This fall, we will do The Daniel Plan – 40 Days to a Healthier Life again. I don’t have an exact date yet, but I will let you know. Even if you have been through it before, you forget many of the basics. Keep in mind, this is a diet only if you make it one. What it IS, is a lifelong journey to a healthier lifestyle!
That being said, between now and then, I will be posting a lot of “basics.” Things like reading food labels, a more compliant pantry and many others leading up to the plan. This article is condensed, but is so important. All of our lives we have entrusted our health to the marketers, the profiteers and the FDA. None of which I have a lot of faith in today. In the end, the one you can really trust with your health is YOU. We need to research, we need to read labels and better yet, cook as much as possible with fresh ingredients that don’t require labels! I would love to say that I eat all organic, but that just isn’t practical for me. I do what I can and what I can’t, I do the best that I can do. I clean and soak my produce in a vinegar bath to reduce all the pesticides and preservatives that I can. I try very hard to buy triple washed, organic lettuces because I don’t like the results of soaking them.
I hope as we go through this again, you will be patient with me. You are welcome to join us as we go through the plan again.
Last, but definitely not least, I just want to say how very much I appreciate all of you for tolerating me through this process and hanging in there with me for so long! It’s hard to believe it’s been 2 ½ years since the beginning! Thank you so much!
Pray Unceasingly!
In His light,
Lois
Whether shopping for groceries or cleaning out your pantry, here are tips on how to read labels.
Why Read Food Labels
Reading labels will help you understand what you are putting into your body, allowing you to make smarter choices. Why bother? Because food is not just fuel – it’s medicine. Learn to read labels and choose foods that heal instead of harm.
Food and Labels
Ideally, our focus is foods without labels such as fresh, whole vegetables and fruit. Foods grown on a plant, not made in a plant are our healthiest options.
But many healthy foods do come in cans, packages, or frozen. Think of canned tomatoes, beans, coconut milk, canned pumpkin, nuts, intact whole grains and seeds like quinoa and rice, and frozen berries. These foods that are pantry staples that help us get meals made when time is short or items are out of season.
How to Read Labels
Whether you are shopping at the market or cleaning out your pantry, start by reading the ingredient list.
– Ingredients are listed in terms of proportion. The first ingredient listed is the primary and most abundant ingredient. The rest of the ingredients are listed in descending order by weight. The top three ingredients are mostly what you are eating.
– Look for labels with five or less ingredients. If it has more than five, put it back or toss it (there are exceptions).
– If a label starts with sugar, salt or something unhealthy, put it back or toss it.
– Look for labels that you can understand what the ingredients actually are. Ingredients that your grandmother would recognize, not something from a chemistry class.
– Can’t pronounce it, look for other options or toss it.
The Big, Bad Ingredients to Eliminate
– Partially hydrogenated oils or hydrogenated oils – the damaging trans fats. Don’t believe the label if it says zero grams. Read the ingredient label. Manufacturers are allowed to round down if there is a half-gram or less, so there still might be trans fats. Zero in our diet is the goal.
– High Fructose Corn Syrup. Always the warning for low quality, processed foods and a toxic, deadly sweetener.
– Added Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), a chemical flavor enhancer. Look for anything hydrolyzed, autolyzed, yeast extract, glutamic acid, soy protein isolate and many more. It’s another hidden threat to our health. See the link below for a site that provides a great list.
– Watch the sugar. Understand that 4 grams = 1 teaspoon. Sugar goes by many names such as organic cane juice, honey, agave syrup, molasses, sucrose, brown rice syrup, corn syrup solids, to name a few.
– Carrageenan. An unnecessary “natural” food additive made from seaweed that adds texture to foods.
– Hidden sugars. Anything that ends in “ose” such as maltose, dextrose, or sucrose.
– Artificial colors and flavors. Toss the fake stuff.
– Artificial sweeteners. Toss things with Splenda, Aspartame, sucralose, and most sugar alcohols that end in “ol”. For some, they cause problems with digestion, may increase hunger, and slow your metabolism.
– “Natural” flavorings. They are anything but natural.
– Nitrites and nitrates, often found in cured meats like deli meats, hot dogs, sausages, bacon and linked to cancer.
Look at the Nutrition Label
Reading nutrition labels can be confusing, but there is information there you should be aware of.
– Is the serving size realistic? Often not.
– Be wary of sugar content. Four grams = 1 teaspoon of sugar.
– Be wary of high sodium levels, a flag for highly processed foods. Guidelines say most of us should get no more than 2300 milligrams per day, and for many on a sodium restricted diet, it could be 1500 milligrams or less.
– Labeling for allergy or sensitivity-inducing ingredients is often hidden. Look for ingredients such as eggs, dairy, soy, gluten, peanuts, tree nuts just to name a few. Labeling for hidden gluten is whole other post by itself.
Other Label Reading Tips
– Beware of health food claims and healthy names on front labels. Marketers try to convince us that their products are healthy to get us to buy when they may not be healthy at all. That marketing spin may be hiding some unhealthy truth. If a can or package has a health claim, put it back (or read hard).
– Unfamiliar ingredients? Look them up at Chemical Cuisine or type them into your search engine. They have a app as well for your smart phone.
– When choosing canned foods, look for BPA-free cans. BPA is a synthetic estrogen and industrial chemical that leaches into food and drink from food cans and polycarbonate plastics. BPA disrupts our hormone levels and balance.
And for more healthy and delicious recipes and informative articles, check out Sally’s blog A Food Centric Life