"I feel barfy" is a phrase I've been hearing a whole lot since returning from Germany from the little sister in particular. She has wheat, soy, dust, mold, egg and a few other allergies and is a lot more sensitive to foods than her sister. While traveling I try really hard not to get too fussy over food and unless it's going to really wreak havoc on her than just let it slide as much as possible. In Germany we ate white wheat rolls a lot! Nearly all meals in restaurants are served with one and while staying in hotels and with my uncle we had them every morning for breakfast. None of us had any issues with stomach aches or 'feeling barfy' after we ate. The same goes for Iran- where we ate wheat flatbread with every single meal. No stomach issues whatsoever. The first morning back in Cali I ate a half a grapefruit and a glass of water and had a very familiar stomach ache that happens to me often here in the states. While driving from CA to Arizona we stopped at Sizzler for the salad bar, which is actually the best choice is Blythe! It's that or McDonald's. Within 15 minutes of eating and back on the hwy I started major stomach cramps, sweating and barely made it to the next rest stop and the little one complaining of feeling barfy. Ditto after a stop at Subway. Ditto the next night at Mom's favorite Chinese restaurant. Ditto after eating a Costco muffin at a neighbor's house... What percentage of our population is now diagnosed with IBS???
This all leads me to believe that there is something in our food. To make matters worse I'm reading
Omnivore's Dilemma- a very scary book. For example they took foods from McDonald's and did a molecular analysis of it and found it was primarily corn! The coke registers as 100% corn, milk shake as 78%, chicken nuggets 56%, cheeseburger 52% & fries 23%! Because livestock eats all corn and soy now even though it looks like we're eating beef, cheese, dairy and potatoes really we're eating mostly corn and soy at every meal.
Typically we shop at Whole Foods, Trader Joes and farmer's markets and don't consume a lot of packaged things. But in Germany we ate whatever we were offered and particularly the last few weeks while staying with relatives we ate a lot of chocolate, candy, chips, Nutella with breakfast, prosciutto type pork meats, bratwurst and all sorts of stuff that we wouldn't ordinarily eat and none of us had any issues at all. I know I've just spent 3 months living with my brother the conspiracy theorist- but it does seem really odd to me that our food makes us sick and then pharmaceutical companies come along and design all sorts of 'remedies' that will solve the problem when the problem is our food to begin with that now also has loads of pharmaceuticals in it. Germany does not allow GMOs in their food and is much stricter about what it allows livestock to eat. And we still saw plenty of cows on actual grass! Something has definitely gone dramatically wrong with our food supply here in the good ol' US of A and it should concern all of us. Did I mention not a single stomach ache in IRAN??? Iran has better (cleaner) food than we do here.