Category Archives: Food

Can Healthy Diet Foods Be Good For Diabetes?

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It is a common fact that healthy diet foods are preferred than nutritious foods. If the health aspect of the diet foods is absent or deficient, then the benefit of eating those foods is zero. Since healthy foods help controlling diabetes, they are given top priority by diabetics. Foods which contain Minerals and Vitamins are recommended for diabetics in keeping normal levels of blood sugar. So, it is rightly claimed that healthy diet foods are good for diabetes as they control blood sugar levels. When there is opportunity for controlling diabetes, there is nothing to be worried about your diabetic condition.

It should be remembered that medication alone cannot solve the pathological condition when prone to diabetes. You can control blood glucose levels reasonably with some medication to certain degree but not as a whole without healthy diet. However, the sufferings can be managed by consuming right diet foods following a dietary meal plan. Be sure, you can prevent and manage diabetes by maintaining your health with healthy diet foods.

You can get a list of diet foods to eat after diagnosis of your present condition by a dietitian and improve your health by preventing further development of diabetes. You will be recommended to consume plenty of vegetables and fruits as healthy diets to supplement the requirements of your body. What is suggested to be added as diabetic healthy food, it should be consumed in small measures. If you have divided and small servings, your digestive system can function without problem, and the function of the pancreas will also be great. You may plan your healthy diet foods as follows:

Fresh Vegetables: There are vegetables of two varieties, one high in fiber and the other low in fiber. If the diet foods contain enriched fiber content, such foods can help the diabetic in blood sugar control. The condition will be pathetic if the food is plenty in carbohydrates. You can choose black beans and spinach for better effects.

Low sweet Fruits: Consuming fruits as healthy diet is equally important when you choose to consume vegetables. You can be sure to reduce your blood sugar by eating apples, pomegranates, and red grapes before or after your regular meal.

Grains and spices: Wheat, unpolished rice, and oatmeal are also healthy diets usually recommended for diabetics to control and manage diabetes as you aspire. Spices like garlic and cinnamon have amazing quality of helping pancreatic secretion of insulin needed to convert dietary glucose into energy.

Why Fast Food Companies Must Be Held Accountable for Their Ingredients

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Drive down any suburban or city street and you will witness an overload of fast food marketing. Brightly colored signs, cheap value meals, happy cartoon logos, and a familiar smell will fill your senses. Fast food restaurants have established themselves as a leader in our nation’s daily menu. What is the net affect fast food and its ingredients have on our health? What, if any, moral and social obligations do fast food companies have to their consumers?

Obesity is believed to lead to diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and other illnesses. Over 60% of Americans are considered over weight, and the rise in diabetic individuals has increased dramatically. In 1999 there were 42 billion people on direct diabetes medicine. That figure has more than doubled in less than three years.

“Fast food is literally shortening the life span of our citizens,” states Lynn VanDyke, certified sports nutritionist, personal trainer and owner of http://www.strength-training-woman.com. McDonalds serves 46 million fast food meals every single day. As the documentary Super Size Me points out, each McDonalds employee is trained to up sell the size of each order. This increase in meal and drink proportions is becoming so widely acceptable that cars now come with larger cup holders.

The fast food process truly begins with the ingredients. As Eric Schlosser mentions in his article “Why McDonalds French Fries Taste So Good”, the federal Food and Drug Administration does not require companies to disclose the ingredients of their color or flavor additives so long as all the chemicals in them are considered by the agency to be generally recognized as safe, or GRAS. Unfortunately, consumers are not able to tell a products full ingredient list by reading the nutrition label. Terms such as ‘artificial’ and ‘natural flavoring’ are often seen at the very end of most ingredient lists. We are completely unaware of exactly what constitutes a natural or artificial flavor.

Fast food companies owe it to their consumers to disclose all ingredient information. Many people have special dietary restrictions due to allergies or religious affiliations. Some people simply prefer not to eat a product that contains any animal or any part of an animal. According to Schlosser, “The Vegetarian Legal Action Network recently petitioned the FDA to issue to labeling requirements for foods that contain natural flavors.” At this point in time, it is difficult for anyone to refrain from using animal products or added coloring or any a specific chemical to do so.

Consumers cannot make educated decisions about a food product if they do not know the full ingredients list. Some may be shocked to know that Dannon strawberry yogurt gets its coloring from Dactylopius coccus Costa, a female insect that feeds on berries and produces berry colored larvae. “The insects are collected, dried, and ground into a pigment. It takes about 70,000 of them to produce a pound of carmine, which is used to make processed foods look pink, red, or purple” states Schlosser.

Another example of a misleading ingredient label comes from Burger King. Its strawberry milk shake lists artificial strawberry flavor as one of its ingredients. By taking a closer look, we learn that the following ingredients make up the artificial strawberry flavoring: amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl acetate, ethyl amyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl heptylate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerate, heliotropin, hydroxyphenol-2-butanone (10% solution in alcohol), a-ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butyrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methyllacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, y-undecalactone, vanillin and solvent. Simply stating artificial strawberry flavoring is not educating consumers on what they are eating and what possible effects these food products could have on their bodies.

Fast food companies have a responsibility to list all of their ingredients. It is a basic consumer and human right to know what we are ingesting. McDonalds and other companies complain that giving away all their ingredients will result in them losing their secret recipes. As a culture we must face the reality that these ingredients and fast food products are making us extremely overweight and very ill.

McDonalds is the fast food leader of the world. They market to young children by providing playgrounds, happy meals, and cartoon characters. Unfortunately, these children do not know about the horrible side effects that eating fast food has on their bodies. “On average, Americans now eat about four servings of french fries every week” says Schlosser. The increase in portion size and the increase in the volume of eating at fast food restaurants directly relates to America’s bulging waist lines.

