Dangerous Food Deceptions Exposed; You Wont Believe Your Eyes Those unaware of being unaware If there's one

thing in the world the food industry is dead set against, it's allowing you to actually maintain some level of control over what you eat. See, they have this whole warehouse full of whatever they bought last week when they were drunk that they need to get rid of -- and they will do so by feeding it all to you. And it doesn't matter how many pesky "lists of ingredients" and consumer protections stand between you and them. The Secret Ingredient: Wood

You know what's awesome? Newspaper. Or, to be precise, the lack thereof. The Internet and other electric media have all but eaten up classic print media, with the circulations of almost all papers on the wane. Say, do you ever wonder what they do with all that surplus wood pulp? "But what" you inquire, "does this have to do with food ingredients?"

We look at you squarely in the eye, then slowly bring our gaze upon the half-eaten bagel in your hand. Oh, @#$@# ... The Horror: What do they do with all the cellulose wood pulp? They hide it behind a fake name and make you eat it, that's what.

The best part of waking up, is wood pulp in your face! And everybody's doing it. Aunt Jemima's pancake syrup? Cellulose. Pillsbury Pastry

Puffs? Cellulose. Kraft Bagel-Fuls? Fast-food cheese? Sara Lee's breakfast bowls? Cellulose, cellulose, and more cellulose.

Et tu, Hot Pockets? It turns out that cellulose can provide texture to processed foods, so food companies have taken to happily using it as a replacement for such unnecessary and inconveniently expensive ingredients as flour and oil. As the 30 percent cheaper cellulose is edible and non-poisonous, the FDA has no interest for restricting its use -- or, for that matter, the maximum amount of it that food companies can use in a product. It is pretty much everywhere, and even organic foods are no salvation -after all, cellulose used to be wood and can therefore be called organic, at least to an extent. But the worst thing about cellulose is not that it's everywhere. The worst thing is that it is not food at all. Cellulose is, unlike the actual, normal food items you think you're paying for, completely indigestible by human beings, and it has no nutritional value to speak of. If a product contains enough of it, you can literally get more nutrients from licking the sweet, sweet fingerprints off its wrapper.

That loaf and the chopping block have an equal wood content. Zombie Orange Juice

Quick, name the most healthy drink your nearest store has to offer. You said orange juice, didn't you? It's what everybody makes you drink when you get sick. That stuff must be like medicine or something. And the labels are always about health benefits -- the cartons scream "100 percent natural!" "Not from concentrate!" and "No added sugar!"

"Less than four thumbs per gallon!" And why not believe them? When it comes to making the stuff, orange juice isn't sausage. You take oranges, you squeeze oranges, you put the result in a carton, with or without pulp. End of story, beginning of deliciousness. But what if we told you that "freshly squeezed" juice of yours can very well be a year old, and has been subjected to stuff that would make the Re-Animator puke?

Packaging Gateway Tropicana's bottling room. Not pictured: Anything orange. The Horror: Ever wonder why every carton of natural, healthy, 100 percent, notfrom-concentrate orange juice manages to taste exactly the same, yet ever so slightly different depending on the brand, despite containing no additives or preservatives whatsoever? The process indeed starts with the oranges being squeezed, but that's the first and last normal step in the process. The juice is then immediately sealed in giant holding tanks and all the oxygen is removed. That allows the liquid to keep without spoiling for up to a year. That's why they can distribute it year-round, even when oranges aren't in season?

Amazon Fresh Thanks to science, we can enjoy screwdrivers from Christmas to the 4th of July.

There is just one downside to the process (from the manufacturers' point of view, that is) -- it removes all the taste from the liquid. So, now they're stuck with vats of extremely vintage watery fruit muck that tastes of paper and little else. What's a poor giant beverage company to do? Why, they re-flavor that stuff with a carefully constructed mix of chemicals called a flavor pack, which are manufactured by the same fragrance companies that formulate CK1 and other perfumes. Then they bottle the orange scented paper water and sell it to you. And, thanks to a loophole in regulations, they often don't even bother mentioning the flavor pack chemicals in the list of ingredients. Hear that low moan from the kitchen? That's the Minute Maid you bought yesterday. It knows you know.

