My nutritional philosophy is, “If it has a label, don’t eat it.”

That said, I realize that’s not always realistic for all of us all of the time. We like to have convenience foods to help us deal with our time crunches, and that’s OK. But I recommend that you read the labels. Choose packaged foods made with real-food ingredients over those with factory-created components.

Be a smart consumer and look for things that are going to help your body thrive. When you pick something up, ask yourself the question: “Is this something my great grandmother would have eaten?” If the answer is “no,” you should probably put it back. Things like frozen blueberries or canned black beans can still be good for you, as long as they don’t contain a bunch of unhealthy and unnecessary ingredients.

STOCKING A HEALTHY PANTRY

Now that you know what to avoid, go to your cabinets, refrigerator, and freezer and toss out any foods that contain the ingredients on the avoid list.

Here’s a list of foods that you can replace in your pantry with healthier foods.

· Refined White Sugar – replace with stevia, agave nectar, honey, brown rice syrup, or Rapadura Whole Cane Organic Unrefined Sugar

· Margarine – replace with organic real butter

· Table Salt – replace with natural Celtic Sea Salt

· Skippy, Jif or other Peanut Butter – replace with natural peanut butter with only two ingredients: peanuts and salt.

· Canned veggies/fruit – eat fresh fruits and veggies

· Soft drinks – good clean water, sparkling water, herbal teas

· Pasta – replace with brown rice pasta, quinoa pasta, or whole wheat pasta if your not sensitive to gluten or wheat.

· White Flour – replace with 100% whole wheat flour, or whole wheat pastry flour or other non-gluten flours.

· White Bread – replace with a good 100% whole grain bread. The ingredient list should be short with only a few ingredients such as whole wheat flour, yeast, honey, salt.

· Crackers – replace with whole grain crackers – try Ak-Mak, Mary’s Gone Crackers, or Back to Nature Harvest Whole Wheats

· Breakfast Cereals – Go with a whole grain one, look for short ingredient lists.

Written by Dee McCaffrey, CDC

Restaurants that refill your cup every time you empty it might not be offering you such a great deal after all — not when you count the calories that you consume from the beverage bonanza. For instance, each large glass of commercial iced tea contains about 180 calories. One refill brings you to 360 calories — more than six oreo cookies.

It’s easy to ignore the calories in drinks for the simple reason that drinks tend not to fill you up. One reason so many diets fail may be that dieters don’t restrict the liquid calories they consume. Although sugary and alcoholic drinks can make you fat, they don’t necessarily make you feel sated, so you just keep drinking while eating, taking in almost as many liquid calories as you do calories from food.

In fact, studies show that while food calories “register” in the brain, limiting the amount of food you desire, liquid calories somehow don’t register. As you eat solid food, nerves in the stomach and intestine release regulators that tell the brain you’re full, while hunger hormones (called ghrelin) become suppressed. But liquids move more quickly through the digestive system and fail to trigger the same signals.

“When the number and type of calories are the same, the calories in liquid form won’t suppress ghrelin as effectively as if the same calories were in solid form,” explains Dr. David E. Cummings of the University of Washington.

As I’ve written before, overall caloric consumption has been steadily increasing over the past three decades, with a concomitant increase in obesity rates. By 2003, the average person consumed 523 more calories on a daily basis than the average person consumed in 1970 — and beverages account for about half of those added calories! Consider that drink portion sizes have increased from an average of 13 ounces to 20 ounces. Look at the explosion of high-calorie sweet drinks — especially coffee drinks — the lattes and cappuccinos that so many of us unthinkingly down daily. Consider all the sports drinks and flavored vitamin waters that seem so innocent — but that add plenty of calories and not much else. (The Center for Science in the Public Interest has a current suit filed against Coca Cola for making “unsubstantiated and deceptive” advertising claims that Vitamin Water offers health benefits.) Think about the fact that red wine has become standard daily fare in many households that eschewed wine a few decades ago. It’s not just about soda anymore.

