Natural Flavors or Chemical Warfare?

I pulled this info from "Food Babe"'s blog!  She does some awesome research on "food" and our food industry.  

About a year ago, 60 minutes did a show on the company Givaudan.  They are the world leaders in flavoring our food.  If you've ever seen the words "Artificially Flavored" or "Natural Flavors" in a list of ingredients, chances are they are the ones who supplied it.  And if you HAVEN'T seen those words in an ingredients list then thats crazy... because it is virtually in EVERYTHING on your grocery store shelves.  

But what is in "Natural Flavors?"  

This video is 14 minutes long but it is a rare look inside of the company.  It is very eye opening!

"The natural and artificial chemicals that flavor manufactures engineer are contributing to what David Kessler (former head of the FDA) calls a “food carnival” in your mouth. The inability to stop eating because the flavors they have synthesized trick your mind into wanting more and more. They don’t want you to have the full essence of the strawberry – they want you to only experience the best 1 millionth part of the taste – so you get “addicted” and keep having to go back for more and more, searching continuously for gratification – eating more of that product which in turns fills Big Food Companies pockets. The Big Food Companies are “hijacking” your taste buds one by one."

Most of us know artificial flavors derived from petroleum aren’t good for us, but the with the words “natural flavor” food chemists and companies can put whatever they want in your food that is “generally regarded as safe” including excitotoxins. Natural flavor can legally contain natural occurring “glutamate” bi-products like MSG (remember this post?) – which are known excitotoxins. These excitotoxins are some of the chemicals that cause your taste buds to experience irresistibility when it comes to food. Ever wonder why you can’t just eat one chip? Or one cookie? Or why you remember a taste of a product so distinctly and crave uncontrollably? Excitotoxins can be to blame. Excitotoxins overexcite your cells literally until they die or are damaged causing “injury” and “incapacitating” you with disease. When consumed over time, excitotoxins can cause nerve disorders resulting a myriad of diseases from stroke to Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s. And lots of other side effects too – like obesity, migraines, fatigue and depression."

So what should you do?  

Try to stay clear of anything with artificial or "natural" flavoring!  It won't be a big deal if you are staying away from processed foods.  If those "Strawberry" pop tarts are looking tasty... try a real live strawberry instead!  I know, it sounds crazy!  The more you eat real, whole foods, the more your taste buds will grow accustomed to them.  They will become very satisfying and delicious!  After a while, an apple will start to be just as satisfying as chocolate ice cream!  Ok, that last part was a lie.  I don't think anything will ever be as satisfying as Haagen Dazs Peanut Butter Chocolate Ice Cream with cold milk poured over it so it crystalizes and sprinkles all over the top to give it a nice crunch........ Oh sorry.... What were we talking about?  Oh yea, healthy stuff :-)  Seriously, stay away from flavoring!  Mother Nature produces the best flavors out there anyway!  Stick with those.

A food pyramid based on your HEALTH, imagine that?!

How and what SHOULD you eat?

1.  First make sure that your food isn't toxic: genetically modified, processed, grown with poisonous pesticides and insecticides.
In other words, make sure your food is actually FOOD!  Grow it yourself, buy it locally from an organic farmer or organic meat producer.  
Ok, good job.  Now you've got yourself a fridge and pantry full of Food that is in its natural state... the way your body is designed to digest it.  The way God made it.... and I am pretty sure he knew what he was doing!  But just because that beef is from a local grass fed cow doesn't mean that you can scarf a pound of it down and pat yourself on the back.  Just because that avacado is grown locally from an organic farm doesn't mean you can make a giant bowl of guacamole for your lunch and expect to be healthy.  



2.  Now that you have real, non toxic food, you

have to pay attention to the food pyramid. But I am not talking about the food pyramid that the government has put out.

 

(this is what I look like when I think about the government's food pyramid... except I'm a girl and I would never wear that shirt)

Ya know, the heavily influenced government that caters to all the giant corporation's interests, instead of your health.  Lets go absolutely insane and pretend like "health" is the number one priority when a food pyramid is created!  Crazy Right?!  Ok, well if health was the priority, then the food pyramid would look something like this:

This is the best food pyramid I could find and it is pretty dang accurate.  There are variations of it out there and some might argue small changes with it.  But overall, this is it folks!  This is what our bodies are designed to thrive on.  

Notice that half of your veggies (and fruits I will add) should be Raw.  This means that they should be eaten in their natural state and cannot be heated over 108 degrees Fahrenheit.  Once they have been heated to that point, their nutrition is greatly decreased.  So they're not as healthy.... and if you think about it, you kinda just wasted half of the money you spent on the food.  Now you have to buy double the amount to get the same nutrition you could have gotten had you just eaten it raw.  In many cases, you lose 50% or more of the nutrition once it's cooked.  If you are going to cook the veggies or fruit, opt for steaming or grilling instead of boiling.  When you boil your food, most of the nutrients are lost to the water.... so unless you plan on drinking the water that you boiled that broccoli in, just stick with steaming.

