You may have heard me complain before about the state of our “food.”  Too much highly processed food (gee, I hate to call it ‘food’) comes out of the supermarket.  The packaging is pretty.  The tastes and smells and colors leap out at you.  It’s planned.

Did you know there are “food chemists” and whole industries whose only job is to get you to buy more of their companies’ products?

Do you know that a lot of the flavors and scents they create and add to your food are petroleum based?  Yup, the same thing that fuels your car.  But your car was built to use petroleum.  You were not.

And ‘spices’?  Turns out that when a package says ‘spice’ is in the ingredients it’s not necessarily what you and I use in our kitchens.  It’s allowed to be fake by the same folks who are supposed to be keeping us safe.

Food colors, additives, pesticides, hormones–all kinds of things that are not good for bodies are in highly processed foods.  The problem with this is YOUR BODY DOESN’T LIKE IT!

And just to prove it, your body reacts with muscle pain, fatigue, aching joints, fibromyalgia syndrome and other complaints.  THAT is how your body talks to you in language that gets your attention.

And another of the biggest culprits that can cause health problems is refined sugar or table sugar.  Sugar causes inflammation.  http://SugarAddictCure.info will give you lots more info about that.  The author is a nutritionist who can start you on the path to feeling better in short order.  She knows just about everything about eating to get  your health back naturally.  (I’m not a nutritionist; I’m just me.)

And salt?  Sea salt will give you minerals to boost your body.  Bodies need minerals.  Table salt (sodium chloride) doesn’t have the range of minerals that sea salt does and it has additives, too.  Sea salt even has a better flavor, more delicate.  Try it.

We were built to eat real food.  Your body could operate well, have energy and even heal if it had all the nutrients you need.  Where can you get them?  Real food.  Colorful foods (Cheetos don’t count.)  Hang out in the produce section and see what you can discover there.

One of the problems with highly processed foods is that lots of the nutrients are removed or destroyed in processing.  Oh sure, you will see on the package that a few have been added back in but not nearly as many as were in the raw product to start with.

Another problem is that some of the additives, like FD&C Yellow #5, actually destroy vitamins in your body.  Some additives cause you to be deficient in vitamins.  Deficiencies lead to your body complaining and yelling at you:  “Help me!  I need some real food here so I can feel good again!”

Years ago, when I suffered seriously from migraines, I became aware of the cause and effect that food can have. After I eliminated trigger foods, my migraine headaches became much less severe and frequent.

My brother recently gave me some packets of honey from a well-known fast-chicken place. (That’s like fast food, but it’s chicken.)

I was going to put some honey in my tea, until…

I noticed that the label said “Honey” in large letters and “sauce” in little letters.

So I flipped it over to read the ingredients. Now, wouldn’t you think that something that says “honey” would actually be honey?

But, nooo…

Ingredients: high fructose corn syrup, sugar, corn syrup, honey, caramel color.

Not honey.

Bad.

I don’t know whether anyone has told you yet, but high fructose corn syrup is a killer. A slow killer.

Honey is a natural product. Sugar is a natural product. Sure, too much can cause problems, but a bit is fine.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is made by splitting corn syrup into parts. It is the sweetest part. It is extremely sweet. It is no longer a natural food.

Many, many manufacturers of “food products” use HFCS instead of honey, sugar or even whole corn syrup because it is cheaper to use.

It’s one of the franken-foods.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it? It is.

Because it is not real, and because it’s so hyper-sweet, it messes with your pancreas and insulin level. HFCS is a primary cause of diabetes and obesity.

Don’t think so?

How come we Americans are the ones with the most sugar diabetes and the fattest kids?

You know it’s not “genetics” because we come from a huge gene pool from all over the world. Are the people where we came from fat and sick?

Only the ones who are starting to eat “Americanized” food are getting sick and fat.

Read the label on your bread, on your hotdogs, lunch meat, catsup…you’re gonna find it all over the place.

You’ll find it in places you’d never expect. Check out your ice cream, your kids’ lunch foods, puddings, fruit roll ups, cereals, chocolate milk and syrup…

Some companies, like Meijers, have their own product lines and are putting good and real ingredients into many of their branded foods. Meijers has a Gold and an Organic line, both of which have pretty nice ingredients.

There are a few cereals with some sugar in them, and a few with no sweetners (hey, add your own if you need a little bit.)

Want to stop being a sucker for the food industry to make a profit from, at the expense of your health?

Read labels.

Buy food that is as close to real as you can. (Hint: Check out the fruit and vegetable aisles, beans, nuts, seeds and whole grains.)

Eventually, the food industry (it is a huge industry) will get the message.

“Because You Deserve To Feel Better!”