When people drink more, they usually don’t compensate by moderating the amount of food they eat, according to a 2007 study. The study found that when served an 18-ounce drink, subjects drank more than when served 12 ounces — in other words, they drank what was given to them no matter the size and no matter what type of drink it was — and they ate the same amount of food no matter the calorie-count or volume of their beverage. Similarly, the Harvard Nurses’ Study of 50,000 women found that when subjects drank one sugar-sweetened beverage per day, they didn’t regulate their food intake to compensate, but rather, consumed an average of 358 extra calories daily and gained a significant amount of weight.

Here are some calorie facts about popular drinks:

A bottle of vitamin-water contains 125 calories
An 8-oz glass of red wine has 170 calories
A 16-oz café latte has 260 calories
A 12 oz fruit smoothie has 300 calories
A Starbucks frappuccino contains 470 calories.

Of course, not all liquid calories are created equal. Some drinks, particularly sodas and sports drinks, add not only calories, but typically also deliver nasty amounts of sugar, sodium, high-fructose corn syrup, artificial colorings and preservatives, pesticides (a 2008 study in the UK found that soft drinks contained 300 times the level of pesticides allowed in tap water), phosphoric acid, chemical additives such as benzene (known to cause leukemia), and caffeine. The cumulative effect of drinking such beverages extends far beyond expanding the waistline — soft drinks expedite the development of diabetes, cancer, osteoporosis, hypertension, kidney disease, and so on.

While diet sodas may look like a better deal with their zero-calorie offerings, the dangerous artificial sweeteners they contain have been linked to a host of malignant conditions including breast cancer, lymphoma, shrunken thymus glands, enlarged liver and kidneys, miscarriages, Parkinson’s, fibromyalgia, lupus, seizures, memory loss, and tremors. They offer you nothing nutritionally, plus, as I’ve written before, they ultimately make you fatter than their sugared counterparts, in spite of the lack of calories.

Fruit and vegetable juices, on the other hand, contain over 100 calories a glass, but if they’re freshly squeezed and organic, they’re a boon to your health, a marvelous way to get nutritious calories. And fruit smoothies, while laden with calories, fill you up because of their thickness, so they don’t necessarily have the same fattening effect as, for instance, a mocha latte or even a glass of lemonade made from concentrate (with a startling 791 calories per 12-oz glass). A smoothie can be a satisfying lunch, but not so much a glass of lemonade.

Ultimately, it’s best not to drink with meals at all since excessive liquids dilute your digestive juices and enzymes. But when drinking between meals for hydration, pure water is best — especially if you’re watching your weight. The point is that it pays to remain aware of what you drink and in what quantity you drink it if you want to remain svelte and healthy. Keep in mind it only takes 12 extra calories a day to add one pound a year — a frightening concept if you’re having a 470-calorie frappucino every day.

Jon Barron

Sources:
Squidoo January 23, 2009

Sources:
Advertising Age January 15, 2009

Fresh lemon grass fields in Israel become Mecca for cancer patients
By Allison Kaplan Sommer April 02, 2006

A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube.

Israeli researchers find way to make cancer cells self-destruct
-Ben Gurion University

At first, Benny Zabidov, an Israeli agriculturalist who grows greenhouses full of lush spices on a pastoral farm in Kfar Yedidya in the Sharon region, couldn’t understand why so many cancer patients from around the country were showing up on his doorstep asking for fresh lemon grass. It turned out that their doctors had sent them. ‘They had been told to drink eight glasses of hot water with fresh lemon grass steeped in it on the days that they went for their radiation and chemotherapy treatments,’ Zabidov told ISRAEL21c. ‘And this is the place you go to in Israel for fresh lemon grass.’

It all began when researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev discovered last year that the lemon aroma in herbs like lemon grass kills cancer cells in vitro, while leaving healthy cells unharmed. The research team was led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof. Yakov Weinstein, incumbent of the Albert Katz Chair in Cell-Differentiation and Malignant Diseases, from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at BGU.

Citral is the key component that gives the lemony aroma and taste in several herbal plants such as lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus), melissa (Melissa officinalis) and verbena (Verbena officinalis.)

According to Ofir, the study found that citral causes cancer cells to ‘commit suicide: using apoptosis, a mechanism called programmed cell death.’ A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt the cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube.

The BGU investigators checked the influence of the citral on cancerous cells by adding them to both cancerous cells and normal cells that were grown in a petri dish. The quantity added in the concentrate was equivalent to the amount contained in a cup of regular tea using one gram of lemon herbs in hot water. While the citral killed the cancerous cells, the normal cells remained unharmed.

