need to know

When I started reading ingredient labels there were some food additives and preservatives I decided to remove from my household immediately. If your looking to eat an unprocessed diet, cutting these ingredients is a great place to start. With many major health issues on the rise I truly believe some of our issues are coming directly from these ingredients. If we don’t let our children smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol then why are we allowing them to eat foods that are slowly killing them?

1. Trans Fat aka Partially Hydrogenated Oils: I made this the first one because this ingredient is a huge red flag! The most common form of hydrogenated oils in packaged foods is partially hydrogenated soybean oil. This dangerous man made substance wreaks havoc on your body because it increases bad cholesterol levels (or LDL). This could result in high blood pressure, stroke, or heart attack. The FDA has recognized that trans fats are dangerous and may be working on phasing them out of our food supply. However,these dangerous oils are still in a TON of packaged foods (believe me I read labels on everything, even products I do not consume myself). If I see companies using these dangerous oils I know I will never be giving them another dollar of my money because ultimately they are putting profit over the health of their consumers. I’ve commonly seen hydrogenated oils in hot chocolate mixes, microwave popcorn, peanut butter, flavored pretzels, “diet” bars, “diet” frozen meals, margarine, and other butter alternatives.

2. Soybean Oil/Refined Soy Products: Cutting any products that contain soy will help immensely to weed out low quality and highly refined foods because soy is in almost all processed and packaged foods. While whole soybeans are nutritionally dense, the type of soy that is in processed foods is so refined it is nowhere near nutritional. It is a cheap alternative to natural, nutrient dense ingredients.Most soy in packaged foods is also genetically modified and that is a whole new ball game, as we have no idea how these foods are going to affect people in years to come. If animals testing is any predictor the future is looking pretty bad! I know GMO crops are controversial but we do stay as far away from them as possible. Refined soybean oil is known to cause inflammation and disruptions to estrogen levels which can lead to an array of potential health issues including heart disease, reproductive problems, and cancer. Soybean oil is in too many products to list but if you are shopping the isles of your supermarket you are likely consuming mass amounts of highly refined soy. Be very careful to check ingredient lists because even products claiming to use olive oil usually have more soybean oil in them then anything else.  Snack foods, chips, peanut butter, almost all salad dressings, bread, ice cream, frozen pizza, tomato sauce, cereal,  and boxed meals all contain highly refined soybean oil and I’m just scratching the surface. If I pick up any product at the grocery store that contains soybean oil I put it down and WALK AWAY! (and never come back!!!)

3. Artificial Sweeteners: This includes aspartame, saccharine, and mannitol (popular brand names Splenda and Equal). I have bad news for you people… you really can’t have your cake and eat it too! If you want something sweet you way better off indulging a little with a natural sweetener and cutting the fake sugars. I truly believe the companies who manufacture these harmful, man made sweeteners have changed the way we think about foods. Brain tumors, diabetes, lymphoma, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, and emotional disorders like depression and anxiety, dizziness, headaches, nausea, mental confusion, and seizures have all been linked to consuming fake sugars. Reading ingredients and learning to spot labeling that indicates added fake sugars is key to cutting these out of your diet. If you see the words “no sugar add” or “light” the product likely contains some type of added fake sugar. If you read the word “Sucralose” in the ingredient list this is aspartame. I have noticed a lot of yogurts that contain them (especially the 100 calorie cups), as well as a lot of frozen popsicles and light ice creams. Diet sodas and tea also all contain fake sugars. 

4. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS): Another reason to read every single ingredient list… HFCS! It can be found in the most misleading and unsuspecting ways. All “regular” ketchup contains HFCS and tons of kids drinks marketed as “all natural” and “wholesome” (Capri Sun) also contain HFCS. Yogurts, packaged snacks, most sodas, ice creams, the list seriously goes on and on.

Let’s cut to the chase here though… what makes HFCS an ingredient to start avoiding immediately? Well the corn industry wants us to think that HFCS is “natural” and just the same as regular sugar. Sugar is sugar, right? Wrong! Here’s how Dr. Mark Hyman (author of Eat Your Medicine) breaks it down:

HFCS and cane sugar are NOT biochemically identical or processed the same way by the body. High fructose corn syrup is an industrial food product and far from “natural” or a naturally occurring substance. It is extracted from corn stalks through a process so secret that Archer Daniels Midland and Carghill would not allow the investigative journalist Michael Pollan to observe it for his book The Omnivore’s Dilemma. The sugars are extracted through a chemical enzymatic process resulting in a chemically and biologically novel compound called HFCS. Some basic biochemistry will help you understand this. Regular cane sugar (sucrose) is made of two-sugar molecules bound tightly together– glucose and fructose in equal amounts.The enzymes in your digestive tract must break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body. HFCS also consists of glucose and fructose, not in a 50-50 ratio, but a 55-45 fructose to glucose ratio in an unbound form. Fructose is sweeter than glucose. And HFCS is cheaper than sugar because of the government farm bill corn subsidies. Products with HFCS are sweeter and cheaper than products made with cane sugar. This allowed for the average soda size to balloon from 8 ounces to 20 ounces with little financial costs to manufacturers but great human costs of increased obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease.

