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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.
If you haven’t noticed already, I highly recommend Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, with Mary Enig. This book is available at my local library, it just might be available at yours.
This book opened my eyes to a lot of things. But I must say that the first time I checked it out, I was overwhelmed and didn’t even read it. It is so thick. Then I learned that it is mostly recipes. The portion on nutrition is only the first little bit, maybe 60 pages. That was doable to me. I have read that portion, now, over and over, each time gleaning new information.
The authors cover everything you need to know on the subject of fats, carbs, protein, vitamins, minerals, and enzymes, and more.
This is a general resource that everyone should check out, whether you’re just starting to eat healthy, or you grind your own wheat and make your own bread. 
This is something new I’m doing. I am going to issue a new challenge every month. The challenge will be for 7 days.
This month’s challenge is to cut out High Fructose Corn Syrup. Now this is only for 7 days. You will want to start checking your labels to see what foods have HFCS in them.
Why? Why do we care if there is HFCS in our diets? Isn’t it just sugar? A little sugar does no harm, right?
Well, all sugars are not equal. The closer a food is to how God created it, the better it is for you. Natural sugars contain enzymes, vitamins and minerals. Refined sugars are stripped of all that and rob your body of those things as they’re digested. If we’re going to chart things on a Great-Good-Bad-Worse chart, sugar would be bad, but HFCS is worse. You can’t make this stuff in your home kitchen. It actually takes battery acid to make and is reported to contain levels of mercury. Read this article on that subject.
Most of the junk food my generation grew up on was loaded with sugar, but the same foods today are loaded with HFCS instead. Could there be a link with this change and the rise in obesity rates?
So check your labels. I challenge you to cut this one ingredient out for just 7 days. Let me know if you have questions. Get creative. Remember, I didn’t say you had to cut out all sugar. If there is a food that you like that contains HFCS, make it from scratch with sugar instead.
I will report back here at the end of the 7 days and let you know what I’ve had to cut out. (Yes, I’m sure I’m ingesting some HFCS, too!) See you then!
This is my fourth entry in Personal Care 101. To read about deodorant, click here. To read about natural soap, click here. To read about toothpaste, click here.
Today I will talk about facial care products, cleanser, moisturizer, eye makeup remover, and lip balm.
First I will tell you where I came from and where I’m headed.
I had acne issues as a teen, but not tremendously terrible. I have had adult acne ever since. I don’t know if this ever goes away. It didn’t at 30, will it at 40 or 50? But I can say that this past year has been the best ever.
I started wearing makeup at 14 and was taught to do the full routine, liquid foundation, concealer, powder to set, eye shadow, eye liner, mascara, the whole nine yards. Over the years I became quite skilled at camouflaging blemishes. I’m sure this did not help the acne issue, but rather exacerbated it further.
Over the years I have tried every product under the sun and spent a load of money! Mary Kay, DHC, Arbonne, Murad, Proactive, to name a few. Some of them were awful–in addition to acne, my skin was VERY sensitive, some of these products would cause a rash. Some of them did work for a while, though. But it seemed it would last for so long and then maybe my skin became immune. Plus it wasn’t easy to drop $60 to $80 each time I needed new products! I dreamed of being able to buy whatever cheap cleanser was available at Walmart!
One day I hope to be able to go foundation-free. I do some days, more so in the summer. I now use Neutrogena Mineral powder makeup (which I’m sure isn’t as pure as some more expensive mineral makeups) and I think that has helped clear my skin a bit. Also, when I started eating better, I noticed a change in my skin. (Sugar and refined carbs cause inflammation.)
But I’ve been the most happy with this new product. If I freaked you out with the baking soda for toothpaste, brace yourself–I use castor oil on my face!
This is called the Oil Cleansing Method. The oil actually dissolves the oil that is clogging your pores! People typically use a mixture of castor oil and olive oil or jojoba oil. The ratios depend on your skin type. My skin is VERY oily (although it has toned done since using this oil). I use 3 parts of castor oil to 1 part jojoba oil. I used olive oil when I first tried this. I already have Extra Virgin Olive Oil in my kitchen (I hope you do, too!) and castor oil was only a few dollars at the store. Even if you’re a skeptic, it won’t cost you much to give this a try! You will find some great information here and here, and here. The latter is where I got my info.
I thought it was just something that came with age, but my pores had become so large and my skin was becoming more dull and rough feeling. Now my skin has a rosy glow and feels soft and smooth. My pores have shrunk significantly!