The findings were published in the scientific journal Planta Medica, which highlights research on alternative and herbal remedies. Shortly afterwards, the discovery was featured in the popular Israeli press.

Why does it work? Nobody knows for certain, but the BGU scientists have a theory. ‘In each cell in our body, there is a genetic program which causes programmed cell death. When something goes wrong, the cells divide with no control and become cancer cells. In normal cells, when the cell discovers that the control system is not operating correctly – for example, when it recognizes that a cell contains faulty genetic material following cell division – it triggers cell death,’ explains Weinstein. ‘This research may explain the medical benefit of these herbs.’

The success of their research led them to the conclusion that herbs containing citral may be consumed as a preventative measure against certain cancerous cells. As they learned of the BGU findings in the press, many physicians in Israel began to believe that while the research certainly needed to be explored further, in the meantime it would be advisable for their patients, who were looking for any possible tool to fight their condition, to try to harness the cancer-destroying properties of citral.

That’s why Zabidov’s farm – the only major grower of fresh lemon grass in Israel – has become a pilgrimage destination for these patients. Luckily, they found themselves in sympathetic hands. Zabidov greets visitors with a large kettle of aromatic lemon grass tea, a plate of cookies, and a supportive attitude. ‘My father died of cancer, and my wife’s sister died young because of cancer,’ said Zabidov. ‘So I understand what they are dealing with. And I may not know anything about medicine, but I’m a good listener. And so they tell me about their expensive painful treatments and what they’ve been through. I would never tell them to stop being treated, but it’s great that they are exploring alternatives and drinking the lemon grass tea as well.’

Zabidov knew from a young age that agriculture was his calling. At age 14, he enrolled in the Kfar Hayarok Agricultural high school. After his army service, he joined an idealistic group which headed south, in the Arava desert region, to found a new moshav (agricultural settlement) called Tsofar. ‘We were very successful; we raised fruits and vegetables, and,’ he notes with a smile, ‘We raised some very nice children.’

On a trip to Europe in the mid-80s, he began to become interested in herbs. Israel, at the time, was nothing like the trend-conscious cuisine-oriented country it is today, and the only spices being grown commercially were basics like parsley, dill, and coriander. Wandering in the Paris market, looking at the variety of herbs and spices, Zabidov realized that there was a great export potential in this niche. He brought samples back home with him, ‘which was technically illegal,’ he says with a guilty smile, to see how they would grow in his desert greenhouses. Soon, he was growing basil, oregano, tarragon, chives, sage, marjoram and melissa, and mint just to name a few.

His business began to outgrow his desert facilities, and so he decided to move north, settling in the moshav of Kfar Yedidya, an hour and a half north of Tel Aviv. He is now selling ’several hundred kilos’ of lemon grass per week, and has signed with a distributor to package and put it in health food stores. Zabidov has taken it upon himself to learn more about the properties of citral, and help his customers learn more, and has invited medical experts to his farm to give lectures about how the citral works and why.

He also felt a responsibility to know what to tell his customers about its use. ‘When I realized what was happening, I picked up the phone and called Dr. Weinstein at Ben-Gurion University, because these people were asking me exactly the best way to consume the citral. He said to put the loose grass in hot water, and drink about eight glasses each day.’

Zabidov is pleased by the findings, not simply because it means business for his farm, but because it might influence his own health. Even before the news of its benefits were demonstrated, he and his family had been drinking lemon grass in hot water for years, ‘just because it tastes good.’

So by now you’ve heard that drinking bottled water is harmful because of the very real potential to leach the chemicals from the plastic into the water. Now we are reminded again that you should be very wary of buying and drinking bottled water since the industry is largely very unregulated. When you are buying bottled water at least make sure it is stated on the bottle that it has been through a RO system or distilled or ran through a ionic system. Read more about what chemicals you can find in your bottled waters…

Bottled water contains disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue and pain medication

Bottles water quality investigation: 10 major brands, 38 polutants: EWG’s guide to safe drinking water

Walmart water exceeds safety limits

Studies have linked pesticides to an astounding array of health problems including:

*     Cancer
*     Fertility problems
*     Brain tumors
*     Childhood leukemia
*     Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma
*     Birth defects
*     Irritation to skin and eyes
*     Hormone or endocrine system problems
*     Nervous system damage

Those especially at risk from pesticides are children, whose bodies are still developing, along with pregnant women, whose unborn children are extremely susceptible to damage from these toxic chemicals.