Now back to biochemistry. Since there is there is no chemical bond between them, no digestion is required so they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream. Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fat liver” which affects 70 million people.

To see more about HFCS from Dr. Mark Hyman click here.

5. Artificial Food Colorings:  Food colorings really stick out in this list for me because I have seen first hand in my own children the effects of this stuff. I actually hadn’t noticed it before this specific day but after consuming birthday cake with artificial food colorings in the icing I saw a huge change in my son’s behavior. He went from sitting down and eating to hopping around and screaming. He literally was just making noises, he couldn’t even form a sentence. I could almost see his brain in mass confusion. We have been programed to write it off as sugar but what comes with sugar more often then not are artificial food colorings. After cutting unprocessed foods from our lives I was able to see this difference in his behavior and actually pin point the dyes. Although studies on these colorings are not definitive I don’t need any study to tell me something I have already seen with my own eyes. What is also really important to remember here is these colorings do nothing other then make the products look more appealing to consumers.

Hyper-activity unfortunately is the least of concern among the other potential health hazards these colorings may bring. Kidney and adrenal tumors, thyroid cancer, and chromosomal deterioration are all potentially linked to  food colorings. I don’t know anybody who would willingly consume anything with those potential effects but for some reason we tend not to question food colorings or only link them to hyper-activity in children. Another great reason to cut processed foods!

6. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG): Another ingredient that you will find in the most unsuspecting places! I can’t tell you how many times I have picked up a package and read the ingredients only to be shocked that it contained MSG. I’ve found it in Gazebo Room Salad Dressing, Blackened Seasoning, many canned soups, premade stocks, bullion cubes, and many other products. As someone who likes to make soups at home I know for sure I have not found any type of boxed stock that does not contain some form of MSG. Although many of them claim they are MSG free, there are also other ingredients that are almost the exact same thing as MSG. Other names I commonly see are autolyzed yeast and yeast extract. These potent flavor enhancers over-excite your brain cells and can lead to headaches, migraine headaches, depression, fatigue, disorientation, and obesity. What I also hate about MSG and other similar ingredients is that these are the type of additives that have people coming back for more. One packaged food I stopped feeding my children that contains autolyzed yeast is Goldfish Crackers. Yes, those seemingly harmless little fish are actually telling your child’s brain they should eat more. Shame on Pepperidge Farm for adding an ingredient like this to a product they know is consumed mostly by young children! Bottom line, you really have to read packaging because this is one of those ingredients they try to hide.

7. Sodium Nitrate/Nitrite: Even people who know next to nothing about food ingredients can tell you Nitrates cause cancer. You will find Nitrates in almost all lunchmeat, hotdogs (another product pushed on children), and bacon. They use this stuff to preserve meats in place of regular salt. If you are used to eating a sandwich with lunchmeat or you are packing these types of meats in your children’s lunch you should start looking for alternatives. Although eating a piece of bacon or two once in a while probably won’t hurt you, most people who consume these product are doing so on more of a regular basis. Lunchmeat and hotdogs are so highly processed they have no place in our diets to begin with!

8. BHT and BHA: Just to prove a point with how widespread BHT is I challenge you to go to the grocery store and find a cereal that does NOT contain this preservative. Believe me, you will be looking for quite a while before you find one. Practically every single cereal in the “cereal isle” will contain BHT. BHT is one of those ingredients that is banned in a ton of other countries. Why? Because it doesn’t have a place in any food supply, anywhere! What’s so bad about it? Well let’s start with the fact that it is also used in embalming fluid, jet fuel, rubber petroleum products, and transformer oil. Still not convinced? The National Toxicology Program calls is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen” and the Material Safety Data Sheet says “BHT should not be allowed to enter the environment, can cause liver damage, and is dangerous to aquatic organisms.” Eliminating BHT can be harder then you think if your family is used to eating commercial cereals. However, once I educated myself about what BHT really was I had no problem putting my foot down and saying absolutely not in my household! I knew I was not comfortable with my children consuming BHT and they have never asked for any of those products again anyway (its funny how quickly children forget about the foods that aren’t in the house anymore). The good news about this is that there are a lot of alternative cereals that do not contain it but you do have to read every label just to be sure.

9.Mono and Diglycerides: This is an emulsifier that mixes ingredients together that normally wouldn’t mix, like oil and water. This ingredient is a hidden source of partially hydrogenated oil aka trans fat. The trans fat used in this emulsifier does not have to be listed on the nutritional panel so therefore it goes unnoticed in a lot of products. I have seen this in most breads, ice cream, non-dairy creamers, heavy cream, and chocolate syrups.

10.Carrageenan: This one is tricky because technically it is “natural” so even organic companies can use it and still be able to label their products as organic. It is another emulsifier used in dairy products, ice cream, yogurts, half and half, and soy milks. The reason why it is considered “natural” is because it is extracted from red seaweed, which sounds harmless. However, this ingredient has been studied for years and the data collected isn’t looking good for dairy lovers. Carrageenan can cause inflammation in our bodies and therefore lead to some serious health issues like Alzheimer’s and cancer. I have seen carrageenan first hand in organic products and its a good way to weed out companies who don’t care about your health, organic or not. If you search the word carrageenan in Google there are dozens of articles about it, but here is one that I found helpful.