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Chick-fil-A, Suitcase Goodies, and Exotic Fruit

Before I head to the airport today to go to a land far far away…I wanted to share three things with you.

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1. My latest food investigation on 100 days of Real Food is a doozy. Have you read it yet?  It’s gone kinda viral. I spent most of my Saturday last weekend at Chick-fil-A, interviewing people for this post. It was an eye opening experiment and one that I hope you enjoy reading and commenting on. If more people spread this information and comment about this – who knows it might cause Chick-fil-A to react in the same fashion that Yoforia did when I wrote about them. Could you imagine how impactful it would be if Chick-fil-A decided to eliminate the questionable ingredients from their food?! Maybe other fast food restaurants would listen up too and follow suit.

I’d love to hear what you think, especially after some of the interesting feedback I received from readers (which caused the post to be slightly modified to clarify some points.) Sometimes my passion for truth is misinterpreted. I write in a provocative manner asking many rhetorical questions so I can provoke readers to think.  At the end of the day, the only mission I have is to educate as many people as possible about what’s in their food and to impact change within the food industry to benefit our ultimate health and wellbeing. The change is happening and is evident in some of the responses I have received….Here are just a few:

  • “Thank you! I just read through the ingredients of Chick Fil A with my 6 year old son and explained to him what MSG and TBHQ are. Together, we made the decision to avoid Chick-Fil-A going forward. Tough stuff. I’m going to have him fill out a comment card at our local CFA this week explaining our choice.” – Kaarin
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  • “You are very brave to have approached that many strangers armed only with nutrition information they probably didn’t want to hear. Food is as political as religion and in some cases even more personal. I am proud of you for being so brave – you are inspiring me to get out of my comfort zone!” – Muriel
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  • “Thank you for your article on Chick-Fil-A and all of your research! I had no idea. I am recently switching over to mostly (grimace) all real food for the sake of my kids. I have three children, 12, 3, and 18 months and I can’t believe what I’m finding out about what I’ve been feeding them. I just didn’t know. Even the stuff I thought was healthy is not. I’m trying to not get too over whelmed, which is hard, because fast-and-easy was, well, easy. I started just this past Sunday with real food for my kids. Wish me luck! I’m trying!” – Brenda
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  • “Thanks for this — you are asking some really important questions. Hopefully some of these people continued asking questions of themselves and they way they are feeding their kids.” – Valerie
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  • “Thank you for writing this. We just found out our daughter has a high intolerance to MSG and dairy products and a low intolerance to wheat. We have to change her whole diet and with my husband in school and working and me working full time finding time to get good nutritional meals can be tough. After reading this I am going to be making sure we keep away from fast food (of any kind) and stick to good ol’ home cooking.” – Caitlin
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2. Check out this massive stash of food I’ll be taking with me to Asia. I’ve been getting prepped all week to get ready to go. Just looking at the photo below you can see the amount of effort I put into making sure I have quality organic food without chemical additives and genetically modified ingredients to eat on the road. If you have any questions about what I packed.. Let me know!

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3. Tonight as I fall asleep on the plane – I’ll be dreaming of these exotic fruits I encountered on my last trip to Asia…Can’t wait to taste them all in real life again. Can you guess which one is my favorite?

BatFruit

Mangostein

Dragon Fruit

Passion Fruit Bowl

Salek

I’ll be blogging about my travel, eats and adventures for the next 3 weeks. I hope you enjoy the ride. The blog will definitely be taking a lighter tone than what you are probably used to! If you are new to the blog – check out my Top Posts to get caught up!  And please follow me on Facebook – I’ll be posting on it a little more frequently as I travel through Asia since I now have international roaming on my phone! Yeah!

I will miss you!

See you on the flip side.

