Know Your InGREEDients

Aug 21, 2011 by Tatianna

 

A lot of people have a misconceptions about health foods. If you walk through a supermarket, you will notice a lot of different foods that are marked healthy, or disease fighting. As consumers most of us trust into our labels, and we purchase the food that we think is good for us.

I also noticed that most people rely a lot on FDA, which regulates what kind of produce and ingredients are considered safe ( by them ). Unless you do some really good digging around, you won’t know that FDA is allowing 14,000 additives that are on the market today, to be placed into almost every food that is made today.  Do you think the FDA know’s what those additives are doing to your body?

I saw another eye opening documentary the other day about nutrition called InGREEDients. I love nutritional documentaries, there is always something new I learn that I didn’t know before. This film focused on specific preservatives that are in almost every single health food item that is out there. They also explain in great detail about how these preservatives are made and what exactly they are doing to your system. After watching this film, you will never look at processed foods the same ( you can rent the movie from Netflix by the way ).

Nutrition is our future, and the way it’s going so far, isn’t looking so good for the next generation.

Before jumping to a conclusion, I had to check for my self. I took a trip to the supermarket and I specifically looked at all, so called health promoting items such as cereals, granola bars, protein bars, meal replacement bars, popcorn, chips, etc. – they all contain trans fat, hidden trans fat. 
The most crazy thing about it all, is that the label on the front claims that the product contains 0 trans fats ( with the KEY WORD – per serving ). How is that possible? FDA allows companies to not tell the whole truth about the serving size of the product, and as long as it contains less than 0.5 grams of trans fat, it’s OK to say it has 0 ;).  But trans fat, is still trans fat, it’s damaging your arteries and your liver every time you consume it.  If your liver is damaged,  your whole bodily process changes, causing you to gain fat, slow down your metabolism, and your disease risks go up at the speed of lightening. 

Now, I do understand why most people buy processed foods, because it’s cheap right?  Yes, processed food is cheap, but what’s not cheap in this country is the medical care. A trip to the hospital and an overnight stay can cost your 15,000 dollars if you don’t have a health insurance. And a lot of people don’t, because that is too, very expensive. Most medications that people are taking these days cost 80 dollars a bottle if you don’t have the insurance. When I see those numbers, that’s pretty shocking to me. I found out the other day that a funeral costs 6,000 dollars. So pretty much it is cheaper to die than to live?  It doesn’t make much sense doesn’t it? Why do people don’t mind spending money on doctors, but nutrition is always a question – isn’t this expensive?

I think if we go a little bit out of our way to learn about our produce, read our labels and watch educational programs, this whole thing with obesity and diabetes epidemic can start to diminish by thousands. Isn’t that something worth giving a try?