It is a typical Sunday night here at home. Grocery shopping, done. America's Funniest Home Videos, complete. As I cruised the internet, I stumbled upon an article from LiveScience.com (published on MSN.com) titled, "Grown up but eat like a kid? You may have 'selective eating disorder.' What?!?!?!????
Subtitle: 'Those with the condition prefer salty, bland foods.' Duh.
This is a short blog...
Selective Eating Disorder = Ridiculous. Selective Eating Disorder aka 'very picky eating' is just that...picky eating. Would I rather eat potato chips, bacon, french fries, drink light beer, and consume the occasional carrot? Sure. That would be fantastic. Unfortunately, that is not a healthy diet. So I have to eat other foods that may not be on the top of my list...like dark green vegetables (kale, spinach, mustard greens, etc), broccoli, blueberries, raspberries, organic chicken, butternut squash (BTW - I made a delicious butternut squash soup this weekend - with organic sweet corn, organic yellow onions, and mixed organic bell peppers), organic black beans, quinoa, etc, etc, etc.
I am tired of making excuses for people who make bad choices. Grow up.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Subtract the Additives
Top 10 ingredients you don't want in your food:
1)Aspartame/Sucralose/AcesulfameK/Saccharin- all artificial sweeteners are bad. I think high fructose corn syrup is a better option than any of these...and high fructose corn syrup is nasty. Plain 'ol sugar is the best option. Did you know aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde? Saves the embalmer some time in the future.
2)MSG (monosodium glutamate) - MSG is a flavor enhancer originally developed to help malnourished elderly patients increase caloric intake. Turns out it worked! The food tasted better and the elderly patients ate more food. As a business, the food industry decided that this was a good thing. So they added MSG to MANY foods, and guess what?? Everyone ate more! Foods that contained MSG tasted 'better' so people ate more. This is/was a great thing if you are/were a food manufacturer. However, from a health standpoint, ingesting MSG has been associated with asthma, migraine headaches, food allergies, obesity, and hyperactivity in children. A 2001 study published in the journal Neurology by Nicholas J. Maragakis, MD and Jeffrey D. Rothstein, MD titled 'Glutamate Transporters in Neurologic Disease' stated, "Glutamate is the primary excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter in the human brain. It is important in synaptic plasticity, learning, and development. Its activity at the synaptic cleft is carefully balanced by receptor inactivation and glutamate reuptake. When this balance is upset, excess glutamate can itself become neurotoxic. ... This overactivation leads to an enzymatic cascade of events ultimately resulting in cell death." Excess glutamate has been associated with condition such as Parkinson's Disease. Glutamic acid is aslo found in hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, autolyzed yeast, yeast extract, and soy extracts.
3)Hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils - hydrogenation converts unsaturated fats (healthy) into saturated fats (unhealthy). Hydrogenated oils often equal trans-fats. Ingestion of these fats increases the risk for heart disease. It is faster to just stuff your arteries with cotton.
4)Sodium Nitrates/Nitrites - food preservatives also used as fertilizer, rocket propellant, and in smoke bombs. Form nitosamines which are known human carcinogens that cause DNA damage. Increased levels of nitrates in the diet have been linked to increased deaths from Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, and Parkinson's disease. Delicious! :\
5)Tartrazine (yellow#5) - all colors are bad but this one in particular seems to cause more problems. Studies have shown ingestion of tartrazine has been associated with childhood asthma, hyperactive behavior (ADD/ADHD), migraine headaches, anxiety, clinical depression, blurred vision, itching, general weakness, sleep disturbance, and thyroid tumors.
6)High fructose corn syrup - HFCS was first widely used in 1984 . Since that time the rate of diabetes and obesity has increased dramatically. That said, high fructose corn syrup does not cause obesity, eating it does!
7) Modified food starch - anything modified is bad news bears
8)BHT/TBHQ - chemicals added for "freshness" = product really isn't fresh
9)Maltodextrin - Matdextrin breaks dwn int gucse sugar) It can be derived corn, potatoes, and wheat. Individuals with wheat sensitivity and/or celiac disease should avoid products containing maltodextrin. FYI, sucralose (fake sugar) contains maltodextrin.
10)Natural Flavor - natural flavors are still chemicals made in a lab...they can be found in nature but there is nothing natural about them.
1)Aspartame/Sucralose/AcesulfameK/Saccharin- all artificial sweeteners are bad. I think high fructose corn syrup is a better option than any of these...and high fructose corn syrup is nasty. Plain 'ol sugar is the best option. Did you know aspartame breaks down into formaldehyde? Saves the embalmer some time in the future.
2)MSG (monosodium glutamate) - MSG is a flavor enhancer originally developed to help malnourished elderly patients increase caloric intake. Turns out it worked! The food tasted better and the elderly patients ate more food. As a business, the food industry decided that this was a good thing. So they added MSG to MANY foods, and guess what?? Everyone ate more! Foods that contained MSG tasted 'better' so people ate more. This is/was a great thing if you are/were a food manufacturer. However, from a health standpoint, ingesting MSG has been associated with asthma, migraine headaches, food allergies, obesity, and hyperactivity in children. A 2001 study published in the journal Neurology by Nicholas J. Maragakis, MD and Jeffrey D. Rothstein, MD titled 'Glutamate Transporters in Neurologic Disease' stated, "Glutamate is the primary excitatory amino acid neurotransmitter in the human brain. It is important in synaptic plasticity, learning, and development. Its activity at the synaptic cleft is carefully balanced by receptor inactivation and glutamate reuptake. When this balance is upset, excess glutamate can itself become neurotoxic. ... This overactivation leads to an enzymatic cascade of events ultimately resulting in cell death." Excess glutamate has been associated with condition such as Parkinson's Disease. Glutamic acid is aslo found in hydrolyzed vegetable proteins, autolyzed yeast, yeast extract, and soy extracts.
