Action Tips: Be Food Smart

Before you throw that box of “natural” granola bars in your cart, check out the label. Many of the prepackaged foods we buy are chock full of harmful ingredients (like castoreum which gives your food “natural” raspberry or vanilla flavoring, but actually comes from beavers’ butts). Some additives are basically FDA OK-ed poisons that have serious long-term effects on the human body. You can be smart about what you consume with just a little bit of nutrition knowledge.

Here are 3 tips for smarter food shopping:

1. Rule of thumb: If you can’t pronounce it, you don’t want to eat it.

2. Avoid these ingredients as much as possible:

• Aspartame: A chemical sweetener found mostly in “diet” and “zero” soft drinks,  yogurts, and chewing gum, that can cause neurological disorders, seizures, blurred vision, and migraine headaches.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup: A highly processed liquid sugar extracted with the chemical solvent glutaraldehyde and frequently contaminated with mercury. Corn syrup is found in everything from fast food to bottled soft drinks to sliced bread. The ingredient is deadly, often linked with obesity, diabetes, and mood disorders.
• Partially Hydrogenated Oils - Oils that are modified using a chemical catalyst to make them stable at room temperature. This creates trans fatty acids, greatly increases the risk of blocked arteries and arthritis, and slows metabolism. Read the labels and avoid anything that says “hydrogenated.”

3. These words actually mean sugar: Sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup, malt, fructose, glucose, carbitol, mannitol, lactose, evaporated cane juice, and concentrated fruit juice.

Create a healthy living cookbook. GO

Sources: Natural News, Wiki How