic-free pork.”
So I am thinking that this product sounds like a crap shoot – that some of the pigs that they are using are not eating glyphosate in their food and that some of them are eating it. Which is really too bad, because I liked the pork skins that I tried so much that I would like to have the option of buying them again and knowing that they will be okay.
Probably with General Mills owning the company though, that is not ever going to happen. The mentality that is going on here instead seems to be to cut corners with regard to the type of feed that is used and then to hope that the consumer buys into the romance of the “wild” concept and doesn’t ask too many questions.
Wild Zora Chili Beef/BBQ Beef Bars (2)
Bars
Although energy bars can be be convenient to eat on occasion, it’s been hard to find any that I have been really enthusiastic about.
Recently though, I have been really enjoying the grain-free Swell Bars from Nana Joes, a small artisan granola marker located in San Francisco. Although I am not opposed to the idea of eating quality oats in granola bars (and though Nana Joes’ regular granola bars are very good too), the Swell bar is the first bar of any sort that I have felt all-around good about eating on anything more than an emergency basis. The bars contain only whole foods (including plenty of healthy fats) and no refined sugars: the only ingredients are toasted unsweetened coconut, maple syrup, cocoa nibs, olive oil, vanilla, sea salt and a whole bunch of nuts and seeds (pecans, almonds, pumpkin seeds, pistachios, sesame seeds). They are only mildly sweet, very clean feeling, and really delicious.
Over the past year or so I also have been occasionally eating Bulletproof bars, which contain what I feel is also a pretty good combination of ingredients (just cashews, grass-fed collagen, chicory fiber, coconut/MCT/Brain Octane oil, vanilla, lemon oil, stevia and sea salt in the Lemon Cookie version). In a lot of ways they are just about perfect, except that for me, the stevia makes them taste just a little bit bitter. I would like them a lot better if they instead either had a little bit of maple syrup or else no sweetener at all.
Bumble Bars are based on sesame seeds (which I really like), are only moderately sweet, and come in variety of flavors that I have found pretty tasty. I worked my way through a box a couple of years ago as a result of keeping them in the car. However, the sweeteners used (brown rice syrup and evaporated cane juice) are not what I consider ideal, and they also contain smallish amounts of soy.
Pure Bar is another organic product line based on dates, nuts and other fruits. Although I do not like this line as much as Clif Kit’s, fans of Larabar (which is labeled as GMO-free but not organic and which is owned by General Mills) may want to check it out.
Louck’s Sesame Snaps are made in Poland out of just sesame seeds, glucose syrup and sugar. These came up as extremely well-rated in the energy bar taste tests at Mercey Hot Springs. In terms of the nutritional content, they are no worse than most of products out there that are labeled as energy bars (they are not any more sweet and also have a fair amount of protein). Although they are not marked as organic or GMO-free, they feel really clean to me.
Kate’s bars (based on oats, seeds, chocolate and fruit and labeled as 85-90% organic) also are much more sweet than I think is necessary, but they seem pretty clean and certainly are tasty. Maybe they would be good for a strenuous hike.
Nut/Seed/Coconut Bars:
Thunderbird Real Food Bars (1)
Sesame Bars:
Date-Nut Bars:
Peanut Butter Bars:
Oat Bars:
Paleo Bars:
Trail Mix
Braga sells on Amazon large bags of raw trail mix containing just their own quality pistachios, almonds, walnuts, cranberries and raisins. (I like to add some Dagoba Chocodrops and a little Redmond Real Salt to it though.) They also offer on their website a few other mixes of nuts, seeds and fruits that are appropriate for the trail or general snacking purposes.
Nana Joes makes a trail mix containing many discs of good dark chocolate, along with nuts (large almonds and pistachios), fruit (cranberries and coconut), seeds (pumpkin and flax), oats, maple syrup, olive oil and spices. The mixture is very well-balanced and (despite the chocolate) not too sweet, plus the ingredient quality is very good. It’s available through mail order as well as at certain farmers’ markets and stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Eden’s Quiet Moon trail mix is another good choice. It contains tamari-roasted pumpkin seeds and almonds, plus sunflower seeds, raisins and tart cherries. The product (which used to be called All Mixed Up Too) is available in one-ounce snack packs as well as four-ounce bags.
Granola
For the most part, I don’t eat very many U.S. grain products even if they are organic. Still, I like good granola and eat it sometimes, and I have done quite well with the brands listed here even though most contain oats.
For those interested in making granola (which is not too hard and results in a fresh and relatively inexpensive product that is significantly better than even the best packaged granola), I suggest using McCann’s Rolled Oats from Ireland. I suspect they have much less glyphosate contamination than U.S. oats, and I have done consistently very well eating McCann’s oatmeal at least a few times a week over many years.
