Ignorance is Bliss- or Is It? The Art of Reading Ingredients

What yummy all-American treat do the following ingredients produce when mixed together?

amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenyl-2-butanone (10 percent solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent.

Scared to know? I was too.

These my friends, are the ingredients to the Strawberry Flavoring of a typical fast food restaurant Strawberry Milkshake. Hmmmm....I wonder what the "milk" is made of.

This is precisely why it is so important that we begin thinking about what exactly is in the foods we eat. We shouldn't all assume that companies producing our favorite yummy snack foods are benevolent in their efforts and really do care if we are healthy. Because actually-- they don't care. The sad truth is that great majority of our food culture is much more about the almighty dollar and the cultural need for convenience, than it is about the overall health and well-being of a people. And this has had serious, serious consequences.

So as to not overwhelm, once again we are all about baby steps in our path to wellness. It's about finding that next step each one of us can take to find a better place for our bodies, and ultimately our minds and spirits as well. One small thing we could begin doing today is to just start being curious about what exactly is in our food. It's not about changing it- that comes later. BUT just finding a bit of curiosity is a great place to begin.

Here is a list to start in your ingredient reading endeavors. It is not exhaustive by any means, but will absolutely get you on your way.

What to Watch Out For:

1. If you can't pronounce it -don't eat it. I have a somewhat silly little rule that if an ingredient has so many syllables that only an engineer or bio-physicist would understand it- I don't think I should be eating it. If you could only have one rule about what not to eat, this is it. So if you can't pronounce it or doesn't seem like a word that makes sense in the context of something edible, perhaps you can begin to say...."hmmmm...what the heck is that?"

2. Just because it says "Natural" on the box- doesn't mean it is. Seeing "Natural" written on the box does NOT let you off the hook for reading ingredients. Depending on the brand of food - those words can very deceiving. "All Natural" can still contain genetically modified foods & irradiated foods. Not much you can do about finding out whether those foods contain things like that- as labeling in the country is not mandated, but it does tell you that you can't always judge a book by its cover, or a food by its packaging. Bottom line: read the ingredients on everything, no matter how natural it seems, it will be an education of sorts. At the very least, it will begin to give you perspective when comparing different foods. "All Natural" only means that the ingredients at some point originated in something nature-like. How they get from there to your table however, is an entirely different story.
**Keep in mind that "Organic" has some of the same problems as "Natural" as it can mean a wide variety of things, not all of them good. However, for a company to claim "Organic" there are somewhat stricter rules than "Natural", so it is in most cases it's least a step up.

3. Avoid any foods with hydrogenated oils and transfats. Hydrogenated oils (or partially-hydrogenated oils) are trans fats. Trans fats are very very bad. The FDA now recommends that no one ever get any trans fats ever. To give you some perspective here, the FDA doesn't make that recommendation about anything- not aluminum, not mercury, not anything. What does this tell you? We all know the devastating effects that aluminum and mercury can have on our bodies, so trans fats must be really bad.

So when looking at ingredients on the packaged foods- be sure to ignore the big bright posting on the front of the box that says "ZERO Grams of Trans Fat" because that doesn't mean very much. The food companies are allowed to advertise as having no trans fats as long as per serving there is less than 1 gram. This is a problem and intentionally deceiving, and in my book good cause to take away someone's good karma points.

So what is wrong with hydrogenated oils you ask? This is a good question - and enough information for another posting entirely. Here is a link to some information that can set you straight on why not to eat them:

Everything you need to know about hydrogenated oils.

4. Cottonseed oil is in Saltines, is a byproduct of where your shirt came from, and not regulated for food consumption. This should really be the end of the discussion. Don't eat foods with cottonseed oil (double whammy when its partially-hydrogenated cottonseed oil). The companies that use this in their products are just plain cheap, and should have to eat only this for the rest of their lives & see how they like it. But seriously folks, the problem with cotton seed oil not being regulated for food consumption is that the amount of pesticides & fungicides used on the crop can be outrageous. Cotton has the additional disadvantage of having many natural predators - thus needing even more chemicals to keep a crop from going bad.

5. High fructose corn syrup is in EVERYTHING, and should never be ingested. High fructose corn syrup has no nutritional value what-so-ever, and can cause serious harm to your body. Please see my previous posts on The Do's and Don'ts of sugar for more information.

Sugar Information and Alternatives

6. Natural Flavors and Artifical Flavors are the same thing. Only slightly different. Artificial flavors and natural flavors are all made in the same laboratory as perfumes, on a remote stretch of highway in New Jersey. The difference between the artificial and natural flavorings is that at one distant point in history the natural flavor's ingredients all came from something that came from the earth. But again, how it got to be in its final state of natural flavors - is something else entirely. And yet one more massive deception by the food technologists (or as they are officially known "flavorists") of America. Bottom line- don't eat them if you can help it. I highly recommend the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Shlosser to read more about this. Here is an excerpt I found from his book - pay close attention to paragraph's 8 and on.

** This will be a hard rule to start with - as half of everything in Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and other "natural" food distributors have natural flavors. Be ware: read ingredients.

7. Avoid foods with artificial colors. This is great general rule that really just falls under the "if it doesn't sound like something you should eat- then you probably shouldn't" rule. However, there are some specific colors that have been linked to some serious diseases including cancer and thyroid problems. The ones that should absolutely be avoided are FD&C Red #3 & FD&C Yellow #5. Other highly suspect colors are FD&C Red #4 & FD&C Yellow #6. My suggestion however is instead of memorizing a bunch of toxic color numbers, just avoid them all. I personally don't think the Kool-Aid is worth it, but hey that's just me.

Remember, if it seems like reading ingredients is going to mean that you will have to suddenly change everything you have ever eaten, I can understand why you wouldn't want to start this process. So don't think like that. Just know its ok to be curious, to begin just wondering what might be in there. It definitely does not mean that a complete overhaul is necessary-- right now. Begin with something small like- switching from frozen peas with natural flavors to frozen peas without natural flavors. Peas that are just peas are readily available and still taste like peas. And asking the question "why do those peas not taste enough like peas that we have to add flavor" is really good.

Good luck - and baby steps are the only way to a truer path of wellness for most of us & I commend you for your courage.