I pour about a nickel sized portion of oil into my palm and then spread the oil on my face. I massage it in for a minute, steam my face with a hot washcloth for a minute, then rub all the oil off, gently exfoliating with the cloth. I then will put a drop of oil on my palm and pat my face and neck with it as a moisturizer. That’s it! I used to be quite addicted to toners that contained salicylic acid, but I don’t need them anymore!
I was already familiar with using oil as a moisturizer, since I had used DHC and their main moisturizer is pure olive oil. If I ever get too much oil, I just pat it on my hands, elbows, anyplace that needs moisture. My face never feels greasy, just soft. In fact, it has helped balance my oil level. Our skin will produce extra oil if we keep stripping it with harsh cleansers. My face is still oily, but I can tell it is less so now.
I decided to try this oil as an eye-makeup remover. I first get some tissue handy and then pour about a dime size amount in my palm. I rub it on my lashes with my eyes closed. Then pat it off with the tissue. I don’t rub too hard, since the eye area is so fragile. I am very happy with this. It will vary depending on your mascara. I don’t use waterproof mascara. I am using a new mascara lately and sometimes I notice a little residue under my eyes, but I just take a Qtip, dipped in the oil, and wipe off the remaining residue. It’s okay to leave it on your eyes, since it’s your moisturizer, too. I just pat off any excess.
This oil makes a great lip balm. Castor oil is the main ingredient in lip gloss anyway. It is an oil that doesn’t soak in too quickly, keeping a nice shine.
I have even used it as a hand moisturizer and body lotion! I think I should probably use a different ratio for that, though.
Occasionally I’m lazy and I just wash my face with Kiss My Face soap, but I can tell the difference, it’s not as good as the oil cleansing. And occasionally I will use bentonite clay (mixed with water) as a mask, but it’s hardly necessary. I bought my bentonite clay, castor oil, and jojoba oil from Majestic Mountain Sage. They also sell inexpensive bottles, if you need a container for your oil mixture (or you could find a bottle in the travel section of the grocery store). Buy their small dropper bottle (I think they come in 1/2 oz. or 1 oz. sizes) and keep some oil handy in your purse, for your hands or lips!
Stay tuned next time, when I give details about hair care!
This post is part of the Real Food Wednesdays Blog Carnival, hosted by Cheeseslave and Kelly the Kitchen Kop. Follow this link to find out more great natural alternatives for beauty!
Have your cake and eat it too!
Contrary to popular opinion, I am not the food police. I am not looking around me in shock at what people choose to eat. I really am an oblivious person. I’m usually too absorbed in thought to notice others and make judgments. I am just trying to take my babysteps and I recognize that everyone is at a different place with their babysteps.
I do enjoy my occasional desserts. I try to stick to homemade desserts and forgo the store-bought or restaurant fare. But sugar is sugar, right? Well, most (if not all) store-bought (and restaurant) desserts are very high in trans fat. You name it–cookies, cakes, pies, etc. You will be much better off if you just make something at home to enjoy. Use white flour and sugar, but PLEASE, please, please, use butter. Your heart will thank you. For more information on that, click here.
Chocolate Cupcakes
This recipe is from a Pam Anderson cookbook. I LOVE all her recipes! (I have not attempted to cut back the sugar in this recipe. Cake recipes are pretty delicate, they are not easily altered, like muffins or yeast breads are.)
I divided it in half to make 12 cupcakes.
Measure in a bowl:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour (it probably wouldn’t hurt to use all-purpose flour)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/8 teaspoon salt (just a little over 1/4 teaspoon)
Whisk those ingredients together and set aside.
Melt 7 tablespoons butter and set aside to cool.
Boil 3/8 cup (6 tablespoons or 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons) water and mix with 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa (I use Hershey’s). Stir until smooth. Let cool a bit and then add 1/4 cup sour cream and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.
In a separate bowl beat 2 egg whites to soft peaks.
With a hand mixer, mix melted butter into flour/sugar mixture. Add cocoa mixture and beat until batter is smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. With a spatula, fold egg whites into batter until just incorporated. Spoon into paper muffin cups.
Bake in a 350F oven 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Then let cool.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Now this is where you can really cut back on the sugar. The original recipe had 3 times as much sugar as this, yet this version tastes so good! The extra sugar is not necessary.
