Homemade Frozen Diced Hashbrowns

Ultra Processed Food: "It's not food. It's an industrially processed edible substance". Fernanda Rauber



I read a really interesting book this winter called Ultra Processed People by Chris Van Tulleken. He explores how Ultra Processed Food ( UPF) impacts our bodies and the planet. An easy way to know if a food is UPF is to look at the list of ingredients and if you don't recognize or you couldn't find the ingredient in a home kitchen than it is UPF.
So with this in mind, I read the frozen diced McCain hashbrown list of ingredients that I had in my freezer. I like to make hashbrown casserole at Christmas or for brunches etc. I never looked at the ingredient list. I just assumed there would be the usual cast of characters like potatoes, fat and salt. Well was I surprised to find there was 25 ingredients. Yes 25 ingredients. These little potatoes were filled with colours, sugars, starches and stabilizers to just mention a few. I couldn't with good conscience buy these hashbrowns ever again. I also couldn't find another brand of diced hashbrowns that would work so I decided to make my own. These homemade hashbrowns have 3 ingredients, potatoes, olive oil and kosher salt.
They were easy to make and tasted better too.
Please read the ingredient list of all the food you buy and avoid UPF as much as you can.



Ingredients McCain Diced Frozen Hashbrowns:
Potatoes, Vegetable Oil (canola And/or Soybean And/or Cottonseed And/or Safflower And/or Sunflower And/or Corn), Modified Potato Starch, Wheat Flour, Rice Flour, Modified Corn Starch, Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Salt, Dextrin, Corn Flour, Baking Powder, Yellow Corn Flour, Sodium Phosphate (to Retain Natural Colour), Sugars (dextrose), Xanthan Gum, Corn Starch, Potato Starch, Autolyzed Yeast, Modified Cellulose, Guar Gum, Natural Flavour, Natural Beef Flavour (wheat And Milk), Citric Acid, Caramel, Annatto. Contains: Milk, Wheat

Chocolate Cake

 

This is my favourite go to chocolate cake. It is moist and very quick to mix up. It is frosted with a simple buttercream icing. I like to make it in a 9x13 inch baking pan but if you want to make it extra special you can make it into a layer cake. 

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