"Braaaaaaaains!" Ammonia-Infused Hamburger

Any restaurant that serves hamburger goes out of its way to reassure you how pure and natural it is. Restaurant chains like McDonald's ("All our burgers are made from 100 percent beef, supplied by farms accredited by nationally recognized farm assurance schemes") and Taco Bell ("Like all U.S. beef, our 100 percent premium beef is USDA inspected, then passes our 20 quality checkpoints") happily vouch for the authenticity of their animal bits. Their testaments to the healthiness and fullness of their meat read out like they were talking about freaking filet mignon.

McDonalds Above: Gourmet as balls. And aside from the rare E.coli outbreak, the meat is clean. It's how they get it clean that's unsettling.

The Horror: Ammonia. You know, the harsh chemical they use in fertilizers and oven cleaners? It kills E.coli really well. So, they invented a process where they pass the hamburger through a pipe where it is doused in ammonia gas. And you probably never heard about it, other than those times that batches of meat stink of ammonia so bad that the buyer returns it.

If your Big Mac ever tastes like pee, this is why. The ammonia process is an invention of a single company called Beef Products Inc., which originally developed it as a way to use the absolute cheapest parts of the animal, instead of that silly "prime cuts" stuff the competitors were offering (and the restaurant chains swear we're still getting). Consequently, Beef Products Inc. has pretty much cornered the burger patty market in the U.S. to the point that 70 percent of all burger patties out there are made by them. Thanks, ammonia!

Fake Berries

Imagine a blueberry muffin.

One muffin please, lets not be greedy. Even with your freshly gained knowledge that there may or may not be some cellulose in the cake mix, it's pretty impossible not to start salivating at the thought. This is largely because of the berries themselves. What's better -- they're so very, very healthy that it's

almost wrong for them to taste so good.

We could taste delicious if we wanted to. Stupid show-off berries. Everything is better with blueberries -- that's why they put them in so many foods. Now that we think of it, there sure seems to be a lot of blueberries in a lot of products. You'd think we'd see more blueberry fields around ... The Horror: ... not that it would do any good, as the number of blueberries you've eaten within the last year that have actually come from such a field is likely pretty close to zero.

We can almost hear the muffins mocking us. Studies of products that supposedly contain blueberries indicate that many of them didn't originate in nature. All those dangly and chewy and juicy bits of berry are completely artificial, made with different combinations of corn syrup and a little chemist's set worth of food colorings and other chemicals with a whole bunch of numbers and letters in their names. They do a darn good job of faking it, too -- you need a chemist's set of your own to be able to call it bull@#$$. You can sort of tell them from the ingredient lists, too, if you know what to look for, although the manufacturers tend to camouflage them under bull@#$@ terms like "blueberry flakes" or "blueberry crunchlets."

Nothing says "nature" like petrochemical-derived food coloring. There are a number of major differences between the real thing and the Abomination Blueberry: The fake blueberries have the advantages of a longer shelf life and, of course, being cheaper to produce. But they have absolutely none of the health benefits and nutrients of the

real thing. This, of course, doesn't stop the manufacturers from riding the Blueberry Health Train all the way to the bank, sticking pictures of fresh berries and other bullshit cues all over the product packaging. Now, here's some good news: The law does require the manufacturers to put the whole artificial thing out there for the customers. The bad news, however, is that they have gotten around this, too. First up, the Kellogg's Mini-Wheats way:

Kelloggs This is somewhat recognizable. They just stick a picture of the berries there, while not actually bothering to conceal the fact that the actual cereal looks like it's made of cardboard and Smurf paste. A bunch of Betty Crocker products and Target muffins use the second route, which brings the cheat level even further by actually containing an unspecified amount of real berries. This way they can legally advertise natural flavors while substituting the vast majority of berries with the artificial ones.

All but three of these are made of plastic. Or, you can just take the "we don't give a duck anymore" route, as evidenced by General Mills' Total Blueberry Pomegranate cereal. The whole selling point of the product is that it contains a bucketload of blueberries and pomegranates, and the package boasts all the buzzwords the marketing department has been able to dream up:

Find The Best In reality, not only are the blueberries fake, but also they've forged the freaking pomegranates as well. "Free Range" Chickens That Are Crammed Into a Giant Room

Buying "free range" eggs is one of the easiest ways to feel good as a consumer -- they are at least as readily available as "normal," mass produced eggs from those horrible giant chicken prisons Big Egg maintains. Hell, they even cost pretty much the same. There's literally no reason not to buy free range even though, now that we think about it, we're not actually sure what that means. But the animals must live in pretty good conditions. In fact, let's buy our meat and poultry free range, too!