Beat together 2 1/2 tablespoons softened butter with 4 ounces soft cream cheese, until smooth. Add 2 drops red food coloring, 1/2 teaspoon almond extract, and 1/3 cup powdered sugar. Beat until thoroughly incorporated and fluffy.
Spread frosting on cupcakes.
Chocolate Heart Decorations
I melted about 1 tablespoon chocolate chips and transferred to a ziploc bag. I snipped off the tip of the bag and then piped hearts onto parchment. I let them cool to harden and then placed 2 hearts on each cupcake.
I found a funny on a blog I frequent – Cheeseslave. It’s funny, but it also reiterates my motto – If God created it, it is healthy; if man has processed it, it is unhealthy.
I had not personally seen the ads from the Corn Refiner’s Association until reading this post. I don’t watch much television.
The spoofs in this post are great! I especially like the one with the fellows from King Corn. If you haven’t seen King Corn yet, please check it out. I also really like the one with the children and the apple.
These will only take a couple minutes to watch. And you might learn something, too!
Beware that at the very end of the post, there is an offensive word.
When I first picked up Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (as I mentioned in My Food Journey) I just read through the nutrition information, I didn’t really pay much attention to the recipes. Quite frankly, a lot of them looked odd to me, leaving things out on the counter for days to ferment and such. Kombucha was one of those things—this weird drink that you could only make if you had a special “mushroom”.
Well, as I also mentioned in My Food Journey, I grew a lot while I was a member of the discussingNT Yahoo Group. A support group really is a great thing! People there were talking about kombucha all the time. One day someone mentioned they were giving away the mushrooms, really called SCOBYs. So, about a year ago, I sent this kind lady some postage and she sent me a starter. I have been making the drink ever since.
I don’t drink soda (maybe once a year at a restaurant), almost never drink coffee, and rarely drink hot tea. I enjoy my raw milk daily, but mostly drink water. Kombucha is a nice alternative drink I can enjoy that is healthy at the same time. To me, the drink tastes appley and tangy. Sometimes it has some carbonation. (You can actually work on increasing the carbonation, but I don’t bother.) Some say it tastes like apple cider vinegar, I would say it is reminiscent, yet not quite so sour. Others say it has a wine taste. You have the ability to make it as sweet or sour as you like, but the longer you let it ferment, the less sugar/carbs it has in it.
What is kombucha? (I say kom BOOK a, but there is debate on the pronunciation.) It is sweetened tea that has been allowed to ferment. This is where it is going to sound weird, we know sugar isn’t good for us, BUT the SCOBY (Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast) feed on the sugar and the caffeine in the tea and produce glucuronic acid. (The end product tastes nothing like sweet tea.) I use a mixture of black tea and green tea to make mine. (Only organic to avoid fluoride and other toxins.) The acid lightens the tannins of the tea, also, so it is a lighter color. Besides the glucuronic acid, Kombucha contains B vitamins, protein, and probiotics.
Your liver normally produces this glucuronic acid to neutralize toxins, but in today’s world we are overloaded with toxins so drinking Kombucha can boost our liver’s detox ability. Because this drink is clearing your system of toxins you need to start out with a small amount each day and slowly increase. When I started drinking it I would feel a very slight headache in the forehead and a slight neck ache and aches in my kidney area (it flushes through the kidneys). (I have a theory that it was flushing the lymph system also, since I had neck muscle aches.) These side effects never lasted very long and they weren’t at all severe, just slight. They did last for a couple months, though. I almost thought that maybe the drink wasn’t agreeing with me and was about to stop, but then the side effects stopped, the sign that the toxins were gone. Some don’t have any side effects whatsoever, though. Perhaps I was quite toxic!
You can read about the wonders of Kombucha on the Internet or in books. I checked out a couple at my local library. One in particular makes it sound like a cure-all. Perhaps if you are in severely poor health you will find that Kombucha does wonders. For me I wouldn’t say it’s a cure-all, but then, I wasn’t in severely poor health, either. I feel more energy when I drink it (maybe the B vitamins) and I feel it releases a bit of water retention. When I eat carbs I hold water, but the Kombucha seems to balance that out for me. Some believe that by eating certain foods our bodies become too acidic, but others don’t. The people that do go along with this theory tell us that animal protein makes us acidic, but veggies alkalinize us, carbs (like bread, pasta, cereal) make us too acidic, but acidic foods like citrus fruit, vinegar, pickles, sauerkraut, and plain yogurt will alkalinize us. Kombucha fits into this category of foods that are acidic, but in our bodies they bring us back into balance. I don’t know if this theory is right or not, but I do know that I feel better when I drink Kombucha. On a side note, when I watched King Corn I learned that the modern treatment of cattle is very poor—they are kept in small quarters, not allowed to graze on their natural diet of grass, but are fed corn/soy feed. The result is that these cows die early from acidosis. Hmmm—cows eating refined carbs, rather than grass (our version of veggies), and their systems become too acidic? Perhaps the acid/alkaline theory is correct. Whether it is or whether it isn’t, guess what? The foods that keep us in balance are whole foods that aren’t processed! If God created it….
