How to REALLY Discern What's In Your Food

Every last food product shelved in the United States of America has a nutrition label on it. Most diets, nutritionists, and health classes direct your attention to the grid containing the infamous calorie, fat, sodium, and sugar count held within its ominous walls. This information can be important within the right contexts, but when it comes to solid, whole food nutrition that is absorbent to your body, it’s the last place you should look.

A list of ingredients, usually directly below the nutrition information grid, spills the true contents of every food product. However, as if the small print didn’t make it hard enough to read, the words themselves are hardly even pronounceable. What are they, anyways?

Some are scientific labels for phytonutrients¹, some are self-explanatory, but most are substances harmful to the human body for a number of reasons. But, how the heck do you discern what’s harmful and what’s not?

Here’s a start.

1) Hydrogenated Oils, aka “trans fats”: This devil of a killer can be found in most fried foods, excessively processed foods, fast foods, some cooking ingredients, and packaged-to-last-forever foods. Examples: French fries, some breads, pastries, Crisco, cookies, and packaged dessert goods like Little Debbie’s and Twinkies. It clogs arteries and lines the walls of your veins, among numerous other disease-promoting things.

What it does: Research studies show conclusively these deadly oils cause non-insulin dependent type II diabetes, or hyperinsulinemia. This is a disease, which can eventually burn out the pancreas and cause insulin dependent diabetes. These changed molecular oils dramatically increase the risk of coronary heart disease, breast cancer, other types of cancers and autoimmune diseases. Over 100 research studies show how harmful these oils are to the human body.² It is also a primary contributor to obesity.

Also, did you know that trans fats are illegal in nearly every country BUT the U.S. because of its dangers, and that there are no known safe amounts to consume? The FDA at its best.

2) High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): Every woman even somewhat interested in baking has corn syrup hidden in her cupboard. There is nothing wrong with corn syrup in and of itself, but what happens when you take corn syrup, process it, chemically alter it, and package it away for mass consumption? HFCS is usually found in jams and jellies, soft drinks, “healthy” juices, breads and pastries, condiments like ketchup, and almost anything sweet, seeing as it’s an artificial sweetener.

What it does: Causes blood clots, heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, and various types of cancers.³

3) Aspartame: Here’s another artificial sweetener for you. You can find it in almost all flavored syrups (like at Starbucks), “sugar-free” items, gum and mints, soft drinks, and most anything sweet yet “sugar-free”. A brief synopsis (in English, for the non-rocket scientists reading this) of what it does: There is a part of the brain (located in the middle of the head) called the Hypothalamus, which, unlike the rest of the brain, is unprotected. While the rest of your brain rests easy in its comfortable protective coating, the Hypothalamus is busy controlling your nervous system, metabolism, body temperature, hunger, and thirst. Guess what aspartame targets?...

What it does: Aspartame causes a HOST of things. To make it easy on the eyes to read, it causes:

~ Multiple sclerosis (MS)

~ ALS

~ Memory loss

~ Hormonal problems

~ Hearing loss

~ Epilepsy

~ Alzheimer's disease

~ Parkinson's disease

~ Hypoglycemia

~ AIDS

~ Dementia

~ Brain lesions

~ Neuroendocrine disorders⁴

Everything you eat does 1 of 2 things: Causes disease, or promotes health. Do yourself and your family a favor— stop focusing so hard on the calorie count, and focus on the nutritional count. For the individuals’ naïve to the label-reading world, it’s time to start. Begin by doing some spring-cleaning and tossing everything in your cupboards and refrigerator with these 3 ingredients in them. There are a number of ingredients to be wary of, but this is an easy introduction to discerning what exactly is in your food.

¹Small “nutritional substances [found] in foods which act as important biological response modifiers”. In other words, microscopic, plant-derived, chemical compounds that aid in the absorption and distribution of nutrients. Some familiar examples of these may be beta-carotene, lycopene, and vitamin C.

² http://www.dldewey.com/hydroil.htm

³ http://www.thenutritionreporter.com/fructose_dangers.html

⁴ http://www.mercola.com/article/aspartame/dangers.htm