In regards to the post bellow, Homework #5, I have finally received a reply to my email sent to trader joes... and wow.
Here is my original email:
Hello! My name is Cailtin Arend and I am doing a homework assignment for my environmental science class at Riverside Community College. We were to pick a food that we like to eat and analyze the ingredients, figure out where they were grown and if they were grown sustainably. I would really appriciate if you would share this information with me :) particularly your flour, vanilla beans, and what exactly "natural flavors" means for this product.
Thank you!
Your loyal customer,
Caitlin Arend
And here is their very helpful and informative reply:
Caitlin,
We appreciate your inquiry. We are a privately held business and we do not disclose any business practices or information. We are sorry that we will be unable to assist. We appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
Amy
Trader Joe's
Customer Relations
I mean really? This is a company that claims to be all about the best products, all natural, organic etc. Now if the products really are so good, then why would they hide this simple information? It's all just very strange and all I can conclude from it is that there is something about the individual products they use that would hurt the company if the information was released.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Homework #5
This weeks homework assignment was to pick a food that you like, or that is interesting and do research about it. What exactly are the ingredients, who grew them/where'd they come from, is it environmentally friendly, what are the health impacts, etc.
I chose something that I love to snack on, and have so far convinced myself is a healthier version then what you would find at a big name food store chain... Is it really? We will find out! I chose, drum roll please, Trader Joe's "Joe-Joe's"!
For those of you who have never had them before, they are Trader Joe's version of Oreo's made with "No hydrogenated oils" and "All natural flavors". The ingredients are as follows:
Dried Cane Syrup (sugar)
Enriched Wheat Flour
Flour
Niacin (B3 an essential human nutrient)
Reduced Iron
Thiamine Mononitrate (B1 an essential human nutrient)
Riboflavin (B2 an essential human nutrient)
Folic Acid
Palm oil
Expeller Pressed Soybean Oil
Cocoa Processed with Alkali
Tapioca Starch
Natural Vanilla Flavor
Natural Flavors
Cane Syrup
Baking Soda
Salt
Soy Lecithin
Vanilla Been Seeds
A word real quick about the enriched flour, from what I canfind the reason that the flour is enriched with different vitamin B's, is because it is required here in the United States and that is because the flour looses a lot of its natural nutrients during processing. As for "natural flavors" this could mean anything, seriously! According to an article on http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/4676616/ns/today-food/t/food-qa-just-what-natural-flavoring/#.UHXnJpG9KSM
The definition of natural flavor under the Code of Federal Regulations is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22).
Basically I would need to get the information straight from the source, I have sent an e-mail to Trader Joe's and hope to hear back soon on just what the natural flavor in these cookies are.
The one thing that does make me happy is Trader Joe's promises on their website that all foods sold there have:
No genetically modified ingredients
No artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives
No MSG (which is an addictive flavor enhancer)
No added trans fat
Unfortunately for right now I have not heard back from Trader Joe's and have not found any information on where and how the ingredients for this food was/is grown.
As for Heath impact, now it may seem as though they're are a lot of ingredients to these cookies and you may be thinking, wow these aren't heathy for me at all! But let's try comparing them to their rivals the Oreo shall we?
Sugar
Enriched Flour (same as above)
High Oleic canola oil and/or palm oil and/or canola oil and/or soybean oil
Cocoa (also processed with alkali)
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Cornstarch
Leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate)
Salt
Soy Lecithin (emulsifier)
Vanillin (an artificial flavor)
Chocolate
Based on this information, you can see that Joe Joe's have more natural ingredients than Oreo's and their ingridient list is much more straighter forward, not all of these and/or's like they can't make up their mind on what's in their product (which seems fishy to me). Anyway because of this I would venture to say that while any processed cookies or snacks are probably not very healthy for you, Joe Joe's are a much better alternative to Oreo's when you just need cream-filled cookie!
So for now, until I hear back from Trader Joe's, that is all the info I have collected on Joe Joe's.
I chose something that I love to snack on, and have so far convinced myself is a healthier version then what you would find at a big name food store chain... Is it really? We will find out! I chose, drum roll please, Trader Joe's "Joe-Joe's"!
