Did I just ruin my chili?

[MattD]

Last night I made a full batch of chocolate chili (recipe from Well Fed by Melissa Joulwan). The recipe calls for 14 ounces of beef broth. My wife purchased some Vegetable Stock over the weekend because it was the only one she could find without any sugar or wheat products. I figured it would be a good sub for the beef broth and tossed used it for my chili.

To my horror (maybe a little dramatic) I read the ingredients list while the chili was simmering and hidden in between all the veggies was carrageenan.

Now I have a full batch of chili made with this non-compliant broth. Tossing it would be extremely painful as it is full of 2lbs grassfed beef and other wonderful healthy ingredients. On top of that we have a 6 pack of Imagine brand beef stock coming in a day or so.. wish I waited.

If I decide to go ahead and eat this batch am I ruining my Whole30? Will the amount of carrageenan in 14 ounces of stock be enough to set me back? What would you do?

[megmac]

Personally, I would eat it and move on. A moderator may disagree from a compliance standpoint, but in my opinion, throwing out 2 lbs of grassfed beef for this reason would be criminal. Eating what you made and learning about the hidden ingredients in seemingly compliant foods is the lesser of 2 evils in my book.

[Tom Denham]

I agree with megmac. Eat the chili. Carrageenan is nasty stuff that tends to inflame the gut, but I would not throw out that much otherwise great food. Seriously. I would eat it myself. Eating carrageenan spoils your trend of gut healing, but I would just keep going. You can always add some time on to the end of your Whole30 if you are not feeling great by the time you reach 30 days.

[MattD]

Thanks for the replies. This was my gut feeling (pun intended!), but I just needed a little backup. I'm on day 15 and I'm pretty sure I'm going to start another W30 right after I'm done with this one anyways.

This is definitely a good lesson in reading labels.