20 Ingredients To Memorize and Avoid In ANY Food You Consume

I recently came across an interesting article from preventdisease.com, and felt the need to share entitled 20 Ingredients to AVOID. If you must consume packaged foods, spend a few seconds before purchasing and read ingredients!

I have taken excepts from the article and highlighted key ingredients that we commonly see in "healthy" and conventional foods and added some personal thoughts on these toxic items.

Not surprisingly:

1. Sugar

The single largest source of calories for Americans comes from sugar .Sugar is loaded into your soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and hidden in almost all processed foods--from bologna to pretzels to Worcestershire sauce to cheese spread. And now most infant formula has the sugar equivalent of one can of Coca-Cola, so babies are being metabolically poisoned from day one if taking formula. Sugar changes metabolism, raises blood pressure, critically alters the signaling of hormones and causes significant damage to the liver -- the least understood of sugar's damages. These health hazards largely mirror the effects of drinking too much alcohol, which they point out in their commentary is the distillation of sugar. If it's not a natural sugar, it doesn't belong in your food.

I see some of you rolling your eyes at this one, but I urge you to check food labels. We have talked about how bad sugar is in previous posts, but remember 4g of sugar is equivalent to one teaspoon. Most processed foods including "healthy" yogurt contain about 20g of sugar which is equal to about 5 teaspoons! That is just about the maximum you should consume in one day!  For more information see Sugar Demon.

2. Sucralose 

Splenda/sucralose is simply chlorinated sugar; a chlorocarbon. Common chlorocarbons include carbon tetrachloride, trichlorethelene and methylene chloride, all deadly. Chlorine is nature's Doberman attack dog, a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid. Chlorocarbons are never nutritionally compatible with our metabolic processes and are wholly incompatible with normal human metabolic functioning. Sucralose is a very common additive in protein mixes and drinks so beware all of you who love to add these into your smoothies.

3. Aspartame

The sale of aspartame, with only four calories per gram and 200 times sweeter than sugar, is sold under the trademarks NutraSweet and Equal. Results indicate that aspartame is a multi-potential carcinogen, even consumed daily at 20 milligrams per kilogram of body weight. That is a lower quantity than the maximum recommended by the FDA. It's one reason you should never purchase major brands of chewing gums. For more information see Calorie free sweeteners.

4. BHA and BHT

Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydrozyttoluene (BHT) are used to preserve common household foods. Any processed food that has a long shelf life is often filled with BHA. They are found in cereals, chewing gum, potato chips, and vegetable oils. They are oxidants, which form potentially cancer-causing reactive compounds in your body. 

5. Enriched Wheat

Wheat is already one of those grains that should be avoided, but the key word to watch out for is 'enrichment'. That means niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, folic acid, and iron are added after these and other key nutrients are stripped out in the first place during the refining process. That applies to whether it's wheat, rye, or other grains. Enriched flour is really just refined flour that has had a few nutrients re-added to it, but not enough to make any food made from this nutritionally worthy.

I have found that buying bread can be an impossible task since most breads have a million ingredients in it. If you choose to go organic or gluten free you will be paying a small fortune for bread that in my opinion really doesn't taste good. For the most part, the only bread (on special occasions)  I will have is baked fresh from a bakery. While technically not  the best thing to have, at least it is baked fresh, and is not sitting on a shelf for who knows how long full of chemicals..

6. Soy (Obviously)

Although it's often lauded as a healthy, cholesterol-free, cheap, low-fat protein alternative to meat, soy is NOT a health food. Any foods that list soy in any form as an ingredient should be avoided. Soy protein, soy isolate, and soy oil are present in about 60 percent of the foods on the market and have been shown to impair fertility and affect estrogen in women, lower sex drive, and trigger puberty early in children. Soy can also add to the imbalance between omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. 

The only soy products fit for human consumption are fermented and organic and I can guarantee you will never find this type of soy in any processed foods. The majority of soy is GMO and you can't get around this. Regardless of who I am speaking with, soy is one of those foods I use to gauge the nutritional IQ of others. You would not believe how many health practitioners and even Naturopathic Doctors still think soy is a health food. Please don't touch this stuff.