For those of you who have never had them before, they are Trader Joe's version of Oreo's made with "No hydrogenated oils" and "All natural flavors". The ingredients are as follows:
Dried Cane Syrup (sugar)
Enriched Wheat Flour
Flour
Niacin (B3 an essential human nutrient)
Reduced Iron
Thiamine Mononitrate (B1 an essential human nutrient)
Riboflavin (B2 an essential human nutrient)
Folic Acid
Palm oil
Expeller Pressed Soybean Oil
Cocoa Processed with Alkali
Tapioca Starch
Natural Vanilla Flavor
Natural Flavors
Cane Syrup
Baking Soda
Salt
Soy Lecithin
Vanilla Been Seeds
A word real quick about the enriched flour, from what I canfind the reason that the flour is enriched with different vitamin B's, is because it is required here in the United States and that is because the flour looses a lot of its natural nutrients during processing. As for "natural flavors" this could mean anything, seriously! According to an article on http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/4676616/ns/today-food/t/food-qa-just-what-natural-flavoring/#.UHXnJpG9KSM
The definition of natural flavor under the Code of Federal Regulations is: “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22).
Basically I would need to get the information straight from the source, I have sent an e-mail to Trader Joe's and hope to hear back soon on just what the natural flavor in these cookies are.
The one thing that does make me happy is Trader Joe's promises on their website that all foods sold there have:
No genetically modified ingredients
No artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives
No MSG (which is an addictive flavor enhancer)
No added trans fat
Unfortunately for right now I have not heard back from Trader Joe's and have not found any information on where and how the ingredients for this food was/is grown.
As for Heath impact, now it may seem as though they're are a lot of ingredients to these cookies and you may be thinking, wow these aren't heathy for me at all! But let's try comparing them to their rivals the Oreo shall we?
Sugar
Enriched Flour (same as above)
High Oleic canola oil and/or palm oil and/or canola oil and/or soybean oil
Cocoa (also processed with alkali)
High Fructose Corn Syrup
Cornstarch
Leavening (baking soda and/or calcium phosphate)
Salt
Soy Lecithin (emulsifier)
Vanillin (an artificial flavor)
Chocolate
Based on this information, you can see that Joe Joe's have more natural ingredients than Oreo's and their ingridient list is much more straighter forward, not all of these and/or's like they can't make up their mind on what's in their product (which seems fishy to me). Anyway because of this I would venture to say that while any processed cookies or snacks are probably not very healthy for you, Joe Joe's are a much better alternative to Oreo's when you just need cream-filled cookie!
So for now, until I hear back from Trader Joe's, that is all the info I have collected on Joe Joe's.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore
Just about everyone knows what Habitat for Humanity is, but in case you don't it's an organization that relies on volunteers to build houses for low-income families around the world. However most of you probably don't know about their ReStore project.
Habitat for Humanity ReStore takes "gently-used building materials and household goods." (http://www.habitat.org/restores/default.aspx) and sells them back to the public at fractions of the original cost! Now please do not make assumptions that I'm posting this because I support a certain religious group, my religion and/or lack there of has nothing to do with why I like this organization. I am posting about the ReStore project because I think its not only economical for low income families who struggle to buy furniture and other things, but because this is also environmentally friendly! This allows people to find good quality house items, pre-used, at extreamly low prices AND helps us to avoid buying new furniture that takes up resources to build, which we don't have.
My mom just recently bought a new house and we live on a very limited budget, but the house just doesn't have enough storage, or any for that matter. We needed a big cabinet that we could use in or kitchen for dishes, glasses, pots, pans, ect. And found this:
It only cost my mom $50!!!!!!!!!! Thats an amazing deal!
Habitat for Humanity ReStore takes "gently-used building materials and household goods." (http://www.habitat.org/restores/default.aspx) and sells them back to the public at fractions of the original cost! Now please do not make assumptions that I'm posting this because I support a certain religious group, my religion and/or lack there of has nothing to do with why I like this organization. I am posting about the ReStore project because I think its not only economical for low income families who struggle to buy furniture and other things, but because this is also environmentally friendly! This allows people to find good quality house items, pre-used, at extreamly low prices AND helps us to avoid buying new furniture that takes up resources to build, which we don't have.
