Wednesday, February 28, 2018

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: What's in Your Cart?


"Our taxes are being used to subsidize the production of foods that are killing us."  
                                --T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D., from "Vegan 2017"

When I walk in a grocery store and look at prepared and processed foods, I am shocked by how expensive foods with cheap ingredients are.  In the checkout line, I always find myself mentally comparing what's in my cart, with organic brown rice, lentils, quinoa, plus fruit that is in season, to other shoppers with their meat, chicken, deli cheeses, and boxes of mac and cheese.  My weekly food bill is so much less than those who eat animal products and processed foods every day.  

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Next time you go shopping, remember that the only thing that matters is the ingredients.  Can you pronounce them?  How many ingredients are there?  5 or 25?  Any food dyes such as Red 40, Blue 1 (food dyes contribute to attention deficit disorder)?  How many hidden ingredients end in "-ose" (i.e., sugars)?  If the product contains grains, does the ingredient list include the word "whole" as in whole grains?  Anything other than the ingredient list on a food package is pure marketing.  

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If you and your family are interested in saving money on your food bill AND preventing diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and high blood pressure, then eat the whole food plant-based way!  Buy foods where you know what the ingredients are.  If you can't pronounce them and you don't know what they are, then it is probably a chemical or artificial ingredient and not good for you.  

It is no longer OK for us to blindly buy foods that will only make us sick.

#EatRealFood.  

With love and gratitude,
Nancy L. Heinrich, MPH
Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc.