Deceptive Food Labels - Keys to Good Nutrition and Tips to Eating Healthy with Uri Feast

DECEPTIONS OF FOOD MANUFACTURERS
Regarding FOOD LABELS and INGREDIENTS LISTS

You would think that the food labels or ingredients list on food products are designed to inform consumers about what’s in the product. Surprise! The opposite is actually true. Food manufacturers are using the ingredients list to deceive consumers into thinking that their products are healthier than they really are. Keep in mind that food ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the food, with the biggest ingredients listed first.

A Few “Tricks of the Trade” Used by Food Manufacturers:

First, they distribute sugars among many ingredients so that sugars don’t appear in the top three. For instance, they may use a combination of high-fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup solids, etc. to make sure that none of these appear in the top three ingredients. This fools and misinforms consumers about the total content of sugar in the product.

Another trick is to “pad” the end of the list with miniscule amounts of healthy-sounding berries, herbs, or superfoods such as goji berries, blueberries, spirulina, or green tea. The truth is there just isn’t enough of these superfood ingredients in the food to have any effect on your health, and yet they advertise these ingredients on the front to make consumers think they’re getting healthy food.

Thirdly, they hide dangerous ingredients behind innocent-sounding names that trick consumers into thinking they are safe. For example, “yeast extract” sounds perfectly safe, but it’s actually a trick used to hide MSG (monosodium glutamate), a chemical taste enhancer that has many health risks associated with it. Another example is “sodium nitrite” which is a highly carcinogenic ingredient documented to cause brain tumors and many kinds of cancers.

Fourth, don’t be fooled by product names. Be on your guard because food names can include words that describe ingredients not even found in the product. For example, a “cheese” cracker may not contain any cheese, and a “guacamole” dip may have no avacado in it. Absurd!

Fifth, be aware that ingredients lists don’t include contaminants. Manufacturers are not required to list chemical contaminants, heavy metals, pesticides, or other toxic substances found in the food, even though they are there.

Sixth, food producers manipulate the food “serving size” in order to make it appear that their products are devoid of harmful ingredients such as trans fatty acids. The FDA created a loophole for reporting trans fatty acids on the label: any food with 0.5 grams or less of trans fatty acids “per serving” is allowed to claim “zero” on the label. Exploiting this loophole, unscrupulous companies arbitrarily reduce the serving sizes to ridiculous levels, just enough to lower the trans fats to 0.5 grams per serving. Then, in bold letters on the front of the box, they declare, “ZERO Trans Fats!” In truth, the product may be loaded with trans fats found in hydrogenated oils. This trick is also used to deceive consumers by reducing the number of calories, carbohydrates, or grams of sugar they put on the label.

Seventh, don’t be fooled by the word “wheat” because all flour derived from wheat can be labeled “wheat flour”, even if it’s processed, bleached, and stripped of its nutrition. Only “100% whole grain wheat flour” is a healthy form of flour (make sure it’s not genetically modified).

Finally, don’t be fooled into thinking that “brown” products are always healthier than “white” products. For example, brown sugar is just white sugar with brown coloring and added flavoring; brown eggs are no more healthy than white eggs; and brown bread may be no healthier than white bread because it is often made from white processed flour with brown coloring added.

In conclusion, you’ve got to be on your guard and be smarter than the food manufacturers and their deceptive schemes. Remember that ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the product, which means the top three ingredients are what you’re primarily eating and matter more than anything else. Stick with ingredients you recognize and can pronounce, and don’t be fooled by healthy-sounding herbs and berries that appear near the end of the list.

Source of this information: NewsTarget.com, Mike Adams (7/10/07)

Thanks for vising my health and nutrition blog. Please check back often for my most recent postings on good nutrition and on eating healthy, and consider adding my RSS FEED so that you can be kept up to date on all of these health and nutrition articles.

As a defender of your health, I am dedicated to providing you with the Keys to Good Nutrition and Tips to Eating Healthy. I am also devoted to encouraging you to eat 5-9 servings of fresh fruits and vegetables every day, and the best way to do that is by drinking the Feast, by Uri International, which is a live whole food based InstaFresh super juice powder drink.

For more information on the Feast by Uri International,

click here: The FEAST - The Single Most Nutritional Experience of Your Life!