Fresh air, green grass, plenty of cocks ... free range chickens have it good. Well, according to law, the definition of "free range" is that chickens raised for their meat "have access to the outside." OK ... so that's not quite as free as we assumed, and it appears to only apply to chickens raised for their meat. But at least they still have some freedom, what with the outside and all that. The Horror: Words have power, and "free range" in its original sense means unfenced and unrestrained. That makes it a powerful phrase that, no matter how smart we are, conjures subconscious images of freedom hens, riding tiny little freedom horses out on the plains, wearing hen-sized cowboy hats and leaving a happy little trail of delicious freedom eggs in their wake. There may be mandolin music.

Although we have it on good authority that chickens prefer Jay-Z. But the reality is there are absolutely no regulations whatsoever for the use of the term "free range" on anything other than chickens raised for their meat. Your Snickers bar could be free range for all the government cares. The industry knows this full well and happily makes us lap up the free range myth, even though in reality a free range hen lives in pretty much the same prison as a battery cage hen -- except its whole life takes place in the prison shower, rather than a cell.

Look, they're free! Awareness of the free range myth is slowly increasing, but although a manufacturer that has been pushing his luck a bit too much does get jailed every once in a while, that doesn't do much to the overall phenomenon. In fact, Europe is set to ban egg production in cage systems come 2012. Guess what the replacement is going to be? Bull#@#$ Health Claims

Nuts that reduce risk of heart disease. Yogurts that improve digestion and keep you from getting sick. Baby food that saves your kid from atopic dermatitis, whatever the hell that may be. Products like that are everywhere these days, and we do have to admit it's hard to see any drawbacks to them. We eat yogurt anyway, so why not make it good for our tummy while we're at it?

"This brand treats syphilis and diabetes." It's just that we can't keep wondering where all these magic groceries suddenly appeared from. One day your peanuts were peanuts, and then, all of a sudden, it was all coronary disease this and reduce heart attack risks that. Maybe Food Science just had a really, really productive field day a while back? Or, of course, it could be that we're being fooled yet again.

Amazon Fresh We don't know if we could handle Mr. Peanut lying to us. The Horror: The vast majority of product health claims use somewhat older technology than most of us realize: the ancient art of bullshitting. The "health effects" of wonder yogurts and most other products with supposed medical-level health benefits can be debunked completely, thoroughly and easily. So why are they able to keep marketing this stuff? It all started in 2002, when many ordinary foods found themselves suddenly gaining surprising, hitherto unseen superpowers. This is when the FDA introduced us to a new category of pre-approved product claims. It was called "qualified health claims," and it was basically just another list of marketing bullshit the company can use if their product meets certain qualifications. This was nothing new. What was new, however, was that the list said no consensus for the scientific evidence for the product's health claims was needed.

"That pepper will keep you hard for hours, and eggplant works in lieu of chemotherapy." Since "no consensus needed" is law-talk for "pay a dude in a lab coat enough to say your product is magic and we'll take his word for it no matter what everyone else says," companies immediately went apestit. Suddenly, everyone had a respected scientist or six in their corner, and the papers they published enabled basically whatever they wanted to use in their marketing and packaging. We're not saying that none of the products boasting health properties work. There are plenty out there, but they're kind of difficult to find

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under the constant stream of bullshit supplementary claims. Come on, food industry -- just tell us the truth. Don't you realize that we'll just eat it anyway? Shit, people still buy cigarettes, don't they?

"There's a doctor who says these can cure my gout."