3)Hydrogenated and/or partially hydrogenated oils - hydrogenation converts unsaturated fats (healthy) into saturated fats (unhealthy). Hydrogenated oils often equal trans-fats. Ingestion of these fats increases the risk for heart disease. It is faster to just stuff your arteries with cotton.
4)Sodium Nitrates/Nitrites - food preservatives also used as fertilizer, rocket propellant, and in smoke bombs. Form nitosamines which are known human carcinogens that cause DNA damage. Increased levels of nitrates in the diet have been linked to increased deaths from Alzheimer's, diabetes, cancer, and Parkinson's disease. Delicious! :\
5)Tartrazine (yellow#5) - all colors are bad but this one in particular seems to cause more problems. Studies have shown ingestion of tartrazine has been associated with childhood asthma, hyperactive behavior (ADD/ADHD), migraine headaches, anxiety, clinical depression, blurred vision, itching, general weakness, sleep disturbance, and thyroid tumors.
6)High fructose corn syrup - HFCS was first widely used in 1984 . Since that time the rate of diabetes and obesity has increased dramatically. That said, high fructose corn syrup does not cause obesity, eating it does!
7) Modified food starch - anything modified is bad news bears
8)BHT/TBHQ - chemicals added for "freshness" = product really isn't fresh
9)Maltodextrin - Matdextrin breaks dwn int gucse sugar) It can be derived corn, potatoes, and wheat. Individuals with wheat sensitivity and/or celiac disease should avoid products containing maltodextrin. FYI, sucralose (fake sugar) contains maltodextrin.
10)Natural Flavor - natural flavors are still chemicals made in a lab...they can be found in nature but there is nothing natural about them.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Gluten Gluttons
glut-ton [gluht-n]
-noun
1. a person who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously
-Synonym
1. chowhound
glu-ten [gloot-n]
-noun
1. the tough, viscid, nitogenous substance remaining when the flour of the wheat or other grain is washed to remove the starch
Bread, bagels, rolls, pasta, cereal, beer, soy sauce, tortillas, cakes, cookies, crackers, gin, pretzels, doughnuts, pancakes, waffles, whiskey, biscuits, lunch meat, licorice, pizza, canned soups, fish sticks, chicken nuggets...wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, and wheat!
As the saying goes, we are what wheat. ;)
The overconsumption of wheat is troubling. It places a burden on our health as well as on the environment. Gluten sensitivity has become quite common and the incidence continues to increase. Interestingly, the amount of wheat consumed today is far less than the amount consumed at the turn of the century (Average American consumed 210 pounds of wheat flour per person at the turn of the century vs 133 pounds of wheat flour per person in 2004). So if we aren't eating as much (although 133 pounds of wheat flour is still a lot!), why is the incidence of gluten sensitivity increasing?
In order to keep up with demand, farmers are forced to do whatever is necessary to increase supply. This often results in early harvesting, decreased soil nutrients, lower product quality, and genetic modification of crops to increase yield and improve hardiness. If we all grew our own wheat, harvested it, ground it up, and baked our own bread in our brick ovens like we did at the turn of the century, wheat/gluten probably would not be a problem. But that's not what we eat. We eat mass produced, genetically modified, bleached, enriched, highly processed foodstuff that is listed on product labels as wheat/gluten. Food is a business. In business it's all about maximizing the bottom line. When it comes to food, this is often at the expense of the quality of the product and subsequently the quality of our health.
-Dr. John
(There are thousands of delicious gluten free items at The Organic Wholesale Club...check 'em out!)
-noun
1. a person who eats and drinks excessively or voraciously
-Synonym
1. chowhound
glu-ten [gloot-n]
-noun
1. the tough, viscid, nitogenous substance remaining when the flour of the wheat or other grain is washed to remove the starch
Bread, bagels, rolls, pasta, cereal, beer, soy sauce, tortillas, cakes, cookies, crackers, gin, pretzels, doughnuts, pancakes, waffles, whiskey, biscuits, lunch meat, licorice, pizza, canned soups, fish sticks, chicken nuggets...wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, wheat, and wheat!
As the saying goes, we are what wheat. ;)
The overconsumption of wheat is troubling. It places a burden on our health as well as on the environment. Gluten sensitivity has become quite common and the incidence continues to increase. Interestingly, the amount of wheat consumed today is far less than the amount consumed at the turn of the century (Average American consumed 210 pounds of wheat flour per person at the turn of the century vs 133 pounds of wheat flour per person in 2004). So if we aren't eating as much (although 133 pounds of wheat flour is still a lot!), why is the incidence of gluten sensitivity increasing?
In order to keep up with demand, farmers are forced to do whatever is necessary to increase supply. This often results in early harvesting, decreased soil nutrients, lower product quality, and genetic modification of crops to increase yield and improve hardiness. If we all grew our own wheat, harvested it, ground it up, and baked our own bread in our brick ovens like we did at the turn of the century, wheat/gluten probably would not be a problem. But that's not what we eat. We eat mass produced, genetically modified, bleached, enriched, highly processed foodstuff that is listed on product labels as wheat/gluten. Food is a business. In business it's all about maximizing the bottom line. When it comes to food, this is often at the expense of the quality of the product and subsequently the quality of our health.
-Dr. John
(There are thousands of delicious gluten free items at The Organic Wholesale Club...check 'em out!)
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