Reducing or Eliminating Processed Foods from your Home
Why concern yourself with reducing or completely eliminating processed foods from your kitchen?
The processed foods that live in the middle of your average grocery store are essentially "dead" foods. This means that most of the vitamins and minerals are gone or significantly depleted. What you are left with is mostly empty calories.
Food manufacturers LOVE making these foods. They can do so cheaply with low quality ingredients, then add chemicals to make them taste good.
Yum yum - chemicals that taste like food...
Even worse, these products can sit on grocery store shelves for months (or years) without going bad, and so are highly profitable.
So believe me, you're not doing yourself any favors by eating this stuff.
If convenience dictates that you must buy some of these foods, then definitely avoid the products that contain the following health-destroying ingredients:
- trans fats - hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils
- high fructose corn syrup
- monosodium glutamate (msg) and the other free glutamate forms
- chemical concoctions that you don't recognize or can't pronounce
- foods that contain sugar at the top (or close to the top) of the ingredients list
Don't give processed organic foods or health foods a "free pass" just because of the label - ALWAYS check the ingredients. I know I've been quite surprised at what some manufacturers consider "health" food.
Avoid the so-called diet foods too. They don't work. Some of these foods have even been found to contain chemicals to make you hungry. A study conducted by a large group of scientists and published in the journal Nature in 2014 went so far as to directly link the use of artificial sweeteners to increased obesity, diabetes, and fatty liver disease. Artificial sweeteners induce glucose intolerance by altering the gut microbiota. Jotham Suez, Tal Korem, David Zeevi, Gili Zilberman-Schapira, Christoph A. Thaiss, Ori Maza, David Israeli, Niv Zmora, Shlomit Gilad, Adina Weinberger, et al. Nature. 2014 Oct 9; 514(7521): 181–186. Published online 2014 Sep 17. doi: 10.1038/nature13793
So when looking for foods to boost immune system health (and maybe drop a few pounds), stay well clear of the diet aisle. And, when looking for foods to boost your health stay well clear of the processed food aisles.
Health and Wellness Home - Healthy Food Tips - Eliminating Processed Foods