You might be wondering how you'll get protein and calcium if you are rarely eating meat and dairy.  Well it may suprise you that vegetables contain TONS of protein and calcium without all the unhealthy counterparts of animal products.   

Throw some 3.  Good old fashioned excercising and stress management in there and you've got yourself a recipe for freakin awesome health!

Sources:

http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/news-usda-replaces-mypyramid-with-myplate.html

87% of the meat that you eat contains anti-biotic resistant bacteria!

(If you only have a quick second, skip to the bottom for some shocking and important facts.... they are highlighted in orange)

Let me paint you a lovely picture real quick.  Close your eyes.... K wait, open your eyes so you can read... but start to imagine........

Our  cow friend lives his entire life standing in his own poop, breathing in the toxic fumes from the immeasurable amounts of feces produced by the thousands of cows that are surrounding him.  They are crammed into an area with each other that definitely doesn't allow for "roaming" and the cement underneath the piles and piles of poop isn't easy on the hooves.  Our OMNIVORE cow that is genetically structured to eat GRASS... is fed:

*  Genetically Modified Cornfeed that is virtually void of all nutrition
*  Ground up dead animal carcasses (the protein in these ground up carcasses aids in unnaturally fast growth in the livestock!  Awesome!!)  So Remember, Omnivore cow + ground up dead animal carcasses.... Can I get a "WHAT WHAT" for Mad Cow Disease!!!
*  Lots of growth hormones that have repeatedly been proven to be toxic for human consumption and toxic to the cow.   (bovine somatotropin (bST) and recombant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) are the ones most commonly used)
*  ....And some yummy antibiotics

After that well rounded meal that our cow friend has just consumed, he is 
showered with insecticides; Insecticides that are toxic.  ALL over him and his cow friends.

  Is your mouth salivating for some juicy sickly toxic steak right now?

   

So back to the subject of Anti-biotics... 
80% of the antibiotics used in this country are used on livestock! 

80%!!!  

Antibiotics are used to stimulate rapid growth in animals, as well as treat disease caused by the incredibly unsanitary conditions of feedlots and factory farms.

Because of this revolting overuse of antibiotics, bacteria are becoming resistant to antibiotics.  The conventional meat industry is not only supplying you with "meat" for your dinner table, but they are also serving you up with a steamy dose of bacteria that you cannot kill.

The EWG analyzed a study by the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System.  Here are a few of their findings:

"Rates of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella, which causes acute illness and can lead to chronic arthritis, have increased from 48 percent in 2002 to 76 percent in 2011. Amounts of "superbug Salmonella" found on turkey have jumped from 62 to 78 percent during that same time period."

"Another super-bacterium, campylobacter, can be even more damaging. Campylobacter is the most common cause of diarrheal disease in the U.S. and, left untreated, it can trigger Guillain-Barré syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can result in paralysis. Yet, 100 percent of the campylobacter found on turkey was resistant to antibiotics."

"Sixty-nine and 55 percent of pork and beef samples, respectively, tested positive for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but turkey and chicken pose much greater problems, as far as these "superbugs" are concerned. By far the most contaminated meat was turkey: 81 percent of turkey samples tested positive for antibiotic-resistant microbes, while just 39 

percent of chicken samples did."

If you are going to buy meat, try your best to buy organic, local, grass fed meat.  Check your classifieds.  Ask around.  Check your neighborhood grocery stores.  Your efforts will be worth it!!!  Our society on average eats WAY too much meat... so try and cut down on your meat intake as well.  Even if it is organic and local, you still should not be eating a lot of it.  

source: http://www.rodale.com/antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-and-supermarket-meat?cm_mmc=TheDailyFixNL-_-1266960-_-04172013-_-How_Dirty_is_The_Meat_You_Eat_title

Can't afford everything organic? It's Ok, read this!

Conventionally Grown Crops = pesticides, insecticides, GMO's, etc ARE all permitted (this is how over 90% of the produce available to you is grown)
Organically Grown Crops = pesticides, insecticides, GMO's , etc are NOT permitted 

The EWG (Environmental Working Group) conducted studies to find out which conventionally grown crops had the most detectable amounts of pesticides.  They came up with

 THE DIRTY DOZEN!  (cue the creepy sound "duh dUH DUH!")

THE DIRTY DOZEN!

