Read any good food labels lately?

(Republished from blog entry February 3, 2015 - C. Kollar: "What You Eat You Are")

Everyone promoting diets has been telling us to “Read the Labels” on food before buying. But do we? Of course we do! But do we know what we’re reading? Of course we don’t!

That’s the tricky question. You didn’t think that because we started reading labels, the food companies would just sit back and let us? They have increasingly come up with more and more ways to disguise the truth of the additives they use. They continue putting harmful or addicting ingredients into our food. If we don’t know what something is, we try to determine if it’s okay based on the name, like “natural flavorings.” Sounds good, but what is it?

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It’s no coincidence that names like Sucralose (we think “sounds like sugar, like sucrose, right?”), maltodextrin (“malt? seems like it's in a lot of good things”), natural flavorings (“hmmm, natural is good”), and high fructose corn syrup (“we like corn and corn is good”) were developed in order to fool us into thinking what we’re eating is not so bad.

I think you know where I’m going with this. These names and many others have been created to fool us into thinking these ingredients are okay for us to consume. However, your best bet is to read up on these items and avoid them in your food. Check out these links:

Sucralose: http://www.prevention.com/food/healthy-eating-tips/health-risks-sucralose I ran into a problem with the effectiveness of my thyroid medication, and the problem was linked to my use of sucralose. I had, in fact, increased my intake of the artificial sweetener at the advice of my endocrinologist in order to lose weight. Type this name into Google and you’ll find a lot of reading material.

Maltodextrin: http://www.livestrong.com/article/502241-the-risks-of-maltodextrin/ This sweetener is derived from corn which has been genetically modified to the point that our bodies don’t recognize this as food but rather as poison. Read up on maltodextrin and make sure to avoid it in your food.

Natural Flavorings: http://www.naturalnews.com/036308_natural_flavors_MSG_aspartame.html This one is really scary, because you really want to believe that “natural” means “good for you.” Google this and find all the scoop behind what they call “natural flavorings.”

High Fructose Corn Syrup: There are so many articles on HFCS but Dr. Mercola is a good source: http://www.mercola.com/Downloads/bonus/danger-of-corn-syrup/report.aspx Again, this one sounds okay because who doesn’t like corn? But HFCS is not corn -- it is an artificial sweetener.

What is very scary about this HFCS is that so much of what our children ingest includes this ingredient. Please be especially careful when shopping for kids and make sure to read the labels!

Check out the About Low-Carb section of my Smart Cookie Baker site for more helpful information.