7. Corn

We are at the point where all corn products, including fresh corn should be avoided. The percentage of genetically modified corn is just far too high. You will never know if you are actually consuming organic corn. Modified cornstarch, dextrose, maltodextrin, and corn oil should all be avoided. All are high in omega-6 fatty acids, which can promote inflammation, cancer, and heart disease. While your body needs both omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids to perform at its full potential, most experts recommend an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 1:1--currently most Americans consume about 15-20 times more omega-6 acids than omega-3s.

8. Soy Lecithin (Big Issue- this is in almost any and every packaged food healthy or non on the market.. )

Soy Lecithin has been lingering around our food supply for over a century. It is an ingredient in literally hundreds of processed foods, and also sold as an over the counter health food supplement. (UNBELIEVABLE) However, most people don't realize what soy lecithin actually is, and why the dangers of ingesting this additive far exceed its benefits.

Soybean lecithin comes from sludge left after crude soy oil goes through a "degumming" process. It is a waste product containing solvents and pesticides. The toxic hexane extraction process is what is commonly used in soybean oil manufacture today. Another big problem associated with soy lecithin comes from the origin of the soy itself. Look out for this emulsifier in ice creams, chocolate and many processed creams.

I still cannot understand how this is allowed in our food supply, and in organic foods, which are supposedly held to a higher standard...

 For more information and for items that do not contain this harmful ingredient see Soy.

9.  Canola oil

Canola or rapeseed oil is poisonous to living things and is an excellent insect repellent. It is an industrial oil, not a food. It is a genetically modified plant designed through intensive breeding and genetic engineering techniques. The Canadian government and industry paid the FDA $50 million dollars to have canola oil placed on the (GRAS) List, "Generally Recognized As Safe". It is becoming increasingly difficult to find products that do not contain Canola oil. Please do not buy any food product containing canola oil.

I would also add to this list:

Vegetable Oil

Organic Vegetable Oil

Soybean Oil

Corn Oil

Grape Seed Oil

Hydrogenated Oils

Safflower oil

Cottonseed oil

Sunflower oil

Peanut oil

Sesame oil

Check out the complete article here: 20 Ingredients to AVOID .

To Soy Or Not To Soy - That Is The Question

10 years ago, if you said the word 'gluten', very few people would have a clue what you were talking about.  Unless you had celiac or knew someone with celiac, gluten was a foreign word.  Then when people started going to nutritionists and gastro doctors complaining of stomach pains, it was uncovered that gluten allergies and sensitivities were a thing.  Doctors attributed any and all reactions to food as being gluten-based.  The problem with this, is people were still getting sick when they weren't eating gluten.  I finally (after dealing with this for years) found ONE nutritionist who suggested it could be coming from soy, and sure enough, the problem was solved (or so I thought).  What I didn't realize when cutting out the easy to discover foods like soy sauce, is that soy lecithin, although not actually soy, needed to be cut too.

There were a few problems with this.  Soy lecithin is in EVERYTHING.  Go ahead, go to your kitchen and pick up pretty much any packaged food product.  Chances are there's soy lecithin in it.  Especially chocolate and salad dressings.  If it's not soy lecithin, it's soybean oil, or soy flour.  Soy has started to dominate the packaged food industry.  It doesn't stop there though.  When I went to Jacques Torres, I looked at every package in their store, and even though it's a fancy French chocolatier, still there was soy lecithin in everything.
Why is soy lecithin bad for you?  What IS soy lecithin you ask?  Let's uncover that now, shall we?