Apples

 98% of conventional apples had pesticides

Celery

Celery tested positive for 57 different pesticides and

96% of celery tested positive for pesticides

Bell Peppers

bell peppers tested positive for 15 pesticides on a single sample

Peaches

96% of peach samples tested positive

Strawberries

Nectarines

Grapes

15 pesticides on a single sample of grapes

Spinach

88% of spinach samples tested positive for multiple pesticides

Lettuce

lettuce tested positive for 67 different pesticides

Cucumbers

10 different pesticides on a single sample of cucumber

Blueberries

Potatoes

So lets say buying EVERYTHING organically is just not an option that fits into your budget.  This DIRTY DOZEN list helps you know which produce you should try to ALWAYS buy organically because of the immense amounts of pesticides used to grow them conventionally.  EWG predicts that if you were to buy just these 12 foods organically (and continued buying all your other produce conventionally) you would decrease your insecticide intake by 80%.  Not bad right!?  So in other words, this list is telling you where to splurge and just go for the organic bell pepper rather than the cheaper, conventionally grown bell pepper.  It will be worth it.

They also came up with the "Clean Fifteen."  These are conventionally grown crops that had little to zero traces of pesticides.  So if you are trying to decide where to cut corners in your food budget, these would be the foods that you could safely opt to buy conventionally grown rather than organic.

CLEAN FIFTEEN

-Onions

-Sweet corn
-Pineapples
-Avocado
-Cabbage
-Sweet peas
-Asparagus
-Mangoes
-Eggplant
-Kiwi
-Cantaloupe (domestic)
-Sweet potatoes
-Grapefruit
-Watermelon
-Mushrooms

ALWAYS CLEAN YOUR PRODUCE!  

You can't get rid of ALL the pesticides and contaminants by washing, but it will definitely help!!

To get your fruits and veggies as clean as possible, use a vegetable brush for sturdier produce.  Also try soaking leafy greens and delicate produce in a bowl of cool water for several minutes, then rinse in a salad spinner or colander.... or if you're ghetto like me, dry them with a kitchen towel.  Adding a capful of vinegar to the water can aid in cleaning your produce.  You can also use vegetable washes or even baking soda (for produce you plan to cook).  

http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/

A quick dose of GMO reality

Here's a 1.5 minute video to give you a better understanding of GMO's. This is an excerpt from "Genetic Roulette" by Jeffrey Smith.   Check his website out http://www.responsibletechnology.org/posts/blog/ and his entire "Genetic Roulette" documentary. He is at the forefront of the Non-GMO movement and he is crazy knowledgeable about all of this stuff.  The website is super informative and easy to understand.

 

 Just a reminder of what Genetically Modified crops are currently being sold to us: 

Corn 

Canola 

Cotton 

Soy 

Crooked Neck Squash 

Hawaiian Papaya

Alfalfa 

Sugar Beets
(and there are lots more in the works of making their way to our dinner table)

And one more reminder.... Avoiding GMO foods is just ONE of the many things you need to watch out for.  A food can be Non-GMO and still be grown with loads of pesticides, insecticides, picked prematurely, chemically ripened.... etc.

CHOCOLATE: IT LOVES ME; IT LOVES ME NOT; THAT IS THE QUESTION

After my scouring of the internet I am sorry to say chocolate is NOT the dream health food you all have been waiting for and paying more money for “raw cocao” is a rip off.  Natural cocoa or cacao (two spellings meaning the exact same thing: the English culture in some cases uses the word cacao when they talk about the bean of the plant and cocoa when they talk about the finished powder product) does have some redeeming properties.  To gain significant health benefits you would need to eat a lot, without added fat or sugar, but chocolate also contains caffeine and theobromine which you do not want to consume abundantly.  I like what Beth Klos, R.D., L.D.N., is an outpatient senior nutritionist at Brigham and Women's Hospital says:

Having chocolate in small portions is the key.

• Limit yourself to a small piece of chocolate (a bite-sized piece or about one-third of a bar).
• Choose dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate or Dutch processed (alkalized) products.
• Look at the ingredients. Make sure the first listed ingredient is cocoa solids or mass or chocolate liquor, not sugar.

When you eat that little nip of chocolate, savor and enjoy! And if you are craving more, consider the other flavonoid-rich foods with fewer calories such as grapes, blueberries, strawberries and spinach. These are smart, colorful and flavorful ways to keep your diet balanced.

Understanding how cocao becomes chocolate or a powder is important and I found this simplified explanation ( I ready sooo many) as a response to raw cocao on a blog: http://www.cheftalk.com/t/19794/whats-difference-between-cacao-powder-and-cocoa-powder

..and here is my reasoning and experience of 15 years in the cocoa business, and as a chemical engineer.

