Additive-free eating in Spain: gardens fall short, labels mislead

Additive-free eating in Spain: gardens fall short, labels mislead

Healthy eating is expensive, time-consuming, and practically impossible within a Spanish supermarket. That is the starting point: a consumer tired of finding sugars, dextrose, starches, and preservatives in almost everything that goes into the cart maintains a small garden that barely provides vegetables from June to September, gets eggs from a relative, and buys organic when there is no other option. Their question—whether there is a reliable channel to buy meat and, above all, poultry—is that of anyone who has verified that the fine print on packaging deceives more than it informs.

The supermarket label, a test of seven ingredients

Tomato (50%), onion (37%), extra virgin olive oil (12%), and salt. That complete list demonstrates that you can make a sauce without added ingredients; the problem is that finding it requires a magnifying glass and patience. The uncomfortable conclusion is unavoidable: the additive reigns because it cheapens production, not because it is necessary. For ground meat, the repeated recommendation is to have it minced in front of you, because packaged versions hide flours and sugars where there should only be meat.

Commercial mayonnaise illustrates the same pattern: there is no answer to the question of whether one exists that contains only egg, oil, salt, and vinegar or lemon, and the recurring response is the same: make it at home. The circulating recipe takes one minute with a blender—a splash of olive oil, half a glass of sunflower oil, an egg, salt, and a clove of garlic—and is consumed during the same meal, not stored for more than twelve hours if lemon is added.

The garden does not scale: from a pot in Barcelona to horse manure

Self-consumption has a ceiling. A neighbor planted tomatoes and lettuce in pots on the rooftop of a building in central Barcelona and summarizes it without drama: he planted late, without experience, and accepts it as a trial run for next year. His idea—that urban rooftops are underutilized—clashes with a problem as old as agriculture: fertilizer. While some ask where to get manure in the middle of the city, others respond with the classic recipe: horse dung and homemade compost from garden waste, fruit trees, and lawn clippings.

Croquettes with half a bag of ingredients

The case that best portrays the problem is a brand of store-brand chicken croquettes. Its ingredient list fills half the bag: reconstituted poultry broth, lactose, flavor enhancer, cornstarch, vegetable fat, yeast extract, colorant, whey, soy protein... and finally, poultry meat (2%) and chicken meat (0.1%). That a product called "chicken" contains 0.1% chicken is not a labeling error; it is a design decision. Whoever copied the label added, from memory, that the bag costs around 0.80 euros.

Hence the warning from a forum user: distrust "vegetable oil" on the list, because under that label, they argue, palm and coconut derivatives are hidden, whereas olive or sunflower oil are named when present.

The diet war: soy, red meat, and dairy

Agreement on processed foods breaks down when solutions are proposed. Some advocate eliminating red meat, bread, milk, cheese, eggs, and sugar, replacing milk with soy, and drinking a daily lemon juice. The rebuttal is immediate: that is not eating better, it is lifelong depression, and whoever removes meat, fish, and eggs cannot claim to be healthy eating only vegetables. Another front attacks unfermented soy due to its phytoestrogens, noting that in Japan it is consumed fermented. The response from those who support this diet: they are over forty, show no symptoms of premenopause, and affirm that the dietary change has worked for their breast cysts.

Against excesses, the path gaining trinc is simpler: whole grains instead of refined ones, industrial pastries out, and home cooking as the norm.

The bill for organic food

The final obstacle is not ideological, but economic. Some argue, from within the sector, that organic prices are a bubble: production is not much lower than conventional, but charges are higher because there are people willing to pay them. For those who cannot afford it, the practical solution proposed is the traditional one: legumes, cereals, home-grown vegetables, less red meat, less pastry, and less sugar.

With these foundations, it is predictable that conscious consumption will remain a privilege for those who have time to cook and read labels. Unless the garden grows more than it currently does.