Getting Started...Getting Clean

It was a couple years ago that I started getting serious about my health and the things that I put into my body. At that time I ate normal American food (hamburgers, pasta, ice cream...), but the thing I didn't realize is that while these are tasty they aren't really nutritious. In fact they are really bad for you, but not in the way you are thinking.

There are a few ingredients that we should all just stop eating, period. If you are resigned to eating meat and dairy for the rest of your life and could "never give it up" (you can give it up by the way), you should still stop eating these items:

-Refined flour (white bread, pasta, crackers...) they put cheap flour in everything! When you eat refined flour your body burns it up so fast (like sugar) that it gives you a high right away, but then it leaves you crashed and sleepy.
It's easy to change, just look at the ingredients. If it says enriched then don't eat it. Real food doesn't have the nutrients striped out of it and then replaced by crappier stuff.
Look for 100% Whole grains.

-High Fructose Corn Syrup Look for it on the ingredient list and DO NOT EAT it...if you want to lose weight and feel healthy. On the other hand, if you want diabetes and heart disease then go ahead and gobble the stuff down just like the Corn Council wants you to. Any good product worth eating wont have this in it. So check out the label and don't eat products with this ingredient.

-Hydrogenated Oil
Ok people, this one is obvious and tricky at the same time. I have NO idea why the Federal Govt. lets this product get anywhere near our food, but they do. You have heard of trans fats by now, I'm sure. I wish I could remember the numbers but it's something like, for every percent of your daily calories that comes from trans fats, your risk of heart disease is increased by 23%!
Personally I don't want to die at the age of 45 from a heart attack...do you?
So here is the tricky part. The FDA, in their infinite wisdom, thought it would be good to trick you. If a "Serving Size" has less than .6 grams of trans fats, then the Nutrition Facts Label can say "Trans Fats...0". The food companies don't want their label to say that it has trans fats, so they adjust the serving size to be just right so it will have 0.5g of trans fats per serving. Then we go and eat 6 servings and get 3 grams of death, er...trans fats.
You have to look at the actual ingredients and NEVER eat anything that has the word hydrogenated on it. That includes "partially hydrogenated" "fractionally hydrogenated" or anything with the word hydrogenated. Real food isn't hydrogenated!


So this is the first step to a better, healthier you. It's easy to look at the label and just look for these three things. Write them down on your grocery list in red so you wont forget. Now a days there are a lot of products without these ingredients, so put your "favorite" back on the shelf and find an even better new "favorite".
Pretty soon you will have these items memorized and it will be second nature. Then you will be ready to get even cleaner.