To your health, longevity, and prosperity,

Josiah Friberg

Health and Nutrition Educator

Pt 1 Reading Food Labels - Keys to Good Nutrition and Tips to Eating Healthy

THE ABSOLUTE NECESSITY OF
READING FOOD LABELS

When it comes to keys to good nutrition and tips to eating healthy, what could be more important than always reading food labels before you buy something to eat?!

This is one of those life-long wise habits that you should be practicing every day without even thinking about it.

Good nutrition and healthy eating begin with carefully reading the LIST OF INGREDIENTS on all the food items you're considering purchasing.

A short lesson on reading the list of ingredients for food:

A. The list of ingredients is in order of the largest ingredients to the smallest. In other words, the first ingredient is the biggest ingredient in the product.

B. The most important ingredients in the list are the first three or four ingredients which make up the bulk of the product.

C. Food manufacturers can often be quite deceptive in the way they list their ingredients. For example, if the biggest ingredient is sugar, they will often break it into different kinds of sugar in smaller amounts so that sugar doesn't end up being the number one ingredient on the label. They might use Aspartame, maltodextrin, sucrulose, high-fructose corn syrup, etc. to hide the fact that the biggest ingredient is sugar, so beware of this deceptive trick.

D. Food manufacturers often disguise unhealthy and often dangerous ingredients like mono-sodium glutamate (MSG) under more innocent sounding titles such as hydrolized yeast, natural flavors, etc. Do a google search on "The dangers of MSG" for a more complete list of deceptive titles for MSG.

I encourage you to check out one of my earlier postings, September 11, 2007, entitled: "8 Deceptions of Food Manufacturers' Ingredients Lists..."

When you're reading food labels, you need to look for the good, the bad, and the ugly! You need to train yourself to notice the good quality ingredients, while at the same time to be able to sniff out the bad, dangerous, and toxic ingredients to avoid. Here's a little help for you regarding reading food ingredients lists.

BAD, UNHEALTHY, AND TOXIC INGREDIENTS TO WATCH OUT FOR AND AVOID

1. Avoid all products with dangerous and toxic sweeteners that include the following: High-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, Aspartame, Splenda, Sucrulose, white refined sugar, brown sugar, sucrose, fructose, saacharin, Sweet 'N Low, dextrose, maltodextrin, NatraTaste, etc. These artificial man-made sweeteners have all been proven to be dangerous to your health, toxic to your body, and cause all kinds of health problems. Avoid them at all costs. Beware, they are hiding in most food products, but especially in soda, fruit juice, ice cream, desserts, pastries, cookies, candy, cakes, gum, etc.

2. Avoid all products with hydrogenated and partially-hydrogenated oils, also known as "trans fats." These are put in most foods to make them taste richer and smoother to your tongue. These are unnatural, man-made, highly processed oils that are extremely unhealthy and detrimental to your health. Avoid all products with them. Also, avoid all products made with cottonseed oil, palm oil, soybean oil, and Canola oil (which is a genetically modified oil). These are the worst oils for your body. Also avoid all margarine products, Crisco, Olestra, and Olean; these are extremely toxic and destructive to your health.

3. Avoid all products with mono-sodium glutamate (MSG), soy sauce, and teriyaki sauce. This is an excito-toxin that actually kills brain cells by overstimulating them. This toxic ingredients is added to all kinds of foods in the supermarket and in restaurants to make food taste better and to make you fat. When something has MSG added to it, it over-excites your taste buds, making you think that the food is very delicious. The end result is that you keep eating more and more of that food, you eventually start getting fat, and you become addicted to the MSG in that food. This happened to me with "Chinese Orange Chicken" at a popular fast food restaurant; I became addicted to it and gained a lot of weight. You'll also notice that most potato chips and other salty snacks are spiked with MSG to make them taste so good. You may not know this, but soy sauce and teriyaki sauce have naturally occurRing MSG in them, so you will want to avoid products with these ingredients as well.

4. Avoid all products with white processed flour (aka, enriched wheat flour), white processed rice, pasteurized and homogenized milk and dairy products, artificial colors and flavors (which are nothing more than toxic chemicals), and anything labeled "fat free" or "sugar free" or "low carbs" or "net carbs" or "diet."

5. Avoid all products that are labeled as having shellfish scavengers such as shrimp, crab, lobster, clams, scallops, oysters, etc. and avoid all "farm-raised" fish products. All of these are unhealthy and have toxic chemicals in them.

