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Time again for a 7-day challenge. Can you go seven days without eating nitrates or nitrites? Ni-what?
Processed meats like bacon, sausages, hot dogs, pepperoni, ham, lunch meat, and more contain nitrates and nitrites. According to this source, they are what make the meat pink, rather than an unappetizing gray. They have been linked to colon cancer, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, decreased lung function, and for children born to mothers that eat a lot of processed meats–brain tumors.
So, check your labels, look for SODIUM NITRITE in the list of ingredients. This is where turkey hot dogs aren’t necessarily better for you. They have it, too.
But the good news is that at some stores you can find uncured products. They don’t have nitrates and nitrites. I’ve been buying my family bacon and hot dogs from Whole Foods and they taste great. In some parts of the country you will find uncured items in your regular grocery store. I haven’t seen them in mine, here in Oklahoma.
I will check back in at the end of 7 days and report on my findings.
Sunday night, 9:00pm, I passed out on the couch. There was no waking me. You would have thought I had drank a full bottle of wine, or perhaps a 6-pack of beer…NO, just some homemade peanut brittle!!!
I woke at 10:15pm and was very disoriented and felt sick. I was bloated, had swollen hands, and a slight headache. I went to bed, regretting my indulgence.
Why did I do this to myself? The thought that comes to mind is, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) My flesh is weak for a few things, one being my homemade peanut brittle. I even had some more last night. Not as much this time, but I did regret it and went to bed not feeling too great.
And wouldn’t you know it, I woke up this morning feeling a bit weird in my throat and a tiny bit stuffy.
You see, sugar weakens our immune system. It seems that the only time I get sick is when I slip and indulge in some sweet treats.
I thank the Lord for things like kombucha and coconut oil. By lunch time I was feeling 100% again. No more sugar for me, for a while.
How many of you are sick and tired every single day? Feeling bloated, groggy, headaches, lacking energy, etc.? This is what the wrong kind of food will do to us. It’s time to pay attention to what our bodies are telling us. Kick the junk and make some healthy changes.
This treat knocked me out because I don’t eat like this often, it really is rare. It’s when we eat like this all the time that we don’t realized it’s the food that is making us sick. Cut back on the sugar, eat good fats, like butter and coconut oil, cook your meal from scratch, and see if you start feeling better.
Thank you everyone for participating in this month’s Mystery Food guessing game. Most of the responses were on facebook, so I will list them here. Here are the guesses:
- canned buttercream frosting
- ice cream
- pudding
- sweetened condensed milk
- Miracle Whip
- caramel ice cream topping
Caramel ice cream topping was SO close! Good job! This happens to be Marzetti’s Light Caramel Apple Dip.
Let’s review these ingredients again:
HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP, CORN SYRUP, NON FAT MILK, POLYDEXTROSE, MODIFIED CORN STARCH, BUTTER (MILK, CREAM, SALT), SUGAR, LESS THAN 2% OF: DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, SALT, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVORS, POTASSIUM SORBATE (PRESERVATIVE), MONO AND DIGLYCERIDES.
Is nothing made from good old-fashioned sugar anymore? Everything is high fructose corn syrup based. Notice it’s the first ingredient, meaning, of all the ingredients, this one is the highest quantity. Then corn syrup. Sugar is the 7th ingredient listed. And then…aaaah!–partially hydrogenated soybean oil–this is the trans fat we talked about, just the other day. Mono and diglycerides are also trans fat.
But you may be thinking, it’s a treat, all treats are bad for us. We can have a little, right?
There are levels of bad. If you were to make your own caramel dip (not that hard) at home, you would use sugar, butter, cream, salt, vanilla, and maybe a little corn syrup (I use Griffin’s since it lists corn syrup and sugar syrup on the label, not high fructose corn syrup). These ingredients are much better for you. (Note, I did not say “healthy”, but better. For more information, check out my Ladder of Healthy Eating.)
This is an October treat for us, we don’t eat it all the time. I used to buy the Marzetti dip. No more, we are taking our steps up the ladder. Checkout any good cookbook for a recipe for real caramel. Make some at home. I especially like Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything and The Joy of Cooking. Real food–this is what grandma lived to 90 on!
Little late here with my update on the trans fat challenge–been busy!
Well, trans fat is probably the number one thing I look out for. I avoid it like the plague. I don’t just look for the grams of trans fat listed on the label (it’s often not correct), I look at the ingredients list and check for partially hydrogenated oils. That’s the true tell. So, I don’t have a lot in my house that contains it. The only staple I can think of is flour tortillas. Some day I will get around to making my own, but for now I still buy them. However, I abstained during the challenge. 
My family wanted Oreos with our movie night. In the past I bought Newman’s Own Newmanos, because the cream filling was trans fat free. Since companies are now required to label trans fat, Oreos has reformulated their product. They couldn’t risk everyone knowing just how many grams of trans fat their product contained. So now I will buy them about twice a year. The other night I indulged in one cookie.