Food Babe

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35 responses to “Chick-fil-A, Suitcase Goodies, and Exotic Fruit

  1. I want to thank you for your investigation. I read some really nasty reviews of your article. Some people just don’t want to believe their tradition could in fact be making them sick or killing them slowly. As for on comment she brought up the fact the chick fil a was a respectable Christain company and you were a Liberal. That really has nothing to do with it! The company doesn’t care about people, they care about selling cheap food to make a buck! Keep Posting and I will keep sharing your posts with my friends to educate them as well. Have a great trip!

    1. Agreed! I feel like a lot of those people are just projecting their own insecurities and afraid of change. How else could you not love Food Babe? 🙂

    2. Thank you Janine (and Mary Beth!) – I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with me. Denial is the first step to acceptance, eh? I never thought me asking a simple questions would be so controversial!

  2. That’s quite a haul you’re bringing! I’d love a list for reference next time I travel 🙂

  3. Is dragonfruit your favorite? I would guess that or mangosteen. Also, when I went to Italy I took those same dried figs and sprouted grain pretzels… they are SO good together. I’m a sucker for the salty/sweet combo. Plus the natural sugars from the figs gave me the energy I needed while traveling. Hope you have a safe and super fun trip!!!! 🙂

    1. Haha! I got a bag of figs with me too. Yes – it’s mangosteen!!!!! Half way to tasting one again now…

      1. Awesome! I’ve never had a fresh mangosteen before. I’ve had the juice, but I’m assuming that could never compare to the real thing. Eat one for me!!! 🙂

  4. Have an amazing trip!!!!!! See you when you get back with my new baby, prob be late:)

    1. Christine – so exciting! Can’t to hear from you when you have your new little buddle of joy 🙂 I wish you the best! Xoxo

  5. Maybe you could live in another country since you seem to have issues with everything
    Lighten up DUDE

  6. Enjoy your trip! I was recently introduced to your blog and love it. I’ll be referring to it on my blog.

    I’m currently a traveling chef for a type 1 diabetic. That’s a fancy way of saying I’m following my husband around on the road while he climbs every day for 365 consecutive days. We live out of our car and stay at free campgrounds or on friends couches while we document his quest.

    We haven’t eaten fast food on the road once and I know that road trips usually prove to be the most challenging. And its usually the main excuse people use. Even when traveling it is possible to make your own HEALTHY food on a tight budget.

    Being that my husband has Type 1 diabetes and is climbing every day food has to be at its most nutritious state to give him the energy and recovery he needs.

    I make us a quinoa stir fry right in the back of our 87 Toyota tercel ( yea we are on THAT TIGHT of a budget) we don’t have a cooler, I usually mix in cabbage, peanuts, broccoli, onion and sweet potatoes for the stir fry none of it needs to be refrigerated and it’s pretty delicious! I use a little Coleman stove and our dinners are ready in 18 minutes. While that’s not that 8 minutes it takes to order and receive fast food I think that’s still pretty fast.

    Keep informing and thanks for all the work and passion you put into the blog. If we can do it out of a car with a Type 1 diabetic and a budget of 5k for the entire year than anyone can live and eat healthy!

    1. Thank you for this! I also read your comment on 100 days…You truly are an inspiration! You remind me of myself and the lengths I will go through to get a good meal, however, I’ve never made quinoa in the back of my car! That’s awesome… this reminds of Joe from “Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead” making juice in the back of his car – have you seen that movie yet? I think you can watch it free on netflix. Good Luck with your journey – can’t wait to see how it goes!

  7. I would LOVE to get a breakdown of your packed foods, too. My husband is military and he often travels and has to eat “on the road” (or in the air or in the hotel room or wherever he might be). I’ve been trying to figure out how to help him eat as well as possible, and I think your foods might be a great jumping off point for me. This way, I can send him with plenty of foods that can keep him out of fast food restaurants as much as possible. 🙂 Thanks!!

  8. I too would love a breakdown of the pre packaged foods! We are taking a trip to Disney for 10 days and won’t be able to juice while we are there. I’m really upset about it! Also, need ideas to bring healthy snacks for the kids..those sprouted pretzels are a great idea for them! As well as the almond butter packages!
    Thanks!