Nana Joes is a very small granola company that I discovered when visiting the Bi-Rite food store in San Francisco a few years ago. It makes shockingly good granolas – stellar ingredients, wonderful flavor combinations, very lightly sweetened with maple syrup. The stand-out in my mind is the grain-free Urban Blend, with toasted coconut-flour chunks replacing the oats and with pecans, pumpkin seeds, dates, apricots and sesame seeds rounding out the main ingredients. But all their granolas (as well as their trail mix and bars) are terrific and there is a reasonably priced sampler package available if you can’t decide which ones you want. U.S. shipping is free with orders of $30 or more.
Another outstanding granola line is made by an organic farm located in southwestern Colorado called Indian Ridge. I first came across their granola at the Telluride Farmers’ Market and was really impressed with both the quality of the ingredients and the flavor. The gluten-free, nut-free version includes oats, cornmeal, sunflower seeds, coconut, cranberries and pumpkin seeds. (I like the Chia Cherry – which also includes almonds and is not guaranteed free of all gluten traces – even better though.) This granola line (which uses 95% organic ingredients) contains both brown sugar and honey and is a little sweeter than Nana Joe’s, but still not nearly as sweet as most granolas out there. There likely will be a shipping fee on this one.
Frog Hollow (an organic fruit grower and bakery in northern California) makes a deceptively simple, delicately crispy, freshly baked granola that is similar to that previously offered by Cafe Fanny (a Berkeley, CA, restaurant owned by Alice Waters that is now closed). It very well may be the most delicious granola I have ever had, which is saying a lot considering how much I like the others listed here. The only drawbacks are that it goes stale quickly and that it contains both wheat and dairy. It is lightly sweetened with honey. I suggest buying it as an add-on to have as a treat if ordering Frog Hollow’s yummy preserves.
(Note that while there is a boxed Cafe Fanny granola currently being sold in stores, this style of granola must be eaten fresh to be good and therefore the packaged version is not the same thing at all.)
Purely Elizabeth, which is widely available in healthful food stores as well as online, is another good granola choice. There are two newer grain-free versions that I have yet to try, in addition to their more well-known ancient-grain granolas. The products are sweetened with coconut sugar.
Another good granola that comes in easily portable snack packs as well as larger bags is Dr. Flynn’s, created and sold by an actual medical doctor. It is lightly sweetened with maple syrup and includes a variety of health-promoting ingredients. The granola is free of gluten-containing ingredients, but not guaranteed to be free of gluten cross-contamination. It is sold on Amazon.
Nature’s Path makes quite a few granolas (some of them gluten-free) that are much more reasonably priced that the other options here and that I would be willing to eat in a pinch. I especially like the Pumpkin Seed & Flax version, for instance.
Recommended Granola:
Cereals, Toaster Pastries & Waffles
Although I usually don’t eat any cereal other than oatmeal or very high-quality granola, I do like sort of like Food for Life’s Ezekiel sprouted-wheat cereal (which is similar to Grape Nuts but much better in every respect). Sometimes I have a bowl of it with milk when I am in a hurry.
Nature’s Path is a huge, wholly organic, Canadian cereal company that has been largely responsible for the development of the Non-GMO Project. Although I rarely eat North American grains unless they are soaked, sprouted or made into sourdough bread, I have sampled a wide variety of Nature’s Path products (including frozen waffles, breakfast pastries, granola bars, and various cereals). Across the board, they seem pretty good and certainly infinitely better than 99% of the other cereal products that are out there.
Although many of the products from Nature’s Path contain wheat, they have a wide range of gluten-free products as well. One particularly popular product is their Qi’a instant oatmeal, which is both organic and gluten-free and also includes chia, hemp and other seeds in the mix.
Nature’s Path is a huge, wholly organic, Canadian cereal company that has been largely responsible for the development of the Non-GMO Project. Although I rarely eat North American grains unless they are soaked, sprouted or made into sourdough bread, I have sampled a wide variety of Nature’s Path products (including frozen waffles, breakfast pastries, granola bars, and various cereals). Across the board, they seem pretty good and certainly infinitely better than 99% of the other cereal products that are out there.
Although many of the products from Nature’s Path contain wheat, they have a wide range of gluten-free products as well. One particularly popular product is their Qi’a instant oatmeal, which is both organic and gluten-free and also includes chia, hemp and other seeds in the mix.
Recommended Breakfast Cereals:
Recommended Toaster Pastries:
Possible Waffles:
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