6. Finally, avoid all pork and pork products, as well as all luncheon deli meats which are loaded sodium nitrates. Pork products are among the very worst that you can ever eat because they are so loaded with toxic substances that harm your body.

A SAD SKIPPY EXAMPLE
Here's an example of a food that appears healthy, but when you read the ingredients list, you find that it is very unhealthy. "Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter - Ingredients: roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed, soybean and rapeseed) to prevent separation, salt." The whole food peanuts are healthy, but everything else added is not healthy at all and should be avoided. Instead, look for all natural peanut butter made with just peanuts and sea salt.

In my next posting, I'll share what the "GOOD FOOD INGREDIENTS" are that you should be looking for when you are reading food labels. It's not enough to just avoid the bad and ugly stuff; you also need to be looking for the good and healthy ingredients that will truly feed your body and provide it with the good nutrition it needs. Until then...

Choose to Live Long & Die Healthy - Keys to Eating Healthy and to Good Nutrition

"When you don't have your health, what do you have? - Brett Rademacher

It's sad but true that most people don't think much about their health...until they lose it. Think about it for a long serious minute. If you don't have your health, what do you have left? The pleasure of your existence and the significance of your purpose usually depend on being healthy enough to enjoy your life and do something with it.

I'd like to share with you some more keys to good nutrition and tips to eating healthy that just might help you to live to a ripe old age of 120 years and die healthy.

Here's an illustration to consider. If I were to offer you $10 million for both of your eyes, would you sell them to me? On the one hand, you could sure use the money to help you achieve your purpose in this life and really enjoy yourself while doing it. On the other hand, you wouldn't really be able to enjoy yourself that much without the use of your two eyes. You could have your $10 million dollars, build a beautiful house in the Swiss Alps, and yet never have the pleasure of seeing the beauty all around you including the mountains, forests, wildlife, snow, your house and your family. In other words, to lose the use of your eyes would defeat the whole purpose of getting the money.

Now, think of how this illustration relates to your health. If I were a big food manufacturer and restaurant owner, and I were to offer you cheap, great tasting food (including junk food of all kinds, fast food of every type, packaged foods of every variety and taste, canned foods that were highly convenient, sweet foods that were simply delicious loaded with fats, sugars, and carbs, etc.), would you sell your future health to me by buying my food?

You might say, "Well, what do you mean? I don't have to sell you my future health to eat your food. That's ridiculous!"

The TRUTH is - every time you eat unhealthy, denatured, packaged, man-made processed foods from the supermarket and from restaurants, you are selling your future health and will some day reap what you have sown into your body - sickness, physical health problems, and illness of all kinds imaginable. Most people just don't want to hear this, but it's true nonetheless. "What you sow, you will reap." This is a natural and spiritual law.

The above illustration reminds me of the story of Jacob and Esau. As you may remember, Esau came in from hunting and was tired and very hungry. Jacob was relaxing and enjoying some good lentil soup he had made. Esau asked his brother if he could have some, and Jacob told him he could IF he would sell him his birthright. Esau then sold Jacob his birthright for the price of a bowl of lentil soup! Can you believe that? Esau gave up all of the inheritance rights and blessings of the first born son, just to satisfy his hunger for some soup.

Now, how does this apply to you and me today? Every day, in every town and city across America, this tragic story is relived by millions of people. Every day people "sell their birthright to health" to the food manufacturers and restaurant owners of America, just in order to satisfy their hunger for something that tastes good to them (junk food, fast food, fattening food, whatever). People are literally trading away their health for ill-health. They are exchanging their future health for present gratification.

I strongly encourage you and admonish you to value your health birthright for what it is - a gift from God for you to enjoy throughout your whole life. Don't despise your health birthright, as Esau did, and sell it for some unhealthy processed food that will satisfy your stomach only temporarily, but that will eventually rob you of your health and enjoyment of this life.

One last thought. Do you want to end up in a nursing home or a hospital bed dying of some terminal illness when you're 45, or 55, or 65, unable to enjoy the second half of your life with your family and friends? If you're not sure, then go visit a hospital ward and a nursing home and meet the people there who are dying prematurely of dreaded illnesses. Ask them what they would give to have their health back and to have another 50 years to enjoy it. Then ask yourself if you want to follow in their footsteps and end up like them wasting half of their lives. Do you really want to die young and die unhealthy, or would you prefer to live long and die healthy when you're 120?

