Day 16: Do you know what you eat?

First, I would like to say that I am a label reader. I concern myself greatly with what I eat and what I bring home for my family to eat.
I no longer buy popcicles.
Why?
Because the majority of them contain propylene glycol. Propylene glycol isn't really a household ingredient, is it? Do you even know what it is? It's antifreeze. Yeah, just like the stuff that you have to keep away from your cat or she will die. It's just like that stuff that in small increments over time, will make you very VERY sick and will kill you. It manifests with symptoms that look like heart disease, fevers, colds/coughing. It could look like you just don't feel well. But it's really the popcicles. Who knew? How that's okay, I don't know, but somehow these things are "regulated by the FDA" and therefore, believed safe.
The FDA says that a certain degree of harmful ingredients is okay. I get that. But what I don't get is the conscious decision by most (yes, it really is MOST) food manufacturers to actually purposefully include these poisons in the food up to the limit.
Like propylene glycol, aka: antifreeze.
I don't know what the "allowed" amount of antifreeze in food is, but you can bet your butt I'm not adding ANY to my food, or to the food I give my daughter. This is not the only harmful additive found in most common foods, it's just the one that chaps my hide the most... Right at the moment.
Some food should come with warning labels, it's ridiculous.

Furthermore.

Has anyone seen Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution? It is startling. The school cafeterias in LA are run by a group called the LAUSD. The LAUSD will not allow an investigation into their food/food preparations (it would appear that everything is basically microwaved in plastic sleeves, I'm picturing zero nutritional quality because the microwave kills nutrients and loads of chemicals leeched into the food from the packaging - think bpa). Furthermore, they disallowed him to even TALK about the food to the kids.
Isn't that unconstitutional? I mean, I'm no civics professor, but freedom of speech is squashed, doesn't that equal unconstitutional behavior?
Good luck, kids, getting your food from school. Good luck living happy, healthy, productive lives.

Anyway, if you've got some time, check it out, you can watch it for free on Hulu here:

http://www.hulu.com/jamie-olivers-food-revolution

Happy eating!