Recently two over weight teens sued McDonalds because the teens felt the restaurant neglected to properly inform them of the side effects its food would have on their weight and health. Lawsuits such as this one are becoming more and more popular. There are two sides of this debate, but regardless of which side you are on one thing can be agreed upon, fast food is not the most nutritious meal available.

Fast food companies have a moral and social obligation to their customers. We as a nation have a right to know what we are eating. Once the truth is finally told and nutrition labels have all ingredients and chemicals, consumers can begin to make educated decisions. At that point the blame would rely solely on the consumer and not on the fast food company. However, until that point is reached we cannot expect Americans to understand the impact fast food will have on their health and well being.

Morgan Spurlock, creator of the documentary Super Size Me, explains how we live in a toxic, fast and cheap environment. America is home to over 3 million vending machines and countless convenient stores. Gas stations sell more candy and prepared foods than gas. Soda machines are in our schools and our school lunches are being filled by chain restaurants such as McDonalds and Pizza Hut.

The availability of fast food products is overwhelming. The abundance and mass marketing of fast foods along with the low cost fare makes it a habit of continually eating these foods. We grow used to the aroma, textures and tastes. Often a McDonalds happy meal reminds us of happy childhood memories when we did not have a care in the world. For many consumers to stop eating fat food, it would be like breaking a smoking habit after 20+ years.

The increase in diseases and illnesses is alarming. Americans are becoming more and more overweight. Obesity is in line to become the number one cause of preventable death. Fast food companies have the moral and social obligation to inform their consumers of all ingredients. It should then be the consumer’s decision to stop eating this toxic food.

Learning about proper nutrition does not take a degree form Harvard. It takes the commitment and dedication to truly change your life once and for all. Nutrition and fitness are our best defenses against the mounting health care crisis. According to the National Institute on Aging, “If exercise could be packed in a pill, it would be the single most widely prescribed and beneficial medicine in the nation.” I whole heartedly agree with their statement.

Copyright 2005 strength-training-woman.com

Food Additives and Health and Harmful Consequences

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Food additives litter the food we buy and there is strong evidence that these food additives can be harmful to our health. This article provides some information that will help you identify and stear clear of harmful food additives.

In 1958 the government passed the Delaney Clause Food Additives Amendment which prohibited companies from adding known harmful chemicals to our food. But in spite of this, there are still dangerous chemicals that are still being added to our food and it is important to understand which chemicals these are and what the potential dangers are.

The only defense we have as consumers is that all packaged food is required to list all the ingredients on the label. It is for us to educate ourselves on the dangerous food additives and scrutinize the labels of the food we buy. The challenge however, is that food companies tend to make finding these suspicious ingredients somewhat tedious, hiding them in hard-to-find areas of the package and making the print extremely small so as to discourage their discovery.

The names of these chemicals themselves can complicate matters. These chemical names are long and foreign-sounding and people typically skip over them because they are tedious to try and read. The food producers are clever. They will intentionally use healthy-sounding phrases to dupe pepople into thinking that the product is free of chemical additives. For instance, “Natural Flavors” or “No Preservatives” are commonly found on packaged food products, but does this mean that the product is free of harmful food additives? Absolutely not. Again, you must check all the ingredients to determine whether a product is completely free of food additives.

Here is a helpful tip that relies on basic common sense. If you are reading the ingredient list and you find it is long and loaded with long words that you are unfamiliar with, guess what? This product almost assuredly has plenty of chemical food additives.

Here is a list of twelve food additives that you should definitely try and avoid. This is not an exhaustive list, however, these food additives have been linked to health concerns and harmful side effects.

Sodium Nitrate or Sodium Nitrite

Found primarily in lunch meat and hot dogs, this is a preservative and color and flavor enhancer and has been linked to cancer.

BHA and BHT

Butylated hydroxyanisole and butylated hydrozyttoluene are used as a preservative. You can find them in things like chips, cereals and even chewing gum. They are know to oxidize the cells and cell oxidation is the precursor to cancer.

Propyl Gallate

Also a preservative. There has been evidence that this can be linked to cancer.

Monosodium Glutamate (MSG)

MSG is one of the more well-known food additives and is primarily used as a flavor-enhancer. Much of the restaurant food we consume is flavored with MSG. This food additive can cause reactions in some people such as headaches and nausea.

Trans Fats

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

Aspartame

Aspartame is a sweetener and is also known as NutraSweet. The brand of sweetener called Equal is also aspartame. This food additive has been linked to cancer and neurological problems.

Acesulfame-K

A new sweetener used in baked goods and candy, Acesulfame-K has had limited testing and there has been some evidence that it may cause cancer in lab rats.

Food Colorings: Blue 1, 2; Red 3; Green 3; Yellow 6

Food colorings are basically just a form of paint. They can liven up the walls in your living room but should definitely be avoided in food. Blue 1 and 2, found in beverages, candy, baked goods and pet food, have been linked to cancer in lab animals. Red 3, has been shown to cause thyroid tumors in rats. Green 3 has been linked to bladder cancer. Yellow 6 has been linked to tumors of the adrenal gland and kidney.

Olestra

Olestra is a chemical fat that is used in chips and can have a wide array of side effects. Additionally, Olestra can impede the absorption of vitamins from fruits and veggies.

Potassium Bromate

This food additive is found in many breads and products that use flour. It has been linked to cancer in animals.

White Sugar

White sugar is white because of bleach. Eating foods that add a lot of white sugar is very bad for you.

Sodium Chloride

AKA… salt. Most of the commercial foods we eat are loaded with Sodium Chloride. This additive has been proven to cause heart disease.