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The Unsavory Truth of the McRib and Other Fake Foods, and Why Russia Banned US-Raised Meat Over the past couple of years, weve learned the unsavory truth about pink slime,reconstituted meat, and how the use of meat glue cheats you out of your hard-earned money at the grocery store and threatens your health. Weve also learned that fast food fare such as McDonalds hamburgers contain so many chemicals and so few real food ingredients that a burger fails to show signs of decomposition after more than a decade The famous McDonalds McRib also came under closer scrutiny, and turned out to be something less than mouthwatering. The McRib sandwich is a non-standard item on the fast food restaurants menu;1 its annual return is always advertised with great fanfare last year it even made the headlines on ABC News.2 The pork sandwich is described as a tasty fan favorite slathered in tangy barbecue sauce, slivered onions and tart pickles, served on a hoagie style bun. Sounds perfectly normal, but whats it made of, really? In a November 2011 article, CBS Chicago news3 spilled the beans on this seasonal favorite: More than 70 ingredients make up the McRib and, yes, one of them is pork. But as CBS 2s Vince Gerasole reports, theres also an ingredient that can be found in shoes [Registered dietician Cassie] Vanderwall gave the McRib a closer look and found the McRib has azodicarbonamide, which is used to bleach the flour in bread. It has other uses. It could be on your yoga mat, in your gym shoes, in your anything thats rubbery, Vanderwall said Then theres the pork which is really restructured meat product. In other words, its made from all the less expensive innards and castoffs from the pig Vanderwall said the McRib ingredient list reminds me of a chemistry lab. To see pictures of a deconstructed McRib sandwich, check out foodfacts.infos McRib page.4 It sure doesnt look so appetizing anymore once the sauce is washed off and the meat sliced in half. In fact, it can barely pass meat, which was the point CBS news tried to make in the first place. What is Food Anyway? Two years ago, the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicinesingled out McDonalds in their advertisement against obesityrelated deaths. As the ad claimed, obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension and heart attacks are hallmark diseases associated with a fast food diet a clear indication that it does not provide the

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appropriate nutrition for your body. So, is McDonalds fare really food? When you consider the fact that a large number of the ingredients in a fast food meal exist nowhere in nature, but are rather concocted in a lab, the answer would have to be no. Unfortunately, and to our severe detriment, ever since the advent of the so-called TV dinner back in the 1950s, the concept of food has expanded from meat, vegetables, raw dairy products, fruit and other such natural items to include the highly processed, preserved, artificially flavored and often brightly colored chemical concoctions. But man simply was NOT designed to thrive on man-made chemicals. Sadly, store-bought foods you might not recognize as processed, such as ground beef, are oftentimes no better. As reported last year, approximately 70 percent of the ground beef sold in U.S. supermarkets contains pink slime added in as a cheap filler. The Pepto-Bismol-colored concoction consists of beef scraps and cow connective tissues, which has been treated with ammonium hydroxide (basically a solution of ammonia in water). It can legally make up 15 percent of any given beef product, which shaves about three cents off the cost for a pound of ground beef. The trimmings used come from parts of the cow that are most likely to be contaminated with dangerous bacteria like E. coli which is why it must be treated with ammonia to kill off the pathogens in the first place. Its really industrial food practices like this that pose very real threats to your health, not raw unpasteurized dairy products and other non-processed whole foods Russia Throws Poisonous Meat Back to U.S. In related questionable food news, Russia has recently banned U.S. meat supplies after discovering it contains ractopamine a beta agonist drug that increases protein synthesis, thereby making the animal more muscular. This reduces the fat content of the meat. As reported by Pravda,5 Russia is the fourth largest importer of US meats, purchasing about $500 million-worth of beef and pork annually. The drug is banned for use in 160 countries, including China and Russia, but allowed in 24 countries, including Canada and the United States. According to the New York Times,6 the ban took effect as of December 7, 2012, and Russian health regulators stated that while they will initially conduct their own testing, foreign countries will soon be required to certify their meat as ractopamine-free if they want to export it to Russia. While the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) considers ractopamine safe and doesnt test for it, Russias chief health inspector, Gennady Onishchenko, claims there are serious questions about the safety of the drug. He told the New York Times: For instance, use of ractopamine is accompanied by a reduction in body mass, suppression of reproductive function, increase of mastitis in dairy herds, which leads to a steep decline in the quality and safety of milk. Ractopamine is also known to affect the human cardiovascular system, and may cause food poisoning, according to Pravda.7 Its also thought to be responsible for hyperactivity, muscle breakdown, and increased death and disability in livestock. While other drugs require a clearance period of around two weeks to help ensure the compounds are flushed from the meat prior to slaughter (and therefore reduce residues leftover for human consumption), there is no clearance period for