The choice is yours, and you make it every day. Every time you put something in your body, food or drink, you are making the choice for a healthy future or an unhealthy premature death by illness. It's your choice: health or ill-health, based upon healthy eating habits or unhealthy eating habits. What will your decision be today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month?

CHOOSE LIFE!

CHOOSE TO LIVE TO BE 120 YEARS OLD.

MAKE THE CHOICE TODAY TO DIE HEALTHY AT A RIPE OLD AGE!

Checking the SOURCE of Information Is a Key to Good Nutrition & a Tip to Eating Healthy

Daily Quote: "Your health is your most valuable earthly asset; what you do with it is your responsibility." - Ted Broer

Who Said That and What Is Their Motive?

In the food, nutrition, and health arena, you really need to consider carefully the source of any research study you hear or read about. One of the important keys to good nutrition and tips to eating healthy is getting your health and nutrition information from trustworthy independent research sources. If you learn to start doing this consistently, you will be able to better navigate the seas of information that are often cluttered with misinformation, lies, distortions, and conflicting "research." You really need to learn to develop a sense of discernment in order to distinguish between what is really true and what is a lie or a marketer's scheme that is designed to confuse you and deceive you, all for the sake of greater profit share.

DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH TO PROTECT YOUR HEALTH

When reading studies promoting the virtues of manufactured foods, make sure those studies weren't paid for by the very companies marketing those products. These kinds of studies that are funded by the product manufacturer themselves, have very little value and a huge conflict of interest. For example, I wouldn't trust or believe any research about pasteurized homogenized processed milk that was funded by the dairy industry or any dairy food manufacturer. All non-independent research can be (& usually is) influenced by those who pay for the research. There's an old saying that goes something like this: "He who pays the piper, calls the tune."

ONLY TRUST TRULY INDEPENDENT RESEARCH

It is much wiser to do your own research and to look for truly independent research that has no ties to or financial connections to the products in the study. I've found that health associations, leading government officials and agencies, and even prestigious medical societies will sometimes lend their considerable weight to erroneous claims of marketers and manufacturers. In fact, the history of the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) is allegedly filled with unfortunate stories of alliances with the very industries that department was created to regulate and watch over.

There are what I call "unholy alliances" between the five most powerful players in the health arena. These greed and control alliances exist between the following "Big 5" entities: Big Pharma (pharmaceutical/drug companies), Big Government (government agencies like the FDA & others), Big Agriculture (agro-chemical companies like Monsanto), Big Food (food manufacturers and marketers), and Big Medical (doctors, medical associations, and the AMA). If I were you, I would be suspicious of any research that is funded by or conducted by any of these "Big 5" entities which are, I believe, in an unholy, greed-based, control-oriented alliance with each other to dominate the world markets for profit.

I would like to end this posting with a short article by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger. I encourage you to download and read his free Honest Food Guide.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear readers,

Confused about what you're supposed to eat? That's because most
nutritional advice comes from sources that have sold their souls to the
giant food companies. Even the USDA's Food Guide Pyramid is heavily
influenced by food lobbyists, and it offers lousy nutritional advice
that's decades behind the cutting-edge nutritional principles we now
know to be true.

If you want a REAL guide to which foods you should eat, check out my
Honest Food Guide, an easy-to-use nutritional reference chart that
will help you make the best choices at every meal. The "Honest Food
Guide" is based on real nutrition, not politics or special interest
groups, and it illustrates the nutritional principles that will keep
you healthy for life.

Because this information will help you live a healthier lifestyle,
I'm giving away downloadable copies at:

Honest Food Guide, by Mike Adams

The "Honest Food Guide" provides information like:

* Which common food ingredients promote diabetes
* Which foods promote mental disorders and depression
* How to avoid hydrogenated oils
* Which grocery products and foods promote outstanding health
* Why high-sodium snacks are harmful to your health
* Where to find healthy protein
* Mineral-rich supplements to add to your diet
* How MSG interferes with body function and appetite control
* What foods to add to your diet for a strong immune system
* Why breakfast cereals are often health saboteurs
* How to ensure you're getting enough healthy oils
* Why sunlight is vital for good health
* Key nutrients for good health
* How to select vegetables with a variety of nutrients
* Healing superfoods
* How to achieve clear, smooth skin
* Which carbs to eat and which to avoid
... and much more.