    1. I bet there is some juice bars in Orlando you can hit up before going to Disney – Have you tried googling to find one? Do they have whole foods down there?

  9. You are brave for the CFA endeavour! I don’t think we have that in Canada, but I’m sure all of our fast food chains are in the same boat!

    Can’t wait to read about your trip to Asia!

    1. Thanks Gillian – We just got here and so delirious from jet lag… going to get a massage stat to recover!

  10. I HATE going to malls and seeing all the fat unhealthy-looking people in the foodcourt eating all the cheap and nasty fast food. I felt really sad reading your post, it shocks me that people can be so ignorant and uninterested in what they are eating. That they just assume that someone else will work out for them what is safe. Something I realised recently is that many of these chemicals are very new to humans and their affects are not well understood. In the past, poison theory was very simple, it was the dose that killed, ie a small amount of cyanide are safe, large amounts are not. With these new organic chemicals that we make from oil, it is now becoming clear that there is no safe dose if they mimic hormones and mess with the endocrine system, in fact small amounts can be worse than large amounts.

    I can’t believe some of the awful comments on your post, things that people would never say if they met you in person (I assume, as I haven’t met you either) but feel free to say on the internet, I hope you don’t let them get to you! Just because someone is a chemist doesn’t mean they know everything about bichemistry, it is a very complicated area, I’m a chemical engineer myself and I couldn’t see anything factually wrong with what you wrote. And from everything I’ve read about real food and factory food, I can’t see any reason to support an industry that cooks up factory chickens in MSG!

    I hope you enjoy your holiday! I look forward to reading about what you eat!

    1. Liz – you really couldn’t have explained it better – we just don’t know the long term effects of this stuff…and thank you for your support. In the past, it may have been a little hard to take all the criticism, but now since I have a strong community of people like you backing me (… not to mention the over 11k people who liked the article on Facebook!) it is much easier to shake off. I have become so strong and steadfast in my beliefs and knowledge – I know at the end of the day, I am spreading truth and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  11. I too would like a list of foods you took on your travel. Always looking for new ideas and so happy I stumbled upon your site. Such a great amount of information. Thanks! 🙂

  12. i LOVE reading your blog!!! thank you so much for all the amazing posts you write. the chick-fil-a one is great!! a little bit ago jules from jules gluten free flour wrote about how excited she was that cfa had a gluten free option for kids. every comment was about loving cfa even more and how great they were. i could not keep my mouth shut and had to respond to let everyone know it was still full of crap. just b/c there was a gf option did not mean you should eat it!! this is what i wrote – the grilled items do contain MSG – it is listed as autolyzed yeast extract, spice, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, flavor. there is also TBHQ which is a form of butane. personally – i still wouldn’t eat there. the food is not healthy – even their grilled selections. we prefer in-n-out for fast food – where the fries are ONLY potatoes. thanks again!!!

    1. AWE! This is so great to hear – Thank you. Continue to spread the good word Jenn. Everyone needs to know the truth.

  13. Enjoy your trip to Asia! We’re going to Europe next week, and a similar food stash will be prepared soon!

    One thing, however…have you ever thought to replace the Ziploc bags with more eco-friendly, non-plastic packaging, like Lunchskins or Reuseit?

    1. Totally! I love Lunch Skins! I have 4 of them….unfortunately I’d have to buy a LOT more to make it through my trip. They are also on my holiday gift guide from xmas, shark pattern is my fav 🙂

      1. Oh and have a great time in Europe! I would love to hear about the details of your stash 🙂

  14. I am your newest follower… I can’t believe that about Chick Fil A…darnit no wonder it tasted so good! I am so envious you are going to have all that trop fruit, I love trop fruit! Never tried a mangosteen… have fun. What part of Asia? What is that tree you’re under in the pic??? Amazing!

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