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ractopamine. In fact, livestock growers intentionally use the drug in the last days before slaughter in order to increase its effectiveness. According to veterinarian Michael W. Fox, as much as 20 percent of ractopamine remains in the meat you buy from the supermarket. Despite potential health risks, the drug is used in 45 percent of U.S. pigs, 30 percent of ration-fed cattle, and an unknown percentage of turkeys. Mexico and Brazil have announced that they will comply with Russias demand for ractopamine-free meats.8 The US has shown no sign of coming to an agreement, however. Instead the US has accused Russia of violating World Trade Organization (WTO) rules an accusation Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich has dismissed as being part of business as usual, since all WTO members break these rules. How to Identify REAL Food There are major incentives to center your diet on real foods as opposed to food-like products, the primary one being that real food is essential for optimal health. Real foods also taste delicious, and when bought from sustainable sources help to protect the environment. But with all the sneaky tricks being employed, how can you tell the difference? Heres a listing of the characteristics and traits of real food versus processed food products. Real Food Processed Food-Like Products Its grown, and sold Produced, manufactured in a factory, and sold in whole neat, convenient packages Variable quality Always the same (no quality or taste variance) Spoils fast Stays fresh for extended periods of time Requires preparation No preparation required, just heat and serve Vibrant colors and rich Contains fillers, additives and preservatives to textures make otherwise dull and bland mixtures appetizing Authentically flavorful Artificially flavorful Strong connection to No connection to land or culture land and culture Shopping Guidelines for Real, Health-Promoting Food As the U.S. agriculture industry now stands, antibiotics, pesticides, genetically engineered ingredients, hormones and countless drugs are fair game for inclusion in your food. So if you purchase your food from a typical supermarket, youre taking the chance that your food is teeming with chemicals and drugs even those that have been banned in other countries due to adverse health effects. So please do your health a favor and support the small family farms in your area. Youll receive nutritious food from a source that you can trust, and youll be supporting the honest work of a real family farm. It all boils down to this: if you want to optimize your health, you must return to the basics of healthy food choices. Put your focus on WHOLE foods foods that have not been processed or altered from their original state food that has been grown or raised as nature intended, without the use of chemical additives, drugs, hormones, pesticides, fertilizers, and mystery concoctions of discarded scrap parts. Its really as simple as that! And its not nearly as daunting a task as it may seem to find a local farmer that can supply your family with healthy, humanely raised animal products and produce. At LocalHarvest.org, for instance, you can enter

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your zip code and find farmers markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area, all with the click of a button. Once you make the switch from supermarket to local farmer, the choice will seem natural, and you can have peace of mind that the food youre feeding your family is naturally wholesome. That said, regardless of where you do your grocery shopping, these are the signs of high-quality, health-promoting foods you want to look for: 1. Its grown without pesticides and chemical fertilizers (organic foods fit this description, but so do some non-organic foods) 2. Its not genetically modified 3. It contains no added growth hormones, antibiotics, or other drugs 4. It does not contain any artificial ingredients, including chemical preservatives 5. It is fresh (keep in mind that if you have to choose between wilted organic produce or fresh conventional produce, the latter may actually be the better option) 6. It did not come from a factory farm 7. It is grown with the laws of nature in mind (meaning animals are fed their native diets, not a mix of grains and animal byproducts, and have free-range access to the outdoors) 8. It is grown in a sustainable way (using minimal amounts of water, protecting the soil from burnout, and turning animal wastes into natural fertilizers instead of environmental pollutants) If the food meets these criteria, it is most likely a wise choice, and would fall under the designation of real food. Keep in mind that reclaiming your kitchen is part and parcel of healthful living, so you know exactly what youre putting in your body. If you need help to get started, see Colleen Hubers helpful tips on how to eat healthier organic food on a budget. And if youre hooked on fast food and other processed foods, please review my article How to Wean Yourself Off Processed Foods in 7 Steps. Its one of the absolute most positive life changes you could make!