If you want the straight truth about which foods to consume and which foods to avoid, download the Honest Food Guide today.

Learn more at:
http://www.HonestFoodGuide.org

To your health,
- Mike Adams, The Health Ranger

8 Deceptions of Food Manufacturers' Ingredients Lists - Keys to Good Nutrition & Eating Healthy

Daily Quote: "Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices." - Jean Paul Sartre

Today we'll discuss some keys to eating healthy based on 8 deceptions of food manufacturers regarding the ingredients lists they put on their products. These tips to good nutrition should help expose the lies and help you search for the truth.

You would think that the ingredients list on food products are designed to inform consumers about what’s in the product. Surprise! The opposite is actually true. Food manufacturers are using the ingredients list to deceive consumers into thinking that their products are healthier than they really are. Keep in mind that ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the food, with the biggest ingredients listed first.

Here are 8 deceptions or “tricks of the trade” food manufacturers use to deceive consumers.

First, they distribute sugars among many ingredients so that sugars don’t appear in the top three. For instance, they may use a combination of high-fructose corn syrup, brown sugar, sucrose, dextrose, corn syrup solids, etc. to make sure that none of these appear in the top three ingredients. This fools and misinforms consumers about the total content of sugar in the product.

Another trick is to “pad” the end of the list with miniscule amounts of healthy-sounding berries, herbs, or superfoods such as goji berries, blueberries, spirulina, or green tea. The truth is there just isn’t enough of these ingredients in the food to have any effect on your health, and yet they advertise these ingredients on the front to make consumers think they’re getting healthy food.

Thirdly, they hide dangerous ingredients behind innocent-sounding names that trick consumers into thinking they are safe. For example, “yeast extract” sounds perfectly safe, but it’s actually a trick used to hide MSG (monosodium glutamate), a chemical taste enhancer (excito-toxin) that has many associated health risks. Another example is sodium nitrite which is a highly carcinogenic ingredient documented to cause brain tumors and cancer.

Fourth, don’t be fooled by product food names. Be on your guard because food names can include words that describe ingredients not even found in the product. For example, a “cheese” cracker may not contain any cheese, and a “guacamole” dip may have no avacado in it. Absurd!

Fifth, be aware that ingredients lists don’t include contaminants. Manufacturers are not required to list chemical contaminants, heavy metals, pesticides, or other toxic substances found in the food, even though they are there.

Sixth, food producers manipulate the food “serving size” in order to make it appear that their products are devoid of harmful ingredients such as trans fatty acids. The FDA created a loophole for reporting trans fatty acids on the label: any food with 0.5 grams or less of trans fatty acids “per serving” is allowed to claim “zero” on the label. Exploiting this loophole, unscrupulous companies arbitrarily reduce the serving sizes to ridiculous levels, just enough to lower the trans fats to 0.5 grams per serving. Then, in bold letters on the front of the box, they declare, “ZERO Trans Fats!” In truth, the product may be loaded with trans fats found in hydrogenated oils. This trick is also used to deceive consumers by reducing the number of calories, carbohydrates, or grams of sugar they put on the label.

Seventh, don’t be fooled by the word “wheat” because all flour derived from wheat can be labeled “wheat flour”, even if it’s processed, bleached, and stripped of its nutrition. Only “100% whole grain wheat flour” is a healthy form of flour (make sure it’s not genetically modified).

Finally, don’t be fooled into thinking that “brown” products are always healthier than “white” products. For example, brown sugar is just white sugar with brown coloring and added flavoring; brown eggs are no more healthy than white eggs; and brown bread may be no healthier than white bread because it is often made from white processed flour with brown coloring added.

In conclusion, you’ve got to be on your guard and be smarter than the food manufacturers and their deceptive schemes. Remember that ingredients are listed in order of their proportion in the product, which means the top three ingredients are what you’re primarily eating and matter more than anything else. Stick with ingredients you recognize and can pronounce, and don’t be fooled by healthy-sounding herbs and berries that appear near the end of the list.

Source of this information: NewsTarget.com, Mike Adams (7/10/07)