Soy lecithin is a food additive, used as an emulsifier to lengthen the shelf life of packaged food.  Lecithin is a mixture of phospholipids and oil.  To make soy lecithin, soybean oil is extracted from raw soybeans using a chemical solvent.  Then the crude soy oil goes through a degumming process, where water is mixed until the lecithin separates from the oil.  It's then dried and sometimes bleached with hydrogen peroxide.  Aside from hydrogen peroxide, there's residue from chemicals at other stops along the way.  While the lecithin is being removed, there's hexane in the oil that doesn't fully go away.  The FDA doesn't regulate the amount of hexane residue in food products.  What is hexane you ask?  I don't know. But it's a chemical and so you shouldn't be eating it!!
Now most of the time soy lecithin makes up around 1% of the contents in the food, so it might not give you a hard time at all.  But if it's in all the foods you're eating, it's better to avoid it altogether because it does add up.  There are a lot of options for soy-free foods.  With chocolate, more and more are being made sans soy lecithin.  If it's 85% dark chocolate, it most likely won't have soy.  Some of the cheaper brands still do use it, so unfortunately, aim for the more expensive ones.  For anyone who knows me, this is not a comment that frequently comes out of my mouth.  But I'd rather spend a little more and know there's no chemicals in my food and I won't feel sick after.

My new MO is not getting frustrated over the foods I can't eat, but finding alternative options to things I can.  Will I sometimes cave and have some Rolos and M&Ms? Yes, everyone has a moment of weakness.  The sugar issue complicates this further, because in the gluten-free, soy-free chocolate I've found, the sugar content ended up being high.  So you have to pretty much make chocolate a special occasion type thing, to try to keep your soy away and sugar in check.  Here's a list of my go-tos - if you know of other brands, let me know and I'll add them in!

Chocolate:
Theo
Enjoy Life
Sweet Riot
Trader Joe's belgian chocolate bars
Raaka
Equal Exchange
Hu

Bars:

Larabar

Pure organic

Zing

InBalance

Health Warrior Chia

Again, some regular brands that are 85% dark chocolate and higher don't contain soy lecithin.  You have to check everything in the store before you buy it; because soy lecithin really will be in almost all chocolate you buy.  I've found that there are a lot of small local brands in organic stores that seem to be safe.  I know I mentioned this in my sugar post, but InBalance bars are great because they're soy free and low in sugar.  The safe brands tend to use sunflower lecithin as a binding ingredient instead.  I've also started making my own snacks, to avoid soy and make them natural.  If you're interested, follow my paleo recipe boards:

http://www.pinterest.com/caspaqutie/paleo-recipes-to-try/
http://www.pinterest.com/caspaqutie/paleo-recipes-success/

I've been collecting recipes for cookies, muffins, fudge and smoothies to fulfill my sweet tooth in the safest way possible.  This soy sensitivity business can be extremely overwhelming, and my situation actually helped uncover that my friend had a severe allergy, and we figured it out together and now she's on the road to recovery.  If you want to talk off-line about it, reach out!  Caryn and I are in the process of working on taking courses to get certified to be legit nutritionists (on the side. I'm not leaving MMF/UA anytime soon!), but we do know a lot to help people figure out what's going on inside.  And we're cheaper than real nutritionists too, since we're free :)

Matcha & Maca - our newest obsessions

As we're weeding out all of the foods that are on the big fat NO list, we needed to replace them with new, healthier foods.  In doing this, we started visiting juice bars more often.  Organic Avenue and Juice Generation are my personal favorites.  I sampled a juice called Matcha Chia Glo at Organic Avenue that was absolutely amazing.  I bought one, and noticed after I drank my 14 oz of heaven that I had a ton of energy,  was full for hours, and in a great mood the rest of the day.  I did a little research on matcha to see what exactly it was and why it was giving me this wonderful reaction, and what I found has made me decide that matcha is going to be my new replacement for coffee.

Think of matcha as a super green tea.  It's a powder version of green tea from Japan that has a ton of health benefits.

1 - Energy. Matcha has much less caffeine than a cup of coffee, but provides an energy boost up to 6 hours of clean energy without jitters, and no crash afterwards.

2 - Antioxidants. In terms of antioxidants, one glass of matcha is equal to 10 glasses of regular green tea in terms of antioxidants & nutrients.

3 - EGCG. Matcha contains 137x more of the antioxidant EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate) than other types of green tea. EGCG has been proven to help fight cancer, heart disease, and HIV.