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Glazed and Confused... It's Time To Wake Up And Smell The Coffee Dollars to doughnuts, if you live in the U.S.A., some of your hard-earned dollars are likely being spent on this soulless treat. In 2011, Americans who rank among the lowest of industrialized nations in terms of life expectancy spent approximately $130 billion on fast food; this figure is projected to skyrocket for 2012. And doughnuts aren't the only problem. The list of terrible things we mindlessly ingest in the name of nourishment is long. But just what are these dietary culprits comprised of? What makes them so toxic? And, most importantly, what are they doing to us? The purpose of this article is not to frighten people into eradicating all processed foods from their diets, but simply to shed light on some of the dangerous ingredients we may be unknowingly ingesting, and the way in which we might be depriving ourselves of the most basic nutritional fundamentals. Processed, Junk, and Fake Foods Processed food is made from real food that has been put through devitalizing chemical processes and is infused with chemicals and preservatives. Beef jerky, canned tea, jam, hot dogs, and low-fat yogurt with sugar or aspartame are a few examples of processed food. Junk foods contain very little real food. They're made of devitalized processed food, hydrogenated fats, chemicals, and preservatives, and include anything made with refined white flour. Canned breakfast drinks, cold/sugary cereals, doughnuts, drive-through foods, and soda are examples of junk foods. Fake foods are made primarily of chemicals, and often contain gums and sugar fillers. Examples include bacon bits, bottled salad dressing, dehydrated soups, and instant coffee. Energy Output > Exceeds Nutritional Input These non-foods have one thing in common; it costs your body a great deal more to digest, absorb, and eliminate them than they offer your body in nutritional value an extremely poor return on your investment that leaves your body sluggish and depleted. Toxins, Poisons, Processed Food, And The Body Our ancestors preserved foods naturally, using salt, fermentation, and sun drying. Food processing has evolved away from these simple practices into more complicated and dubious methods. Today, nearly six thousand additives and chemicals are used by food companies to process our food. Many of them can have a devastating effect on our health. It is important to note the fact that additives and preservatives cannot always be painted with a negative brush. The addition of vitamins to bread and milk has helped to stamp out diseases such as pellagra and rickets. Unfortunately, the good intentions that characterized the processed

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food industry during the early days have now de-evolved to finding ways to cheaply process food and manipulate buyers, regardless of the detrimental affects on the health of Americans. Today, many additives and preservatives are harmful toxic chemicals as problematic as the decay they are used to prevent. Preservatives Preservatives are a type of additive used to help stop food from spoiling. Nitrates and nitrites are used to preserve meats such as ham and bacon, but are known to cause asthma, nausea, vomiting, and headaches in some people. In addition to allergic reactions, the same is true for sulfites (sulfur dioxide, metabisulfites, and others), which are commonly used to prevent fungal spoilage, as well as the browning of peeled fruits and vegetables. Sodium nitrite in some foods is capable of being converted to nitrous acid when ingested by humans. While animal testing showed that nitrous acid caused high rates of cancer, it is still in use. Benzoic acid aka sodium benzoate is added to margarine, fruit juices, and carbonated beverages. It can produce severe allergic reaction and even death in some people. Sulfur dioxide is a toxin used in dried fruits and molasses as well as to prevent brown spots on peeled fresh foods such as potatoes and apples. Sulfur dioxide bleaches out rot, hiding inferior fruits and vegetables. In the process, itdestroys the vitamin B contained in produce. Antioxidants While antioxidants such as alpha-carotene are recommended by health specialists to prevent premature aging, some of the antioxidants used as food preservatives may be unhealthy. Contained in nearly every processed food on the market, antioxidants prevent fatty foods from spoiling when exposed to oxygen. BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) and BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) are two of the most widely used, yet controversial of all antioxidants. So alarming were the results of BHT and BHA in animal testing, that a number of countries have severely restricted their use. Some people have difficulty metabolizing these chemicals, which is thought to result in health and behavioral problems, and hyperactivity. They cause allergic reactions, may also contribute to the development of tumors and cancer, as well as be toxic to the nervous system and liver. In spite of these findings, the use of BHT and BHA has increased, rather than decreased, in the U.S.A. Coloring Each year, the American food industry uses three thousand tons of food color. Many coloring agents are derived from coal tar, and nearly all coloring is synthetic. Norway has a total ban on all products containing coal tar.