Cocoa powder and cacao powder is the same.
What is considered "raw" cacao is supposed to be a cocoa powder that has been in a process that never exceedes 110 degrees Fahrenheit...which is already an almost impossible scenario, since cocoa beans are grown at the Equator, and you may exceed that temperature while drying on the patio under the sun covered with black linens (to heat it up and allow the fermentation of the bean)....and yes, you need to dry them, otherwise they will be rotten in a few days, and the shell will be too difficult to peel off.

*a scientific study that explains the loss of nutrients during fermentation or roasting process http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215931/

Cocoa powder and dark chocolate are appreciated, first and foremost, for their flavor and texture. By attempting to make cocoa ingredients healthier by shortening fermentation time or minimizing roasting for similar, we would expect that the result would be a bitter, astringent ingredient with lower than expected cocoa flavor. So as with many things, a balance needs to be struck between different benefits; in this case flavor versus healthfulness.

*side note from an article I will post a link to: people wouldn’t want to eat raw chocolate if they saw the way cacao beans were treated in countries where they’re grown. Beans are stored outdoors, by the side of the road, or under other decidedly non-hygienic conditions, such as sharing an area with chickens, who walk over and/or defecate on them.

Back to cocoa powder....
ALL cocoa powder comes from the cocoa bean, which without the shell is called cocoa nib (a.k.a. cacao nib). The first step is grinding of the nib (which again, when you grind something to such small particle size you will create a lot of friction with -that's right - heat!). That will give you the cocoa/cacao paste (a.k.a. cacao mass or liquor), which has about 50 to 56% fat (cocoa butter) in it...and ALL cocoa powders have to go through that stage.

Next stage is to take some of that butter away, which the raw community claims can be done through "cold pressing". For any that don't understand that term, cold pressing is done with oils like olive oil to preserve the oil almost intact by cooling the press plates while applying pressure (pressure generates heat, therefore it needs to be cooled). But here is a reminder, olive oil is liquid in room temperature, cocoa butter is SOLID, and it STARTS melting at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit ... so, you cannot control and cool it to a point where it will be still in a solid phase, because it cannot be pressed and "flow" out.

Last operation is to grind the solids left in the press, again - heat...and there is your cocoa powder or cacao powder... you tell me if you call it "raw", a term not defined by the FDA for cocoa, and that can be used by anyone just to sell the cocoa to a much higher price. Maybe that is why bigger, more serious companies don't have this product, since they do not want to be liable for false advertising...

Regarding "Raw" cocoa nibs or cocoa beans...yes, that is possible, and the only concern is the high bacteriological plate count... but how much you want to train your immune system is up to each individual. And yes, the less manipulated the cocoa, the more polyphenols and healthy chemicals you will obtain from it.

There is also a difference between alkalized or dutched powders, and the natural ones (which do not contain any potassium carbonate), being the second ones the ones containing more of the healthy properties (antioxidants). But that is totally different than claiming a "raw" cocoa powder.

http://www.healthcastle.com/cocoa.shtml  explains the difference between the two types of cocoa powder:

Natural Cocoa

This process was explained above.   Some popular brands of natural cocoa are Nestlé, Hershey's, and Ghiradelli.

Dutch-Processed Cocoa

Dutch processing refers to the process by which the cocoa beans are washed with an alkaline solution, usually potassium carbonate, in order to neutralize the acidity of the natural cocoa. The resulting cocoa is known as "Dutched," "alkalized," or "Dutch-processed" cocoa. Aside from neutralizing the acidity, alkalizing cocoa powder changes it into a darker, more reddish shade of brown that may look more appealing, and can also help mellow the flavor of the beans and improve solubility. Since it does not react to baking soda like natural cocoa does, Dutch-processed cocoa is usually used in recipes with baking powder. Some popular brands of Dutch-processed cocoa are Lindt, Valrhona, and Droste.

Dr. Fuhrman says this:

Cocoa contains only a very small amount of caffeine. It does however contain theobromine. Theobromine has stimulant properties, but it is much milder compared to caffeine and has a mood improving effect. The low levels in cocoa have not shown any harmful effects, but it can be toxic to dogs because they cannot break down and eliminate theobromine like humans can.

No matter what you hear in the media, eating dark chocolate with lots of added sugar and saturated fat and other candy bar chemicals can’t be good for you, no matter how many antioxidants are in the chocolate.

While unprocessed, unsweetened cocoa powder should not be considered a food that should be consumed in large amounts because of the theobromine, using reasonable quantities to flavor desserts, smoothies and in your gourmet healthy cooking, can actually add beneficial nutrients as well as make your family more likely to eat healthfully, adding to the nutritional quality of their diet.

If you want a highly researched but very readable and in depth article check this out:

http://chocolatealchemy.com/the-truth-about-raw-chocolate/