A Most Excellent Recipe...Week 38
My Gwyneth Paltrow complaint, my new favorite app and how my mom's chili rates
I’ve complained about Gwyneth Paltrow and GOOP in the past… sometimes GOOP has interesting stories and interviews, but I don’t understand why someone like GP would promote astronomically expensive products and services that too often lack any sort of scientific support. At the same time, I admit I talk ad nauseam about many things that some people dismiss as not having scientific grounding. Yoga, meditation and reiki come to mind — but these actually do have some science behind them. And the stuff that doesn't I would never tell you to go spend thousands of dollars on it. Anyhow, the only thing I can figure out is that it’s part of the GOOP marketing plan. Somebody knows that outrageous products/services get people talking!
So, in the spirit of countering outrageous, I’m going to tell you about something that’s the complete opposite. And then next week I think I might pretend I’m the cheap GP and recommend a bunch of my favorite products. Now…
Yuka
Ananda told me about the free app Yuka and at first I said “no thanks!” When you scan the barcode of food or health/beauty products, Yuka offers an instant lowdown on the product, complete with a rating system from Excellent to Bad. You can dive into why the item was rated as it was, too. For example, some item may rate poor because it has too much sodium or is too caloric. But perhaps that doesn’t bother you. Anyhow, why did I tell Ananda I wasn’t interested at first? Well, because I thought I had a pretty good sense of what was excellent and good and what was poor and bad. I’ve done a fair amount of health and beauty reporting and I’m definitely an aware shopper.
But also…I have a number of convenience items that my kids like or that I get at places like Trader Joe’s. I figured those items were probably bad and I didn’t want to hear about it :)
BUT then Ananda and I happened to pop into Ulta because I wanted to buy the shampoo I liked. Ulta was out of my shampoo so I bought an alternative brand that boldly promoted itself as “conscious hair care.” After we purchased the products, I remembered she’d told me about Yuka and I asked her to scan them. Guess what? They were rated at “bad” because of the additives. It really ticked me off that these not inexpensive products that claimed to be for the environmental and health conscious consumer actually contained horrible ingredients. We returned the products and I later bought a much less expensive brand that was rated “excellent” by Yuka. Of course, my husband raised the idea that the brands could be paying Yuka to get rated favorably. But you can read all about Yuka’s business model and even download the company’s balance sheet (which I did). Yuka doesn’t work with influencers and it seems quite legit.
So I’ve been scanning up a storm and I’ve discovered many things I buy that I thought were pretty good, are not. But other things I was sure would not rate high, have. So it’s been interesting to see how Yuka analyzes the products. It’s definitely changed my mind about a couple of items, but not about Shirley Clayton’s Easy — and now certifiably excellent — Chili!
How about some super simple rated excellent chili?
Here we are in April and maybe you don't think it’s exactly chili season, but I made my mom’s super easy chili the other day and I scanned all the ingredients. I’m happy to tell you that despite the ease and the canned beans and tomatoes, Yuka gave each one an “Excellent”.
The real story of this chili— the recipe which I did modify from the one my mom made (she used ground beef and regular tomato juice) — is that my youngest son was a ridiculously picky eater. When he was tiny, his sense of smell alone made it hard for him to even be around certain foods. For example, he could smell soy sauce from across the room — and he didn’t like it! But I was eating a bowl of this chili one day and he scooted up to me and started pulling at my hand. He wanted a bite! Though he was refusing little bits of cut up turkey and whatever else we were trying to get him to eat. So from that point forward I’d make this chili regularly because it was one of the few hearty items we could get him to eat. (Now I see that Gabe simply had excellent taste.) Anyhow, I still make this dish even if he’s eating EVERYTHING these days. In fact, this is what he’s having for dinner tonight. Now on to the recipe…
Shirley’s Super Easy Excellent Chili
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound ground turkey
1 can chili beans in mild sauce*
1 can red kidney beans*, drained
I can other beans* (pinto, black beans or white beans are all good), drained
1 large container Spicy Hot V-8 juice (64 fl. oz.)
2 cans diced tomatoes or 1 large can (you need about 28 oz. total)
chili powder to taste
*beans are all the normal size cans — about 15-16 oz.
In a large pot, sauté onion in a small amount of olive oil. Add ground turkey and cook until just browned. Add beans, V-8 juice, tomatoes and chili powder to taste. Allow to simmer at least 45 minutes (or longer if you like). Taste and add more chili powder to taste. That’s it!
I hope you have a good week. Let me know if you try the recipe.
I got turned down to yuca by my roommate who saw it on TikTok and I use it all the time!!! What I particularly like is that it will recommend alternatives that might be better. And I choose to ignore it at times when I want the item anyway, but I do look at sometimes it rate something almost close to 50 out of 100 and I’ll get it anyway I haven’t found it too useful to though with Cosmetics.
Preach!! She drives me nuts!! Thank you!!! Bring on the cheap GP recs!!! 💜