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Though some artificial food dyes have been banned because they are believed to cause cancer, most dyes used today are of the artificial variety. They are also linked to allergies, asthmas, and hyperactivity. The long list of foods and beverages in which color is altered includes butter, margarine, the skins of oranges and potatoes, popcorn, maraschino cherries, hot dogs, jellies, jellybeans, carbonated beverages, and canned strawberries and peas. Even the chicken feed on large-scale egg farms is colored so that chickens will lay golden-yolked eggs similar to those laid by freerange chickens. Talk about the goose that laid the golden egg! Sweeteners Most processed foods contain sweeteners, many of which are artificial sugar substitutes containing no natural sugars, such as saccharine and aspartame. Artificial sweeteners are linked to behavioral problems, hyperactivity, and allergies. Because saccharin was shown to increase the incidence of bladder cancer in animal testing, all foods containing this sugar substitute are required to carry a warning label. Emulsifiers, Stabilizers, and Thickeners These additives alter the texture of foods. Emulsifiers, for example, prevent ingredients from separating into unappealing globs in food such as mayonnaise and ice cream. A first cousin to anti-freeze, propylene glycol is a synthetic solvent used as an emulsifier in foods. Although it is recognized as toxic to the skin and other senses, and is considered a neurological toxicant, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has deemed it generally recognized as safe (GRAS). Flavorings The most common food 2000 in use may be of a large number of strawberry flavoring shake.

additive, flavorings of which there are over natural or artificial, and are usually comprised chemicals. Peruse the ingredient list for the in one popular fast food outlet's strawberry milk

Artificial flavors are linked to allergic and behavioral reactions, yet these ingredients are not required to be listed in detail as they're generally recognized as safe. MSG (monosodium glutamate) is another popular flavor enhancer. Found to cause damage in laboratory mice, it has been banned from use in baby foods, but is still used in numerous others. It causes common allergic and behavioral reactions including headaches, dizziness, chest pains, depression, and mood swings, and is also a possible neurotoxin. Refining Refined flour has had the brown husk of the grain stripped away, leaving the white, refined starch found in white bread, white rice, pasta, cookies, and numerous other junk foods.

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Without the fibrous husk, refined starches are broken down quickly into sugar and absorbed immediately into the bloodstream causing glucose levels to rise, and increasing the risk of obesity. In contrast, whole grains such as whole grain bread and cereals, brown rice, and barley retain the bran surrounding the starch, so they're absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream than refined starches. This slows sugar absorption from the intestine, and reduces the risk of obesity. Refining Destroys and Devitalizes Most of Foods' Goodness: Healthy unsaturated fatty acids high in food value are lost during the milling process. Half the vitamin E is destroyed when the wheat germ and bran are removed. Refining wheat into white flour removes between 50 and 93 percent of wheat's magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese, and cobalt.2 Additionally, approximately 50 percent of calcium, 70 percent of phosphorus, 80 percent iron, 50 percent potassium, 65 percent of copper, 80 percent thiamin, 60 percent of riboflavin, 75 percent of niacin, 50 percent of pantothenic acid, and about 50 percent of pyridoxine is lost.3 Refining sugar cane into white sugar depletes it of 99 percent of its magnesium and 93 percent of its chromium. Polishing rice removes 75 percent of its zinc and chromium.4 Refined table salt has had most of the trace minerals removed during processing. It contains no sodium chloride, sugar as filler, and may even contain aluminum.5 Bleaching Part of the process wheat undergoes to become the white flour in popular baked goods involves bleaching. Various chemical bleaching agents are used including oxide of nitrogen, chlorine, chloride, nitrosyl, and benzoyl peroxidemixed with a variety of chemical salts. Chloride oxide which catalyzes a chemical reaction that destroys beta cells in the pancreas is now being linked to diabetes.6 This toxic effect is common scientific knowledge in the research community. In spite of this, the FDA still allows companies to use chloride oxide in processed food. For more about processed foods, read on. A Healthier Lifestyle Eradicating every guilty pleasure in life is not the end goal here, nor is it a particularly realistic approach to making changes...we all enjoy the occasional cheeseburger, order of fries, or bag of chips. But if we understand the consequences of making what ought to be an occasional treat into the mainstay of our diet, we can begin to make wise choices about how many of these things we are willing to eat. When it comes to avoiding many of the questionable and possibly deadly additives contained in processed foods, we're only human after all, so taking baby steps toward change is usually the best approach. If you can accomplish just one of these 10 steps, you're moving in the right direction. Try implementing one change a month... 1. As a general rule, if you don't recognize or can't pronounce the words on a label, don't buy it, or eat it. Opt instead for the real thing!