Even low levels of pesticides, consumed over time, can be problematic. A study in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, for instance, found that people who had been exposed to low levels of pesticides were 1.13 times as likely to have Parkinson’s disease as those who had never been exposed.

And if you eat produce, there’s a good chance you’re being exposed. According to Hazardous Pesticides in the European Parliament, released October 2007, the eight food samples they tested, which ranged from oranges to strawberries to grapes, contained 28 different pesticide residues, with an average of almost five per fruit.

The pesticides included:

*      10 known carcinogens
*      3 neurotoxins
*      3 reproductive or developmental toxins
*      8 suspected endocrine disrupters
*      2 contaminants classified as “Highly Hazardous” by the World Health Organization

Three of the eight food samples contained pesticide residues so high they were technically illegal to sell, and the oranges contained illegally high levels of imazalil, a carcinogen. By eating just one orange, a 5-year-old would receive 70 percent of the “Acute Reference Dose” for that chemical.

Fortunately, the amount of pesticides you consume is something you can take control of.

How Can You Stop Consuming Pesticides?

There are numerous ways to make sure that the food you and your family depend on is as pesticide- and herbicide-free as possible. The top tips include:

1.      Choose organic produce and animal products (dairy, eggs, meat). By definition, organic producers must “abstain from the application of prohibited materials (including synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and sewage sludge) for 3 years prior to certification and then continually throughout their organic license.”
2.      Wash your produce thoroughly using a high-quality veggie wash. Contrary to popular belief, simply washing with water and peeling fruit and vegetables is not enough to protect yourself and your family from pesticides. It will reduce the levels somewhat, but it will not eliminate them.
3.      If you can’t buy organic, choose the least contaminated produce. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a not-for-profit environmental research organization, by avoiding the most-contaminated produce out there, and concentrating on the least contaminated instead, you can reduce your exposure to pesticides by almost 90 percent. (click here for a list of the 20 most contaminated and 20 least contaminated pesticides.)
4.      Choose organic varieties of other foods as well. Pesticide use usually centers on produce, but some studies have found wine, bread, wheat and flour products (such as pasta, pizza, cookies, cereal, and more) to contain high levels of pesticides as well.
5.      Make sure your water is pesticide-free. DEET, a chemical found in insect repellants, has been found in some drinking water supplies. The U.S. government doesn’t have standards for DEET in your water, so to find out if your water is safe you can have it independently tested to find out what, if any, contaminants exist.

Once you implement these tips, you may be wondering, will it really make an impact? According to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives, yes!

When kids switched from conventional food to organic food, their levels of pesticides became undetectable within eight to 36 hours.

“Once you switch from conventional food to organic, the pesticides (malathion and chlorpyrifos) that we can measure in the urine disappears. The level returns immediately when you go back to the conventional diets,” said Chensheng Lu, the lead author of the study and a professor at Emory University’s School of Public Health.

The 20 Fruits and Veggies With the MOST Pesticides

These are the ones that you should always buy organic, if possible. If you do buy conventional versions of the following produce, please be sure to wash them thoroughly (organic produce, of course, should also be washed just in case). These are ranked in order by EWG, with the worst of the bunch, peaches, at #1.

1. Peaches
2. Apples
3. Sweet Bell Peppers
4. Celery
5. Nectarines
6. Strawberries
7. Cherries
8. Pears
9. Grapes (Imported)
10. Spinach
11. Lettuce
12. Potatoes
13. Carrots
14. Green Beans
15. Hot Peppers
16. Cucumbers
17. Raspberries
18. Plums
19. Grapes (Domestic)
20. Oranges

The 20 Fruits and Veggies With the LEAST Amount of Pesticides

According to EWG, the following produce has the lowest pesticide load, ranked in order with the produce with the absolute lowest pesticides first.

