"We are living in a world today where lemonade is made from
artificial flavors and furniture polish is made from real lemons."
--Alfred E. Newman
This week's challenge is to avoid eating foods that contain additives. Additives are fillers, preservatives, and other ingredients that you really don't want in your body. These are man-made chemicals that have been linked to cancer, heart disease, lung and kidney disease, and other health issues. Here are a few tips to help you this week.
1. Focus on fresh, whole foods. As much as possible, try to eat foods that are food in nature. If it's grown in the soil, grown in a tree, or comes directly from animals, fish, or fowl without any processing, then it's pretty much safe to eat.
2. Know your additives. It's unrealistic to think that you'll NEVER eat packaged foods. Therefore, it's important to know which additives are the worst and, therefore, are the ones to avoid at all costs. The book contains a really good chart outlining these additives, what they are found in, and why they are bad for you. I'll just highlight a few here:
*Artificial colors; found in baked goods, beverages, candy, cheese and are suspected of being carcinogens
*Artificial flavors; found in most processed foods and is linked to asthma, eczema, and other disorders
*MSG; found in candy, beverages, frozen food, and lunch meat and can can depression, eye damage, headaches, and nausea
3. Use three quick tests. When in doubt, use these three quick tests to decide if a product should be avoided:
a. If the list of ingredients on a package is long (more than five ingredients), there are probably chemicals additives in the food and it should be avoided.
b. If you find certain ingredients difficult to pronounce, there's a good chance the product should be avoided.
c. If the product contains ingredients your grandmother has never heard of, avoid it.
No comments:
Post a Comment