Other things that come to mind are peanut butter. I buy Smucker’s Natural because it truly only contains peanuts and salt. Don’t be fooled by the other brands that try to say they don’t contain trans fat. They do, and they’re loaded with sugar.
Many bread products have trans fat added to soften them–sandwich bread, hamburger buns and hot dog buns. Packaged cookies, cakes, and chips contain trans fat. Packaged cookie dough is a big one–it’s loaded, and also packaged biscuits and rolls. Make your own cookies and use real butter. Believe me, they will be much better for you!
I used to buy crescent rolls in a tube. Pampered Chef recipes call for this ingredient all the time. Well, not any more! Not since I found out about the trans fat! Packaged pizza crust, too. Make your own with my french bread recipe. It’s so very easy and much, much more delicious!
Boxed cake mix contains trans fat and canned icing is pure trans fat and sugar. Think of it as a can of Crisco with sugar and flavoring added. I do not eat store-bought cakes anymore and trans fat is the reason. If you invite me over for a party and see that I do not partake of the cake, don’t think I have immense will power to avoid junk food. I have just read about trans fat and what it does to your body and it totally turned me off to store cakes. I make my own and enjoy them fully! Click here for my chocolate cupcake recipe.
I could go on and on about trans fats. Learn to check your labels. Cook with butter, coconut oil, and olive oil. Start making more things at home from scratch. Take your babysteps and checkout The Trans Fat Solution by Kim Severson for more information. I don’t agree with everything in this book (she mentions using soy protein, for example), but her information on trans fat is wonderful. And she has good information about coconut oil, too. The informative part of the book is only 31 pages, the rest are recipes. It’s available at my local library, it might be at yours, too.
…of my motto here at All Things Health.
If God created it, it is good for me; if man has changed it then it is bad for me.
If we start to think in those terms choices become clear and we can end all this confusion. The more you read about nutrition the more you will see contradicting opinions. One group says saturated fats will kill you, another group says they will heal you. Who do you trust?
I Timothy 4:1-5 says that in the last days a great apostasy will take place and people will preach that we should abstain from foods that God created. Well, the vegetarian/vegan movement has been preaching that for a while now, that we shouldn’t eat meat, some go as far as abstaining from anything remotely associated with animals such as honey (because it’s made by bees). That really narrows your choices. Doctors are telling us that saturated fats and cholesterol will clog our arteries and that we shouldn’t eat red meat very often. Many people won’t eat eggs because of the cholesterol. Nutritionists will tell you that you can increase your protein intake with protein powders and protein bars. If we have ailments we are given pills, be they drugs or mega-vitamins. How can we cut through all the nonsense? Verse 4 and 5 – EVERY creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Now I think that a lot of people have taken these verses to mean that they must pray at every meal and ask God to bless the food they are about to eat and they think that this means it won’t harm them. There are natural laws of sowing and reaping, just like the natural law of gravity. We can’t throw a ball up into the air and pray that God will keep it up there. It’s going to come down because of the natural law of gravity. We can’t ask God to bless our processed non-food and expect that we won’t reap unhealthy lives from consuming it.
Deuteronomy 6:16 says, “You shall not tempt the Lord your God”. Jesus quoted this verse when the devil tempted Him to throw Himself off the pinnacle of the temple. We can not knowingly do things that we know will hurt us (or bring us bad health) and expect God to protect us. God will not be mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap (Galatians 6:7).
When we choose foods, we must ask ourselves, “How far has this food (or supplement) come from God’s creation?” In your babysteps toward healthier eating, try to start thinking in those terms.
This article was originally published on this blog on August 20, 2007.
Convenience food is so bad for you, but what’s a person to do when they want something quick and easy?
Plan ahead. I learned of this idea from moneysavingmom.com. She does a once-a-month baking day and freezes all the items so she can pull them out anytime she wants.
This works great for me, a homeschooling mom of two. We do our schooling on a six weeks on, one week off schedule. So on the week off, I do a baking day. I bake up lots of muffins, so that once a week we can have a quick easy breakfast, without cooking. I just place the frozen muffins in a baking dish the night before, cover with a heat-proof lid or foil and leave out on the counter. The next morning I turn the oven on and pop them in. They come out tasting just like they were fresh-baked.
I also make up a couple batches of my french bread recipe, so that I can make croutons or french toast easily. I just cut the bread up into cubes and freeze them for the croutons or slice the bread and freeze it for french toast. French bread makes the best french toast ever!
I have also made up waffles the same in the past. Just pull them out of the freezer and pop them in the toaster.
Cooking from scratch doesn’t have to be intensive labor, just plan ahead, make life easier!
This is a fabulous book with fabulous photos! I love beautiful books! But really, the information in this book is great, too. You can see why blueberries are so good for us, and what are the best fats to eat, and so much more. The thing I love most, is that Jonny Bowden is promoting whole food. Remember–If God created it, it is healthy; if man has adulterated it, it is not.
Are you ready for another challenge?
This month, the challenge is to cut out hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils for 7 days. Check your labels, you might be surprised to learn what foods contain these oils.