I will add that I believe you can have too much of a good thing. There are some that say there are no limits with Kombucha, there are others that say the limit should be 8 ounces a day. I worked myself up to quite a bit a day, around 20 to 24 ounces. I have been dealing with, what I feel is, a mineral deficiency ever since I gave birth to my 3 year old and I noticed the symptoms return when I was consuming this high amount of Kombucha. I have backed off to an average of 8 ounces a day and am fine. I really hope this won’t scare anyone off. I had these same symptoms if I drank too much water daily, too. I feel that too many years of whole grains (not properly prepared), sugar, and distilled water stripped my system of minerals.
If you would like to learn more about this unusual drink, click on these links.
Gunther Frank – lots of info here
(You don’t have to make quite as large batches as him, though.)
If you would like to try making your own, let me know and I will get you a free starter. (If you’re out of state, I will ask that you cover postage.)
Any questions, just let me know.
If you are just now joining this blog, you will want to read Part 1 and Part 2 of My Food Journey.
Here I pick up with what I learned from my research into lowcarb dieting. I learned many things. I learned about how our body releases insulin and about the insulin rollercoaster. I learned more about how important protein is. I learned about the glycemic index and how we can lower the glycemic index of the carbs that we eat by including fat and/or fiber. But the thing that was most enlightening was that fat is not evil!!! This thrilled me, to say the least—I do love my butter! I learned that there are good fats and bad fats and I learned what trans fats are.
This information made me feel great that I was raised on the good fats, butter, cream, and red meat, so I wanted to know more. I picked up a book called, Know Your Fats, by Dr. Mary Enig. This is the definitive guide to fat. I learned about Omega-3s, Omega-6s, saturated, polyunsaturated, and monounsaturated oils; and much more. Everything you wanted to know about fatty acids can be found in this book. Dr. Enig was pushing the FDA to include trans fats on food labels YEARS before they actually did. She is a champion of healthy fats. It was all starting to make sense to me. As a child I was told that hydrogenated oils were bad, but now I was learning why.
This started an obsession for me. I kept reading and researching and learning, I couldn’t get enough! This is the point that I started to make changes to my diet. I threw out all the margarine, Smart Select butter, shortening, trans fat peanut butter (Skippy, Jif, Peter Pan), and starting scrutinizing labels. At this point trans fats were not labeled on food labels. I checked out the book, The Trans Fat Solution by Kim Severson and Cindy Burke. This is a really short informative book that tells you why trans fats are bad, but also how to tell if food contains it. With this knowledge, now I know the REAL way to tell if an item has trans fats in it and guess what? It’s not by looking at the gram listings.
Some time after this I found the book, Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. This book is really big, most of it being recipes. The first time I checked it out from my library I just read the nutrition information, it was really eye opening. I kept checking it out from our library and kept reading new things in it. After borrowing it from the library about ten times I decided it was time to buy it. This book opened my eyes to phytates, the substance that is in grains that leaches minerals from our bodies. I then started playing around with whole-wheat sourdough. I learned all about raw dairy in this book and then quit buying pasteurized dairy products and started making my own yogurt. From this book I learned how important animal protein is so I started making my son eat meat at dinnertime. He never liked meat very much and I convinced myself he was healthy if he had peanut butter and eggs. Not so after reading Sally Fallon’s book. (He enjoys most meat now.) J
About a year ago I joined the Yahoo group discussingnt; these are all folks that have read Nourishing Traditions. This really helped me along in my changes. I started making a lot more changes when I joined that group. There is something to be said for support, whether that is a friend, or an Internet discussion board, or even a private journal (this at least helps with accountability). Anyway, I saw that there are so many real foods that we’re missing out on because of mass marketing. According to FDA safety guidelines, food must be sealed in order to be shipped and sold on a mass scale. This is good because it prevents rotten food from being sold, but the bad news is that this process kills the nutrients in those items. (Moral: We should be getting our food locally.) So I started making my own naturally fermented sauerkraut, dill pickles, ginger carrots, and beet kvass. When these items are let to naturally ferment and then stored in the refrigerator instead of heat-sealed through traditional canning methods they are alive and full of nutrients and beneficial bacteria. Also while I was a part of that discussion group I started making Kombucha and still drink it practically every day.