1. Onion
2. Avocado
3. Sweet corn (Frozen)
4. Pineapples
5. Mango
6. Asparagus
7. Sweet peas (Frozen)
8. Kiwi
9. Bananas
10. Cabbage
11. Broccoli
12. Papaya
13. Blueberries
14. Cauliflower
15. Winter Squash
16. Watermelon
17. Sweet potatoes
18. Tomatoes
19. Honeydew melon
20. Cantaloupe

Just one can of the popular stimulant energy drink Red Bull can increase your risk of heart attack or stroke. The effect was seen even in young people.

The caffeine-loaded beverage causes blood to become sticky, a pre-cursor to cardiovascular problems such as stroke.

One hour after drinking Red Bull, your blood system becomes abnormal, as might be expected from a patient with cardiovascular disease.

Red Bull is banned in Norway, Uruguay and Denmark because of health risks.

As a general rule, your child needs around one ounce of fluid per pound of body weight per day. For example, a 40-pound child needs around 40 ounces of fluid. Below is a chart to help you identify how much fluid your child needs:
Weight Fluid Requirements

30 lbs 30 oz

40 lbs 40 oz

50 lbs 50 oz

60 lbs 60 oz

The majority of your child’s fluids should be from plain water. No more than 4-6 ounces can be 100% organic fruit juice. Soda drinking should be discouraged. When it’s hot, humid or your child is exercising, it’s even more important that children drink enough water to avoid overheating.

1. Sodium Nitrate (also called Sodium Nitrite) This is a preservative, coloring, and flavoring commonly added to bacon, ham, hot dogs, luncheon meats, smoked fish, and corned beef. Studies have linked eating it to various types of cancer.

2. BHA and BHT Butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydrozyttoluene are used to preserve common household foods. They are found in cereals, chewing gum, potato chips, and vegetable oils. They are oxidants, which form potentially cancer-causing reactive compounds in your body.

3. Propyl Gallate Another preservative, often used in conjunction with BHA and BHT. It is sometimes found in meat products, chicken soup base, and chewing gum. Animals studies have suggested that it could be linked to cancer.

4. Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) MSG is an amino acid used as a flavor enhancer in soups, salad dressings, chips, frozen entrees, and restaurant food. It can cause headaches and nausea, and animal studies link it to damaged nerve cells in the brains of infant mice.

5. Trans Fats Trans fats are proven to cause heart disease. Restaurant food, especially fast food chains, often serve foods laden with trans fats.

6. Aspartame Aspartame, also known by the brand names Nutrasweet and Equal, is a sweetener found in so-called diet foods such as low-calorie desserts, gelatins, drink mixes, and soft drinks. It may cause cancer or neurological problems, such as dizziness or hallucinations.

7. Acesulfame-K This is a relatively new artificial sweetener found in baked goods, chewing gum, and gelatin desserts. There is a general concern that testing on this product has been scant, and some studies show the additive may cause cancer in rats.

8. Food Colorings: Blue 1, 2; Red 3; Green 3; Yellow 6 Five food colorings still on the market are linked with cancer in animal testing. Blue 1 and 2, found in beverages, candy, baked goods and pet food, have been linked to cancer in mice. Red 3, used to dye cherries, fruit cocktail, candy, and baked goods, has been shown to cause thyroid tumors in rats. Green 3, added to candy and beverages, has been linked to bladder cancer. The widely used yellow 6, added to beverages, sausage, gelatin, baked goods, and candy, has been linked to tumors of the adrenal gland and kidney.

9. Olestra Olestra, a synthetic fat found in some potato chip brands, can cause severe diarrhea, abdominal cramps, and gas. Olestra also inhibits healthy vitamin absorption from fat-soluble carotenoids that are found in fruits and vegetables.

10. Potassium Bromate Potassium bromate is used as an additive to increase volume in some white flour, breads, and rolls. It is known to cause cancer in animals, and even small amounts in bread can create a risk for humans.

11. White Sugar Watch out for foods with added sugars, such as baked goods, cereals, crackers, sauces and many other processed foods. It is unsafe for your health, and promotes bad nutrition.

12. Sodium Chloride A dash of sodium chloride, more commonly known as salt, can bring flavor to your meal. But too much salt can be dangerous for your health, leading to high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.