Partially hydrogenated oil is the same thing as trans fat. The problem is that a lot of packages claim 0g of trans fat per serving, but it really is anywhere from 0 to .49g. The FDA allows the manufacturer to claim 0, if it is less than .5. Well, half a gram doesn’t sound bad, does it?
Let’s think about it this way, though. When was the last time you just ate 1-oz. of chips. If you have a scale, try weighing out 1 ounce. It isn’t much. Most of us eat more than one serving of most foods at a time. The manufacturer makes that serving size so small so that they can hide how much trans fat and/or sugar the item really has. So, then you are really eating possibly 1.5g of trans fat, every time you enjoy those chips. Studies show that even 2 grams of trans fat a day are dangerous.
If you normally cook with Crisco, use butter instead. Butter is a very healthy fat. It has had such a negative connotation for far too long. Click here to read about that.
Click here to learn more about hydrogenated oils.
I will check back in at the end of the 7 days and report my results. See you then!
Here is what I’m reading this month:
First, a testimony of healing to encourage you – Robin Sampson’s Heart.
Next, a topic near and dear to my heart – Healthcare – this author makes some very good points.
This week I rendered tallow, following this recipe. I was amazed how easy it was. We made homemade fries in it and they were great!
Next, a warning about soy and birth control pills. This is great example of following your gut instinct despite what the doctors are telling you.
And finally, another recipe I tried, whole wheat crackers. These, too, were super easy to make. This is a soaked wheat recipe, so the phytates will be neutralized in the wheat. I really probably spent about 5 minutes in the evening mixing them, then they sit overnight, and another 5 minutes rolling them out the next morning. They bake in about 10-15 minutes.
My kids loved them with cheese slices. There are a couple things I will tweak, but I will be making them again and again.
I have been happy overall with my garden this year. I have plans to expand next year. I am going to try square foot gardening.
Here is a selection of photos from my garden.
Here is the dill. As you can see, it went wild!
I harvested the seeds. I wish I had dried some leaves. I will have to do that next year. I like to use that in my homemade dip. I also dried a lot of basil.
I grew butternut squash, by accident! The seeds came up from my compost. When it sprouted, it looked just like the cucumber I had growing in the pot, so I didn’t pull it.
I ended up getting two small squashes from that plant. They were both the size of my hand. They each made a nice lunch portion size for myself. They were delicious!
These are my Purple Beauty Bell Peppers. I thought they would be sweet, but they taste the same as green bell peppers. However, I noticed a couple turning red, instead of purple. I let them stay on branch until they were almost completely red. I picked them last night and ate them in a salad. They tasted great, as sweet as red bell peppers should be. Next year, however, I will be growing red peppers. We just like them better.
My tomatoes have disappointed me. I did not know that heirloom tomatoes are known for cracking. The first few that ripened were so bad I couldn’t eat them. There seem to be plenty now that aren’t cracked. I hope they stay that way. :) Plus, my attempt to keep away the Tomato Hornworms with my Marigolds has been unsuccessful. The marigolds didn’t get enough sun, they were too close to the tomatoes. I have found a few big, fat worms–they make me so mad!
Of course, we had to grow some flowers. We planted a couple of giant sunflowers for fun. And a row of zinnias to cut and make arrangements with. I love the zinnias because they are so easy to take care of and they attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
I harvested plenty of cucumbers and made homemade pickles. I had an abundance of basil and made lots of pesto. Click here to see my post on pickled jalapeno peppers. However, I did not know much about cilantro and didn’t get to harvest much before it bolted (flowered). I do have a second batch growing now, so I hope to harvest before the frost.
When the dill was done producing, I pulled them out and planted carrot seeds in their place. I was so happy that they sprouted and were thriving and then I discovered that they are not carrots, they are dill!!! The dill reseeded itself. So no carrots this year, but more dill. This time around I will dry the leaves.
I made a second attempt at growing a pumpkin. This time I planted in a spot that gets more sun and warned my husband not to run over it with the lawn mower! I planted it around July 1st. It seemed a bit wilted for a while, so I worked in some bone meal (but now I think it was from the excessive heat). It is doing great now (see below), but no pumpkins yet.
I did notice some mildew on my pumpkin leaves. I heard of a natural remedy of 1:9 parts milk to water. I sprayed the leaves with this mixture and they started looking better, but then we started having a really rainy season, so that’s not helping.
My cucumber vines really slowed down producing so I took them out and planted more seeds. I was happy to see that the harvest time was short, only 50 days. So, come October, we’ll be making more pickles. (Hopefully. The little sprouts seem to be slow-growing, probably the lack of sun from all this rain.)
I’m thinking of trying out a fall batch of lettuce when I pull the pepper plants out. And I really want to plant some garlic. It has to be planted in the fall. I will probably put it in when I pull the basil out.
Anyway, that’s my update. I hope it is encouraging to you. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I just check out some books from my library, do some research online, ask friends’ advice, and experiment. You can do it, too! Just give it a try.
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