What's in a name? More than you'd think. There are occasions when you need to buy something in a package. When you do, do you look at the ingredients list or do you just buy it because you've always bought it? It can be overwhelming trying to decipher what all of those ingredients are. The food manufacturers have gotten pretty clever at masking food ingredients.
Good ingredients lists will be short (5 or fewer ingredients) and all things you could buy individually in a grocery store. No chemicals, no preservatives, no food coloring. These types of packaged foods are ideal, especially if they are organic.
Bad ingredients lists will have 10-20 ingredients and many of them are things you can't pronounce or couldn't find in nature. Hydrolyzed soy protein, sodium caseinate, sodium nitrate, citric acid, monosodium glutamate...the list goes on and on. AVOID.
Ugly ingredients are those you may have heard aren't good for you and have actually been linked to diseases, such as cancer, diabetes and even ADD. High fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, sucralose (Splenda), food dyes, and many others. AVOID.
If you are unsure of an ingredient, Google it. Look on the back of your packaged food you already have at your house. Start Googling those strange sounding ingredients and find out what they really are. For instance, blue #1 in Gatorade. On the Gatorade website, they say that they use artificial coloring because "The colors of Gatorade not only look good but also help in flavor perception and enable you to tell different flavors apart." Do we really need to be fooled with color? Why don't they tell us that the blue, red and yellow dyes used are derived from a petroleum product?
Keep in mind our objective - to nourish, protect and heal our bodies with whole foods found in nature, the way God intended. If you find lots of ingredients in your kitchen that you couldn't grow in a garden or raise on a farm, it probably needs to go. At the very least, limit how much and how often you ingest it. But above all, know what you're putting in your body.
Check out my recipes link (right side bar) to find some nutritious, WHOLE ingredients recipes I think you'll love. If you try any of them, make a comment on the blog to let me know what you thought. And as always, feel free to ask questions!
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