Other changes I have made include less cooking with olive oil, I do use it on salad, on pasta, and to dip bread in. It is a very healthy oil when it is cold, but it will get damaged when heated. I do most of my cooking with butter and some with coconut oil. When I switched to lowcarb eating I learned to like a lot more veggies, since veggies have a lower glycemic index than breads and pastas. Thankfully when my husband went on his diet we cleared the cupboards of the snack cakes and boxed macaroni and cheese. He had quit drinking soda and Kool-Aid many years before. He switched to Baked Lays in his diet days and I have since got him to switch to plain corn chips (Baked Lays are about as processed as you can get). I have since got him off the granola bars; I now make him muffins to take to work for breakfast. I now make our own lunchmeat from boneless, skinless chicken breasts, rather than buying processed lunchmeat. He lost his weight by really watching his portion intake and cutting most fat out. Since I learned all about healthy fat, I now feed him lots of fat in his meals and he hasn’t gained any of the weight back. He still watches his sugar intake. I take coconut oil daily now. I started taking cod liver oil last fall. I occasionally take a probiotic supplement, but I feel I am getting a lot of beneficial bacteria from my homemade yogurt, Kombucha, and naturally fermented veggies. I started making my own sour cream and buttermilk (more beneficial bacteria). I have switched to aluminum-free baking powder (Rumford). About a year ago I stopped using commercial shampoo, conditioner, bar soaps, shower gels, lotions, and facial cleansing products (I’ll give more details in a later post) because of the chemical content. I switched from drinking distilled water to filtered water (spring is best, we’re just not there yet). And I use plastics a lot less now, I’m not completely away from them, but I am taking my babysteps.
Now keep in mind that all these babysteps I took were over a period of years, this really all started about 6 years ago. I’m just hoping that my list will inspire you and encourage you in your changes.
Looking back over my food journey shows me 1) I ate pretty good as a child, but there was a high level of phytates, which I think accounts for my dealings with mineral deficiencies now and 2) it is SO important to teach your kids about healthy eating and why you choose to eat what you eat. I wasn’t taught and had to educate myself as an adult after eating poorly for about 10 years. It may look like I have come full circle and now eat the way I did as a kid, but there are a few differences. I watch my carb intake; I don’t eat a lot of breads and pastas. Even if you’re choosing all whole-grain bread products you can still go overboard, remember, balance is key. We ate a LOT of grains in our family; my blood sugar just can’t handle that now. I feed my kids more carbs than I eat, but I do make sure they are getting animal protein every day.
The journey doesn’t end here—it goes on and on. We all should never stop growing, never stop learning, and never stop changing!
Update: I forgot to mention that I have started soaking some grains, we eat soaked old fashioned oatmeal once a week and soaked multi-grain pancakes on occasion.
I think our society thinks that being healthy is a balancing act, that there are a tiny set of scales in the body. They think that you keep these scales balanced by doing and eating healthy things, even though you eat unhealthy things also. Hey, I know none of us eat a perfect diet! If you eat something unhealthy, you just have to do a bit more exercise to burn it off. If you want that dessert, you better have a salad with your meal. If you drink some soda, you should have some water to balance it out. This thinking is wrong and if you stay with me, I will tell you why.
I have to think that this originated, in part, from our parents and grandparents saying, “You have to eat all your dinner if you want dessert!” Also, the exercise era has given people a little latitude with what they can afford to eat and stay trim (and staying trim, in our society, carries the appearance of health; not always true, folks).
The thing that we need to get into our heads is that it’s not all about fat, good or bad, or calories. I said it before and I will say it again, the food we eat affects us on a cellular level. I will show two prime examples here, although there are more. First let’s talk about trans fat, it’s not just a bad fat that will clog your arteries and cause heart problems (if that isn’t bad enough), it will actually become a part of your very cells! Every cell in your body has a cell wall, made primarily of fat. When you ingest trans fatty acids, they become part of that cell wall. For nursing mothers, trans fat replaces some of the healthy, vital fat that your baby needs, so the baby’s cell walls are also being made up of trans fat!
