Ingredients in Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli

Take any of you lot noticed that our definition of "junk food" has narrowed over the course of the concluding few decades? The average young parent these days will tell you that they don't feed junk food to their child, but they'll notwithstanding drive them through a fast-food joint once a calendar week.

They'll tell you that they don't feed their children junk food, merely they'll nevertheless give their kiddos macaroni and cheese and corn dogs for dinner.

They assume that junk food is simply stuff like candy or sugar-sweetened snacks. Fried craven, pizza, hamburgers, mac & cheese — none of these are considered junk food anymore. Because of that, they'll happily open up a can of Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli for their kiddos and be proud of the fact that it's well-balanced. It'southward a serving of vegetables, meats, and grains all wrapped up in an easy package.

And, it's the globe'south #1 selling pre-cooked pasta.

Here'due south what the manufacturer claims:

"Information technology'due south a full serving of vegetables with no preservatives."

Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli: Ingredients

• Tomatoes (Tomato Puree, Water),
• Water,
• Enriched Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Malted Barley Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate [Vitamin B1], Riboflavin [Vitamin B2] And Folic Acid),
• Beef,
• Crackermeal (Bleached Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate (Vitamin B1), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Folic Acid),
• High Fructose Corn Syrup,
• Soybean Oil,
• Table salt,
• Textured Vegetable Protein (Soy Flour, Soy Protein Concentrate, Caramel Color),
• Carrots,
• Onions,
• Modified Corn Starch,
• Caramel Coloring,
• Citric Acid,
• Enzyme Modified Cheese (Cheddar Cheese [Pasteurized Milk, Cultures, Salt, Enzymes],Cream, H2o, Salt, Sodium Phosphate, Xanthan Mucilage,Carotenal [Color]),
• Flavorings.

Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli: DECODED

Tomatoes & Water are the first ingredients. Given that this is a canned pasta in sauce, that'southward really pretty skilful. Are the tomatoes organic? No. Were they likely grown in food-depleted sand rather than actually fertile soil? Yes.

Enriched Wheat Flour and Cracker Meal make up the majority of this nutrient, and are likely the main ingredients of the pasta itself. Unfortunately, these are refined flour. Then, not but are they not whole grains, simply they're also non traditionally prepared. (For more on traditional grain preparation techniques and why they're superior, read How to Eat Grains).

Beef is the adjacent ingredient. Unfortunately, this is beef that's been finished in feedlots. Animals finished in Confined Animal Feeding Operations are a sad example of animate being husbandry. Not only are the CAFOs themselves destructive to the environment, but the animal foods they produce are far less good for you for you. Rather than derail this mail, may I propose that those of yous interested in a discussion of how to consume HEALTHY, humanely-raised animal foods read my post Healthy Meats: What to Buy?

High Fructose Corn Syrup needs little introduction. It is virtually certainly from genetically-modified corn. It'southward also been shown to make y'all stupid and proceeds weight.

Soybean Oil is almost certainly from genetically-modified soybeans. It's marketed as a healthy oil, but it just isn't. That's because it's new.

You see, prior to the industrial revolution, making seed-based cooking oils was far too labor intensive and (in many cases) downright impossible. All the ancient cooking oils (like coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, etc.) are easily pressed out of the plant without needing extremely loftier-pressure or loftier-temperature extraction.

Later the industrial revolution, nosotros had the technology necessary to create modern seed-based cooking oils. So, nosotros did.

Only the procedure of making and refining these oils translates into one thing: rancid polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). PUFAs don't hold up well to heat or pressure. Soybean oil is roughly 58% polyunsaturated fatty acids — nearly twice that of canola! So, in the process of being extracted from the seed, these oils oxidize and many of them plasticize (turn into trans fats). The end result is stinky and unappetizing, so the oil is farther "cleaned" using bleach or alternative chemicals to deodorize it.

GROSS.

Salt is the next ingredient, and it isn't the real sea salt that your trunk flourishes on. Rather, it's the standard table common salt that'southward been refined so that information technology's other trace minerals are absent. This highly isolated form of sodium chloride is what'southward linked to increased risk of heart disease, and there's a surprising amount of information technology in this food.

Textured Vegetable Protein is a inexpensive meat-substitute made out of soy. Unfortunately, this kind of processed soy is extremely unhealthy. For more than on this, see Dangers of Soy.

Carrots and Onions are rather self-explanatory, so that brings us to Modified Corn Starch. Like the corn-derived high fructose corn syrup, this almost certainly comes from genetically-modified corn. Yet perhaps the greater hidden danger is that information technology'southward a source of candy free glutamic acids — otherwise known equally MSG. (Read more nearly why MSG is unsafe.)

This, combined with the ever-ambiguous Flavorings, does not bode well. That's because Flavoringsc can hibernate MSG!

Unfortunately, information technology's perfectly legal for a visitor to say their food production has "No added MSG" and so long every bit they don't add an ingredient called "monosodium glutamate" to their nutrient. MSG, even so, hides in more than 40 commonly used ingredients in industrial food — ingredients like flavoring. This means MSG can sneak up on yous in a whole host of foods that don't technically take a single ingredient called monosodium glutamate listed on their label. (source)

For more on where MSG may be hiding in your food labels, I've created a handy, downloadable, easy-to-print guide for you.

Enzyme Modified Cheese is but what it sounds like — "modified" cheese. The cheese evidently isn't from grass-fed cows, which means that it comes from an industrial dairy where cows tin can be routinely treated with hormones and oftentimes accept persistent, depression-grade mastitis (resulting in a lot of PUS in the milk). For more on this, read Healthy Milk: What to Buy. It'southward likewise been modified with thickeners, emulsifiers, and colorants.

And finally, that Caramel Coloring and Citric Acid is most probable derived from genetically-modified corn.

Chef Boyardee Beef Ravioli: THE VERDICT

This is a no brainer!

What should I eat instead?

There is no easy style around this. If you desire ravioli without whatsoever compromises at all, you lot have to make information technology yourself. My accented favorite recipe is Kelly the Kitchen Kop's Butternut Squash Ravioli. It'southward dreamy.

For a skilful pasta dough recipe, forth with a fantastic visual tutorial for how to make and stuff ravioli, I like Food Loves Writing's Homemade Einkorn Ravioli.

And for a gluten-complimentary pasta dough recipe, I bask Tasty Yummy's Homemade Gluten-Complimentary Ravioli.

Yet making your ain pasta can accept a long fourth dimension. If that'southward the case, and you lot're looking for a convenient, store-bought ravioli, so there are a lot of options. You simply have to counterbalance what compromises your family is willing to make.

Want something absolutely wheat-free? Then buy a gluten-gratis ravioli like this one.

Don't care about the wheat and then much, but desire to ensure the eggs used are free-range and the cheese used is from cows raised without hormones? Then you're more likely to pick upwards an all-natural ravioli like this one.

Want Your Labels Decoded?

In this series on Decoding Labels, I'm highlighting deceptive labeling practices, subconscious ingredients, and more! If you've got a particular label pet-peeve you lot'd like me to share, please experience free to email me with your idea. It may but turn into a blog post!

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Source: https://www.foodrenegade.com/decoding-labels-chef-boyardee-beef-ravioli/

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