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2. Avoid products containing Nitrates and nitrites (including sodium nitrite) Sulfites (including metabisulfites) Sulfur dioxide Benzoic acid (aka sodium benzoate) BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) Coloring Coal tar Propylene glycol MSG (monosodium glutamate) Refined or bleached flour (i.e. whitened using chloride oxide) 3. Don't eat partially hydrogenated or hydrogenated trans fats 4. Don't eat products containing sugar substitutes such as saccharine and aspartame. 5. Avoid products with a long shelf life the better they do on the shelf, the worse they are for your body. 6. Avoid products that have been enriched. They have been completely devitalized during processing. 7. Avoid food that has been genetically modified or engineered. Nearly all processed food contains GMOs. 8. Avoid products made with ingredients euphemistically described as "natural flavoring" or "natural coloring." 9. Avoid products with added sugar watch for words with "-ose" endings such as glucose. 10. Incorporate a multi-vitamin into your health regimen. If you've had a history of eating products high in sugar and are concerned about diabetes, incorporate disease-fighting products such as garlic, vitamin E, and aloe vera into your diet. Vitamin E supplements can also protect your body from the harmful effects of eating refined products that have been bleached with chloride oxide. Learn more FACTS about processed foods. As you begin to eliminate processed food from your diet, and start to enjoy eating real food that has not been processed to death, you will be on your way to optimizing your health, making an investment in your body's future and, ultimately, feeling better.

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Whole Food Plant Based Diet

Our country has increasing amounts of environmental pollutants (chemicals and heavy metals). We have shrinking quality of food in standard grocery stores and processed food served in restaurants. The following tips are general things to do and eat which will help you stay healthier and live longer. All food should be 100% organic, natural and whole. Shop at stores that sell organic natural whole foods and read the food labels UP code: 9000 is organic; 8000 is genetically modified food Studies show that a plant based diet rich in organically grown fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts and seeds is the most effective diet for maintaining health Drink spring water or reverse osmosis water (8 glasses per day) Eat breakfast (even if it is small) Eat several small meals per day rather than one large meal Finish dinner three hours before bed Avoid your delayed IgG food allergies (if you have not had these tested, get the lab test done in clinic) Eat organic salads with lunch and dinner *Eat only small amounts of organic meat and dairy (or none at all) *Eat only small amounts of organic range fed poultry and their eggs (or none at all) **Healthy people around the world eat less than 10% of their diet from animal protein. The healthiest are vegan (no food derived from animals). Use only small amounts of organic cold, expeller pressed oils (organic extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil) Use natural sweeteners: molasses, agave, etc. The 8 Vegan Food Groups: to be eaten in quantities with beans first and nuts & seeds last. beans rice potatoes & yams corn vegetables salad

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fruit nuts & seeds Sometimes, what you dont do is more important than what you do. Avoid refined flour and sugar products Limit alcohol and caffeine Avoid trans fats, hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated oils Avoid high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose or malto dextrose Avoid artificial sweeteners, NutrSweet, Splenda, aspartame, sucrolos, saccrin Avoid monosodium glutamate (MSG) Avoid nitrites (found in processed meats and bacon) Limit animal based food to 10% or less of your intake (animals have the highest concentration of environmental toxicants) Avoid meats containing herbicides, hormones or antibiotics Avoid meat and other food sold in Styrofoam trays and plates Avoid farm-raised fish Avoid microwaving Avoid carbonated drinks or diet drinks (Limit club soda) Avoid fast foods, processed foods, foods with additives and preservatives Avoid genetically modified food Avoid lotions, creams, or cosmetics containing parabens Minimize use of air conditioning Avoid fluorescence lights (unless they are full spectrum) Drug use is at its highest in the United States. We are experiencing more poor health and chronic disease than ever. Drugs: all non-prescription, over-the-counter and prescription drugs and medication have side effects (even aspirin) and lead to secondary illness and to weight gain See: http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/fat_sick_and_nearly_dead_2010/ Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

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