Newsletter Articles!
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Be a Label Reader
Part 1
(Part 2 below)
If you are a patient in our office or have attended one of our seminars or classes you have heard this before, but it bears repeating:
Most packaged, bagged, boxed and canned foods contain precious little nutrition.
Remember that’s what spoils, so the more that is removed and/or altered the longer it can sit on a shelf. Add to that countless chemicals such as dyes to color, preservatives for shelf life, chemical flavorings for taste enhancement, powerful chemical sweetners, etc. etc. The result is the rapid increase of degenerative conditions occurring at earlier and earlier ages.
The following foods were chosen because they are often eaten as daily staples in the majority of more than 1000 diet diaries we have reviewed.
Breakfast Cereals
Most advertise lots of health benefits on the front of the box. Now turn the box over and read the list of ingredients. You often find 20-30 ingredients listed! By the way, ingredients are listed in order by weight with the primary (heaviest) listed first. Usually among the first few ingredients are refined grains and refined sugars; usually the longer the list of ingredients on the box, the less the amount of nutrition in the box.
The wise shopper will look for cereal with whole grains at the top of the list, no added sugar and a short list of ingredients that you can pronounce.
Breads and Bagels
Most bread is made with bleached, enriched wheat. It needs to be “enriched” because during the modern milling refining process most of the nutrition is destroyed. To make up for this, they add back in synthetic vitamins that that now makes it “enriched”. The ingredient list often reads similar to the popular commercial, nutritionally devoid breakfast cereals. Regardless of what the big print says on the bread or bagel be sure to read the small print.
The wise shopper will look for breads made with organic whole grains, water yeast and perhaps a touch of salt. We recommend the brand Food For Life. It is usually sold frozen.
(Part 2)
In our last newsletter we discussed the hidden danger in our ever-increasing diet of processed foods. These are foods that are becoming more and more nutritionally empty and more chemically dominant and laden with sugars. In our office we examine the food journals of our patients. We are reviewing some of the foods that appear as staples in many diets. Last time we reviewed cereal and breads. Let’s move forward.
Cracker, Cookies, Pretzels and Other Snack Foods
What most of these have in common is refined, enriched wheat, various sugars, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and with the snack foods, lots of chemicals. The wise shopper will avoid these other foods all together. If that’s too much to ask, think all natural and whole grains.
Flavored Water and Vitamin Water
Unfortunately these products are gaining in popularity. They are flavored with chemical flavorings, and artificial (chemical) sweetener, and “vitamin- enriched” with synthetic vitamin usually from coal tar derivatives. What ever happened to good old water?
The wise shopper will stick to filtered, purified, water. The wisest shopper will purchase a high quality filtration system for their homes. It will remove heavy metals, chlorine, fluoride and pesticides. Then bottle your own and take it with you.
Protein Bars/ Health Food Bars
Too many times the big print on the front of the bar does not agree with the fine print on the back of the bar. The fine print often shows refined, enriched wheat, sugars, high carbohydrates and chemical additives. Many of these bars contain the same non-nutritional ingredients found in many breakfast cereals, only in the form of a bar.
The wise shopper will purchase whole-food bars. They contain natural protein sources, complex carbohydrates and nutrients in the form of nuts and seeds, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. We carry Standard Bars (from Standard Process) in our office.