As the summer starts to heat up here in the lower the Hudson Valley, the farmers market becomes my preferred place to pick up vegetables. Fruits too especially apples in the fall but mostly locally grown vegetables. Beginning summer carrots are more tender and sweet than their mature robust fall cousins. And these are the carrots that make the best grated carrot salads. Just peel, grate, add olive oil, vinegar, salt, a handful of pine nuts, and some raisins or dried cranberries. Et voilá.
It’s hard for the nutrition squad of the food police to get upset with my carrot salad. I did use a little too much salt (>10% DV sodium) and fat (>5% DV SatFat). But I’ve used a lot of really healthy foods – carrots, olive oil, pumpkin seeds.
And as long as I stick with raisins, both squads will give me a pass. If I opt for cranberries however the purists may take offense.
Members of both squads approach food from an ideological perspective. Case in point – cranberries. This bitter fruit actually made an appearance in the recent FDA update on the use of the word “healthy” on food product labels. That’s because both cranberries and bitter cherries are not like most fruit which is naturally sweet. They are both too sour to be eaten out of hand so processors add sugar for palatability. Packages of raw cranberries, used for cranberry sauce at Thanksgiving gets their sugar hit in the home when we make cranberry sauce. There was quite a kerfuffle around this issue last year because from the processors perspective, the proposed update would unfairly disadvantage tart fruit products and would discourage Americans from consuming the nutrient-dense fruits. Alls well that ends well and eventually tart fruit manufacturers got an exemption. But added sugar is added sugar and if I replaced raisins with cranberries, the added sugar goes from 0g to 6g which is 12% DV.
VIEW FROM MY KITCHEN WINDOW
And as long as I stick with raisins, both squads will probably give me a pass. If I opt for cranberries however the real food purists may take offense.
Manufacturers of sweetened cranberries may add various additives to enhance flavor, texture, or shelf life. The ingredient list for the cranberries reads: cranberries, sugar, cherry juice concentrate, citric acid, natural flavor, elderberry juice concentrate.
Food is complex and I’ve always used a flexible commons sense approach. These additives in my sweetened cranberries are acceptable to me. But I’m not a purist.