I have so many friends who are making changes and wanting to eat much healthier. But they end up coming back from the store with foods loaded with all kinds of jargon and additives, parading as healthy alternatives to food they really aren't much different from anyway. My friends might hand me a can of soup at work or tell me over the phone what they bought, and they ask - what about this, pretty healthy isn't it? And no matter what it is - unless of course we are talking about raw food in the form it was grown - I always ask, well what is the ingredient list? And 9 times out of 10 there is stuff in there that is NOT food. Manufactured substances that do not occur naturally, that are flagged as toxins and foreign objects to our immune systems and bodies who can't do anything with them but try to expel them.
Take Lean Cuisine for example - a quick search pulls up their Alfredo Pasta.
First off, when an ingredient list is this long, you've got red flag #1. A great rule of thumb I hear is that we shouldn't eat anything that wouldn't have been in our great great grandparents kitchens - ie grains, fruits and vegetables, versus corn syrup, derived soy protein, hydrochloride (which is an ingredient in the above Lean Cuisine!). Plus, imagine all of the substances you are trying to break down all at once! Think of a meal of brown rice, steamed broccoli, chicken and yams compared to the ingredient list above. You are commanding your body to handle so much all at once.
Second, broccoli that has been frozen and reheated months after it was grown has a fraction of the health benefits that fresh, raw broccoli has. And every other fruit or vegetable, or grain or meat that you can buy in a can or box. So never assume you are getting a serving of veggies or whole grains when you eat fast foods.
Third, look for hidden ingredients - you could buy tomato sauce or BBQ sauce, or wheat bread (or any processed food for that matter) thinking it appears to be quite safe and very healthy. But when you read your ingredient list you might see that there's corn syrup added for flavor, soy lecithin added (for those concerned with health risks of soy), or maltodextrin or caramel color (two MORE non-food ingredients found in the Lean Cuisine).
Many people argue that because these ingredients seem miniscule in comparison to the "real" foods they think they are eating daily, that maybe they are harmless. The truth is every single thing that goes into our bodies has to be sent somewhere, whether it's our colon for excreting, or trapped in a fat cell, detoxed through our skin, or even worse absorbed into the blood and sent to our vital and even non vital organs for further damage. No, you won't wake up tomorrow with cancer. But think on 40 to 60 years of life with daily toxin intake and what would you imagine could happen to your bodies and cell structures? Not too pretty my friends :(
So the hope is this - you have the power in your own hands and eyes to stop feeding yourself fake foods! It takes 30 seconds to read a label, probably less - if you see something you can't pronounce or have never heard of, put it back. It will save you a lifetime of worry, ailments, and disease. Happy label reading!
Showing posts with label Toxins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toxins. Show all posts
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Why Organic?
These days you can buy just about everything organic - produce, face creams, even dishwashing soap. What's the big deal? Eating and buying organic is important for many reasons, whether it's decreasing the number of toxins we ingest, supporting sustainable farming, or just eating food that tastes better.
So what does organic even mean? "Organic principles are based on the belief that if the natural microbial life in the soil is given an opportunity to be prolific, the plants grown in that soil will also be healthy and resistant to pest and disease, and provide high quality nutrition to those that eat those plants...Conventional agricultural and processing industry inputs such as synthetic chemical pesticides, genetically engineered seed, and artificial additives are not used." -naturespath.com
Conventional (non-organic) farmers use toxic pesticides to kill all microbial life in soil. As you can imagine, the trees, plants and crops growing in this soil will be tainted with these chemicals. Large farmers also reuse the same soil over and over to meet high demands for supply, virtually eliminating the full nutritional value of the food and diminishing it's rich taste.
Even scarier is the process by which conventional meat ends up in our fridges or restaurant hamburgers. In the most severe cases, animals such as pigs and cows are stuffed by the hundreds into barns where they are then refined to cages where they are allowed minimal to no physical exercise. They are then injected with hormones to plump them up to a large enough size to produce an unnatural amount of meat when they are slaughtered. I have even read credible reports of pigs being perpetually covered in feces and sharing their small cage space with their dead piglets. Yikes! And all this in the name of big bucks corporate America.
The Natural Myth:
Many foods are given the label "natural," and many unlearned consumers buy them thinking they are just as good as organic. For example, all-natural chicken simply means that nothing was added to the chicken after it was killed- no synthetics or additives. The problem is that there is no regulation of how the chicken was raised or what it ate - which often times means a history or hormone injections, genetically engineered seed and minimal physical exercise.
There are very strict laws that farmers and manufacturers must abide by in order to receive the organic label, so we can rest assured that we are buying healthy foods. It is even illegal for a grocery store to put an organic sign over a section of produce if less than 100% of the items are organic.
Many people are discouraged by the price of organics, since farms producing smaller quantities of better quality equals higher prices in stores. I would encourage you to reevaluate your budget and at the LEAST start buying organic for foods that conventionally are heavily sprayed such as apples, tomatoes and other foods in the dirty dozen, as well as meat and dairy so we aren't loading up on synthetic hormones and who knows what else. Familiarize yourself with foods that are safe to buy non-organic. Look for free range meat - animals that are allowed to wander around their farms. Keep researching, and take baby steps!