According to Tom Valentine, author of Facts on Fats and Oils1, “When this man-made molecule of fatty acid, called trans fatty acid, gets into cell membrane construction our cells cannot function optimally – we cannot ward off viruses as well”, and, “this degeneration of the cell membrane is cumulative as we continue to eat these trans fats every day – it doesn’t improve over time, or simply vanish, it slowly gets worse and worse.”
My second example is sugar – it’s not just extra calories, it will rob your body of minerals, weaken your immune system, put you on the insulin roller coaster (which we talked about before), stress and fatigue your adrenal glands, and feed harmful yeast and bacteria in your digestive system (causing a host of problems that I will talk about later). These are not things you can jog off! This is why you won’t hear me talk about calories here. It is all about WHAT we are eating, not necessarily HOW MUCH.
I was talking to my husband about this the other night and he always comes up with the best analogies. He said, “How does your car do if you add some water in with the gasoline?” We all know, it’s won’t run well at all, even if there is just a LITTLE bit of water added. Our bodies are the same, a little bit of bad is still bad and our bodies won’t run optimally on food that man has adulterated. My point is not to convince you into changing eating habits by making you feel guilty, but rather, I don’t want you to be deceived. I want you to be well informed and make informed choices!
I’m asking you to renew your mind in this area, make a paradigm shift. Just because exercise doesn’t counteract these junk food woes, doesn’t mean we stop exercising. It means we work on cutting out the junk food. Your sole source of trans fats is packaged food. Don’t buy margarine or ANY butter substitute (if it’s not butter, it was made by man), don’t use shortening in your baking, don’t buy pre-made pie crust – make your own with butter. Practically every peanut butter on the store shelf2 contains trans fat; unfortunately you can’t trust the labels to give you full disclosure. Look for PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OIL on the ingredient listing, if it is there, DON’T buy the item. This is listed on so many foods that most of us don’t realize. When I mention trans fats, most people say, “I don’t use margarine, I only use butter.” That is FANTASTIC, but trans fats are in peanut butter, chips, crackers, graham crackers, pre-made pie crusts, all canned dough, like crescent roll dough and pizza crust; cookies, snack cakes, candy, candy bars, some breads, frozen French fries, fish sticks, pizza, chicken nuggets, burritos, pot pies, cake mixes, Bisquick, canned frosting, and flour tortillas to name a few. This is one of the reasons why these items ended up on the bottom rung above fast food on my ladder.
I think I’ve hammered away at the trans fat issue, let’s get back to sugar. We can drastically limit our sugar intake by cutting out packaged food, also. Trans fat is an item you don’t ever want, but sugar is something I know we will all eat from time to time. A good friend of mine uses a word that fits well here – deliberate. We must be deliberate in everything, raising our children, spending money, even how we eat. I will deliberately eat a dessert now and then, but I try VERY hard NOT to allow sugar into my diet that I don’t deliberately want! The two ways we are deceived into unknowingly eating sugar are through deceptive marketing and ignorance. Many foods are marketed as healthy, but contain lots of sugar, such as breakfast cereals, sweetened yogurt, granola bars, fruit snacks (these are just candy, folks), fruit roll-ups, many juices, smoothies, and vitamin waters. This is where those imaginary tiny scales come in again. I think most people are aware that these foods contain sugar, but they believe the vitamins, whole grain fiber, or beneficial bacteria in that item balance it out. I will say it again – we must shift our thinking away from this balancing act. Remember the car running with water in the tank. Now for ignorance, there are a lot of items that contain sugar as a flavor enhancer, but are not dessert, so we don’t really think we are eating sugar. Things we all use, like ketchup, salad dressing, pickles, dip, Miracle Whip, salsa, and more. This is where label reading will help you out. Sugar is easy to pick out of ingredient listings, but also be aware of sugar’s other names – high fructose corn syrup and anything ending in –ose, dextrose, glucose, sucrose, etc.
So be informed, be deliberate, do what you can do and don’t fool yourself into thinking that you can somehow balance the junk food with something like veggies or exercise. Take you babysteps and move toward the whole food that God created that fuels your body the most effectively!
1 Quoted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon
2 You can find natural peanut butter. I buy Smucker’s; it only contains peanuts and salt.
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