News and Updates

BACK HOME AGAIN

A Visit to Indiana and Illinois

Last month included a return to the states of our young family. Our first son was born in Fort Wayne, IN. Our next son and daughter were born in Wheaton, IL. So there are many wonderful memories of these cities, and they will always feel like home.

From the upper left moving clockwise are our homes in Fort Wayne, then our first home in Wheaton, and the bottom photo is of our second Wheaton home. One of our sons actually burned down the garage of our second Wheaton home (smoldering firework). The new garage and dormer just enhanced the home.

So what's one of the big differences between these homes and our current home in Colorado; green trees and lots of leaves.

We were back home again in Indiana for a winter visit with Weldon. It was cold in early February (more ice than snow) and the included photo was right after LyNette had removed her cold hands from Weldon's neck.

Snowball, the six-toe per paw white cat is pretty much in charge of Weldon's home. This kitty is always curious and welcoming of visitors.

A day trip to Ohio allowed us to catch up with Brenda, Jim, Joyce, Don and Arlene.

We also had a nice dinner with Michele Blessing. Her husband Marty died towards the end of 2024. He was our daughter's baptismal sponsor. Michele gave us a tour of her new home that she and Marty had lovingly worked together to have built in SW Fort Wayne.

We were in Plainfield, IL to visit with Peter, Christine and family. As always, family makes each city special. It had been a long time since we were at Brookfield Zoo. When we revisited, it was unique in that there weren't many other humans at the zoo. Yes it was cooler and cloudy, it was surprising that there were so few people.

Peter and Christine had some time away from Plainfield, so we had cherished time with grandchildren. Plainfield schools were interesting in that a remote learning day was called when there wasn't any snow. Madison and Liam wanted to know why they couldn't either play in the snow or go to school. No easy answers to those questions.

It's magic

Madison and her "flat daddy" were chemists together during the remote learning (snow) day. From the video it can be understood that slow stirring and no eye blinking were magically important to concoction success.

Back in school, Liam sought out the tooth teacher. Liam had been fiddling with his loose tooth ever since we arrived in Plainfield. You know, pushing it out at a right angle to the gum line with his tongue. Well, Ms. W did her magic and Liam exited school with a tooth treasure chest.

PROSECUTING PROCESSED FOODS

Color & Seed Oils - Sinisterly Guilty or ScapeGoat?

Food ingredients are in the news again. The 'news' stories claim that in their quest to make a buck, the food industry is poisoning Americans with processed foods, and more specifically colors and seed oils. Further, it is reported that the use of these ingredients either is not really needed or there are healthy substitutes.

The answer to the sinister or scapegoat question is 'yes'. These ingredients can be detrimental to health if over consumed. But, they, as well as processed foods, are likewise scapegoats for people making poor dietary choices. It may be most accurate to state that these food classifications are carelessly used. In most instances it is not so much consumption, but how much is consumed and how balanced is the overall diet.

Coloring, seed oil, and even processed food are poorly defined in the public forum. Sinister definitions have prevailed. It is more accurate to associate processed foods with food preservation, but food processing has been misused (think too much screen time) to entice consumption of high calorie, low nutritional value foods and particularly snacks. While the holy ideal of only eating fresh foods is good, it is not practical. Only fresh food options fly in the face of greater food security. Few would yammer on about processing grapes into wine. Yet almost all would support moderation in consumption of wine, other processed foods, and even processed foods formulated with added colors and seed oils.

Colors

Colors are added to foods to make food more visually appealing. We do "eat with our eyes". While there are colors from natural sources, adding color to food is not considered natural by the FDA. Some colors are also antioxidants and/or vitamins (like beta-carotene) while other colors impart a taste or flavor (like saffron). Most colors are strictly used for coloring. Not all naturally sourced colors would seem appetizing. Carmine/cochineal color is extracted from beetle. That's about as natural as one can get. Naturally sourced colors are generally more expensive and less stable (reactive to small changes in temperature or pH).

Synthetic colors (like FD&C Red #3 and Yellow #5) are more notorious. While there are studies that show adverse health implications, dosage is critical. Often the amount of a synthetic color consumed is no where close to a level of health relevance. While you wouldn't want the FD&C Red color in a maraschino cherry to put you off your afternoon cocktail, you might reasonably conclude that foods with synthetic colors are not generally known as healthy.

Seed Oils

The current day rap on seed oils is even more puzzling than the hate speech on color ingredients. There's even a "Hateful Eight" list of seed oils (not to be confused with the Tarantino movie by the same name). It seems just yesterday that animal fats like tallow were the bad hombres. Now tallow and Luigi Mangione have have found dubious fashionable favor in the public forum. Didn't Egon warn us that saturated fats were all bad and polyunsaturated fats were all good? We've crossed the streams. The best guidance is still don't over consume fats and oils of any source.