For more reading:
http://www.naturespath.com/organics/what_are_organics
http://www.organic.org/
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic/
So what does organic even mean? "Organic principles are based on the belief that if the natural microbial life in the soil is given an opportunity to be prolific, the plants grown in that soil will also be healthy and resistant to pest and disease, and provide high quality nutrition to those that eat those plants...Conventional agricultural and processing industry inputs such as synthetic chemical pesticides, genetically engineered seed, and artificial additives are not used." -naturespath.com
Conventional (non-organic) farmers use toxic pesticides to kill all microbial life in soil. As you can imagine, the trees, plants and crops growing in this soil will be tainted with these chemicals. Large farmers also reuse the same soil over and over to meet high demands for supply, virtually eliminating the full nutritional value of the food and diminishing it's rich taste.
Even scarier is the process by which conventional meat ends up in our fridges or restaurant hamburgers. In the most severe cases, animals such as pigs and cows are stuffed by the hundreds into barns where they are then refined to cages where they are allowed minimal to no physical exercise. They are then injected with hormones to plump them up to a large enough size to produce an unnatural amount of meat when they are slaughtered. I have even read credible reports of pigs being perpetually covered in feces and sharing their small cage space with their dead piglets. Yikes! And all this in the name of big bucks corporate America.
The Natural Myth:
Many foods are given the label "natural," and many unlearned consumers buy them thinking they are just as good as organic. For example, all-natural chicken simply means that nothing was added to the chicken after it was killed- no synthetics or additives. The problem is that there is no regulation of how the chicken was raised or what it ate - which often times means a history or hormone injections, genetically engineered seed and minimal physical exercise.
There are very strict laws that farmers and manufacturers must abide by in order to receive the organic label, so we can rest assured that we are buying healthy foods. It is even illegal for a grocery store to put an organic sign over a section of produce if less than 100% of the items are organic.
Many people are discouraged by the price of organics, since farms producing smaller quantities of better quality equals higher prices in stores. I would encourage you to reevaluate your budget and at the LEAST start buying organic for foods that conventionally are heavily sprayed such as apples, tomatoes and other foods in the dirty dozen, as well as meat and dairy so we aren't loading up on synthetic hormones and who knows what else. Familiarize yourself with foods that are safe to buy non-organic. Look for free range meat - animals that are allowed to wander around their farms. Keep researching, and take baby steps!
For more reading:
http://www.naturespath.com/organics/what_are_organics
http://www.organic.org/
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/five-easy-ways-to-go-organic/
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Shampoo & Hormones?
There's a really good chance that most of the personal care products you use are disrupting your hormones, intoxicating the ecosystem, and heightening your chances of developing cancerous cells. The good news? All you have to do is read the labels on the back of your shampoo, conditioner, lotion, shaving cream, makeup and other products - and then throw them out!
PARABENS are synthetic preservatives used to prevent bacterial growth in products so that the time it takes to get from the manufacturer to the retailer to your bathroom can be as long as 1-2 years. The problem?
"These chemicals mimic, block or disrupt the actions of human (and animal) hormones...When you rub body care products on your body or hair dye on your scalp you can absorb or inhale synthetic chemicals that contain endocrine disruptors which may send false signals to your body's endocrine glands. When your glands are confused they cannot function normally and serious health problems result. In addition, when you bathe, whatever chemicals aren't absorbed by your body are washed down the drain into the drinking water supply, where they can cause a cascade of negative environmental problems. These endocrine disruptors are affecting algae and other microscopic life, fish, whales and birds." -terressentials.com
Need more proof? "The government has found sunscreen chemicals in fish and human breast milk." -terressentials.com
What you can do:
Skim the ingredients of your personal care products for parabens, usually beginning with methyl, propyl, or butyl. If you find some, stop using that product - you'll lose the $4 you paid for it, but does that compare to the peace of mind you'll have knowing you just reduced your chance of disease? "When your bottle of body lotion is empty, where did all of the product go? The lotion that was absorbed quickly, was absorbed into your body!" -terressentials.com
For more reading, click here.
PARABENS are synthetic preservatives used to prevent bacterial growth in products so that the time it takes to get from the manufacturer to the retailer to your bathroom can be as long as 1-2 years. The problem?
"These chemicals mimic, block or disrupt the actions of human (and animal) hormones...When you rub body care products on your body or hair dye on your scalp you can absorb or inhale synthetic chemicals that contain endocrine disruptors which may send false signals to your body's endocrine glands. When your glands are confused they cannot function normally and serious health problems result. In addition, when you bathe, whatever chemicals aren't absorbed by your body are washed down the drain into the drinking water supply, where they can cause a cascade of negative environmental problems. These endocrine disruptors are affecting algae and other microscopic life, fish, whales and birds." -terressentials.com
Need more proof? "The government has found sunscreen chemicals in fish and human breast milk." -terressentials.com
What you can do:
Skim the ingredients of your personal care products for parabens, usually beginning with methyl, propyl, or butyl. If you find some, stop using that product - you'll lose the $4 you paid for it, but does that compare to the peace of mind you'll have knowing you just reduced your chance of disease? "When your bottle of body lotion is empty, where did all of the product go? The lotion that was absorbed quickly, was absorbed into your body!" -terressentials.com
For more reading, click here.
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