Grilled Brie and Apple Sandwich (with La Bonne Vie Cheese)

Lisa,

As already said, i think you are doing a great job with your blog and it is obvious that you care about it a lot. I am also aware, that running a blog like that is a lot of work. I therefore fully understand your need for sponsors. BUT: you might loose both your independence and credibility if you are too aggressively promoting products which are in some ways contradictory to your own believes.

I am a single parent, hobby cook, food scientist, and plant biologist. That combination makes me receive tons of questions about anything concerning food, cooking and how to feed kids (although my daughter is the worst example ever as she would always opt for McDonalds & Co over home-cooking). I used to refer friends to your site to get a basic idea about cutting out convenience food and opting for higher quality product without loosing a sense of that we do not all have the budgets for 100 % organic, 100 % natural, 100 % whatever. However, i recently stopped doing so, because I noticed too much product placement, product reviews, webinars, pushing for meal plan services, etc.

I copied the following from an older post of yours about dairy products. Your recommendations concerning cheese were:

“Organic: As I’ve mentioned before you can’t exactly peel or wash off dairy products like you can with conventional produce so we think it’s best to go organic if you can.”

“Grass-Fed: Cows are meant to eat grass (not corn), and as I mentioned in the milk post when animals are fed a proper diet their food products are in turn more nutritious for you. Sometimes it’s hard to find, but I ideally look for cheeses that either say “grass-fed” or “pasture raised” on the package.”

Obviously, La Bonne Vie’s cheese would not be your first choice. Why did I mention GMOs? Firstly, because a lot of your readers care about it. Secondly, you repeatedly recommend avoiding GMOs. I would have expected you to at least research and inform your readers about possible GMO content in La Bonne Vie’s cheese. The company’s homepage is not very informative and does not give any information about where they receive their milk from and also what kind of enzyme they use for cheese production. Calf rennet, microbial rennet, plant rennet? Microbial rennet is one of the oldest and widest used GMO-derived products in the US (although it has never received as much public attention as its bt/roundup counterparts in the plant world).

I actually knew the company and some of its products before I read your post. I was once looking for a cheeper and more local alternative for the imported French Brie I used to buy from a local wine&cheese shop and stumbled over La Bonne Vie. My personal opinion (which nobody has to share): not worth the money, only slightly cheeper than imported, ‘real’ cheese (the one that is cut freshly from a large loaf) but far inferior in terms of taste. For plain bread & cheese I would go for the imported non-prepacked ones, for cooking I would use a cheaper brand (if budget is an issue). You do not have to agree with me on that finding, but would you be able to make an independent recommendation like that as La Bonne Vie is sponsoring you?

@Amy
i do not criticize Lisa for using non-organic cheese. I am criticizing Lisa for not giving any information concerning GMOs and for being contradictory to her own recommendations (see above).

Besides that, I do not see a contradiction between eating organic and white bread. The reason why I personally (which again nobody has to share) prefer high-quality cheese on plain white bread is, that whole-grain bread or bread with spices like rosemary, etc. are to heavy/strong tasting for cheese or prosciutto. Good cheese does IMHO not need any distraction. In contrast, for just a slice of bread with butter on it I’d prefer a whole-grain, heavier bread.

More generally, I do not know where this US American obsession with whole grain comes from. Some of the thinnest and healthiest countries/cultures in the world – best examples are France and Italy – do traditionally not eat whole grain breads or pasta. Why are US Americans so convinced, that switching to whole grain is going to solve the obesity issue?

Dear Critical reader: well said. I appreciate Ms. Leake and you both, but it is good to acknowledge how Ms. Leake might have become biased by corporate sponsorship. This reaffirms my belief that healthy eating is only possible when one maintains a healthy skepticism for corporate food products.

In the wise words of Thomas Paine, “Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.”