My mom just recently bought a new house and we live on a very limited budget, but the house just doesn't have enough storage, or any for that matter. We needed a big cabinet that we could use in or kitchen for dishes, glasses, pots, pans, ect. And found this:
It only cost my mom $50!!!!!!!!!! Thats an amazing deal!
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Homework #4
How green is our campus??
Well unfortunately I have to say that RCC is really not the best campus when is comes to being sustainable/environmentally friendly. Most (not all) of our plants on campus are not native and require a lot more watering because of this. Also our campus does not recycle, I know this may comes as a shock to most people in this day in age where recycling is extremely popular but there you have it. All of the campus recycling (with the exception of paper from the offices and some teachers) is actually done by the Student Sustainability Collective,
http://rccsustainability.com/author/rccsustainability/
this also means that any recycling bins you may find on campus were put there because of this club as well. And until very recently RCC did not offer any rewards to those students who wanted to use there own mugs, reusable water bottles, etc. Even though they now do offer a slight discount if you use your own mug for coffee or tea, there is a lot more they could do.
In terms of what other campuses have done we are far behind! Cal State Channel Islands (http://www.csuci.edu/sustainability/ )for example has a great recycling program! Plus because they are so close to local farms most of their produce, coffee, and tea is locally grown. They have days where you can get free food if you ride your bike to school, and they have just a generally just more favorable outlook as a whole on sustainability. They also have a sustainability club that helps to further help the campus become even more environmentally friendly, and they like our club at RCC, are also trying to create a community garden.
I think the biggest factor that I have mentioned for RCC is the recycling problem. While I enjoying helping to do the recycling on campus, I have to admit that the few people who regularly show up are just not enough. A handful of people can not recycle an entire campus on their own! The hope has always been that RCC officials would see how profitable it is for our club and then realize how important it is for the campus, so far that has not happened. In order for this to happen RCC needs to install permanent recycle cans, ideally one for every trash can that way people always have the option. Then they should make it a part of someones job, maybe the custodians, to go through and collect the recycles when the cans are full. The campus could easily makes hundreds every week just by collecting and turning in all the bottles, cans, and miscellaneous recycles. They could also make a campaign to promote recycling on campus to make students aware.
I hope one day we will see this actually happen! Till then, get your gloves on and meet us by the cafeteria and get ready to sort some recyclables!
Well unfortunately I have to say that RCC is really not the best campus when is comes to being sustainable/environmentally friendly. Most (not all) of our plants on campus are not native and require a lot more watering because of this. Also our campus does not recycle, I know this may comes as a shock to most people in this day in age where recycling is extremely popular but there you have it. All of the campus recycling (with the exception of paper from the offices and some teachers) is actually done by the Student Sustainability Collective,
http://rccsustainability.com/author/rccsustainability/
this also means that any recycling bins you may find on campus were put there because of this club as well. And until very recently RCC did not offer any rewards to those students who wanted to use there own mugs, reusable water bottles, etc. Even though they now do offer a slight discount if you use your own mug for coffee or tea, there is a lot more they could do.
In terms of what other campuses have done we are far behind! Cal State Channel Islands (http://www.csuci.edu/sustainability/ )for example has a great recycling program! Plus because they are so close to local farms most of their produce, coffee, and tea is locally grown. They have days where you can get free food if you ride your bike to school, and they have just a generally just more favorable outlook as a whole on sustainability. They also have a sustainability club that helps to further help the campus become even more environmentally friendly, and they like our club at RCC, are also trying to create a community garden.
I think the biggest factor that I have mentioned for RCC is the recycling problem. While I enjoying helping to do the recycling on campus, I have to admit that the few people who regularly show up are just not enough. A handful of people can not recycle an entire campus on their own! The hope has always been that RCC officials would see how profitable it is for our club and then realize how important it is for the campus, so far that has not happened. In order for this to happen RCC needs to install permanent recycle cans, ideally one for every trash can that way people always have the option. Then they should make it a part of someones job, maybe the custodians, to go through and collect the recycles when the cans are full. The campus could easily makes hundreds every week just by collecting and turning in all the bottles, cans, and miscellaneous recycles. They could also make a campaign to promote recycling on campus to make students aware.
I hope one day we will see this actually happen! Till then, get your gloves on and meet us by the cafeteria and get ready to sort some recyclables!
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