4 - Fat burning.  Matcha contains unique thermogenic properties that quadruple fat burning. What that equates to is burning 40% more calories a day just by drinking this amazing powder.  That alone makes it better than coffee.

5 - Relaxation.  Matcha contains an amino acid called L-Theanine, which promotes relaxation and well-being in the brain. Buddhist monks take matcha to help them meditate.

6 - Detoxing.  Matcha contains chlorophyll, which is supposed to detox the body and help clear out toxins, heavy metals, and poisons.

It's still really hard to find matcha in regular grocery stores or cafes.  You can get some at some Whole Foods and organic stores.  I ordered my matcha on Amazon, and the company 'Kiss Me Organics' sent me a 71 page PDF filled with recipes for different drinks and baked goods.  I'll gladly share the PDF with anyone interested, or you can buy a bag here: Matcha Tea on Amazon.  You can make a matcha latte for breakfast in place of your coffee and have more energy than taking that morning trip to Starbucks.  The places in NY that I've found matcha on the menu is currently limited to Macaron Cafe and Argo Tea.  I just learned that Starbucks' green tea latte is made with matcha, but they add a ton of sugar which defeats the purpose.  I also found one at the Coffee Beanery in the Atlanta airport, but I'm fairly certain that one also was pumped up with sugar because I couldn't sit still for my entire flight back home.  

And now on to MACA,  Back in Peru in 2009, when heading to do the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, my friend and I learned that to cope with the 3,000 meter elevation (around 10,000 feet for those not on the metric system - I speak in meters thanks to all of my international travel!), the Incas and Quechua use coca.  No, coca leaf is not cocaine; yes, it is illegal in the US; no, there's no reason why.  I didn't love chewing on the leaves, so our lovely tour guide introduced me to coca candies.  Anything with a little added sugar (back in those days) made me ecstatic, and I lived on these little coca candies for the rest of my trip.  Two years later I found myself back in Peru, searching for my darling little coca candies.  I kept accidentally buying a different kind of candy, which the Peruvians were calling maca.  I had never heard of maca before, and embarrassingly thought I was buying the same thing but it was a different color and they were calling it by the wrong name (oops) but it tasted even better than the coca candies.  I didn't know the properties at the time, and it didn't help with the altitude sickness, but they tasted great and cost about 15 cents a bag.

Now fast-forward to 2014.  Suddenly, Caryn and I start seeing maca popping up on food labels and in our health blogs.  I remembered the name from my Peru days, and so we did a little research on this new Incan superfood.

Maca is a root in the radish family, most commonly found in powder form.  Maca has a ton of good-for-you properties:

-Rich in Vitamin B, C & E, calcium, zinc, iron, magnesium, phosphorous and amino acids.

-Energy. Known for raising energy and increasing stamina. 

-Boosts your libido, balances hormones and increases fertility. This I can't attest to fully, but I do recall having a crush on someone in Peru when I was eating these candies left and right so maybe that was a factor.  It's like a love potion!  What's kind of funny about this too, is when you find maca in drinks and smoothies at juice bars they always have names relevant to that point, like 'Get Naked' or 'Horny Gorilla'.  (Yes, these names are ridiculous, but they're sold at places like Juice Press!

-Can be known to increase fertility. So if you take this, double up on your birth control. Or have a lot of babies. Your choice.

-Good for general health. Supplies iron, restores red blood cells, keeps bones and teeth healthy, makes you heal from wounds more quickly. 

-Relieves menstrual issues - cramps, body pain, hot flashes associated with menopause, anxiety, mood swings, & depression.  I feel like any guy reading this is going to start slipping maca powder into girls' drinks. Makes them want to have sex and tone down the crazy. Win-win for everyone.

-Skin. Can help clear acne and blemishes.

It almost sounds like the Peruvians invented maca to help tourists survive the Inca Trail - I definitely could have used some extra energy to get through the 4 day hike, and quick healing properties from the dozens of bruises I came back from the hike with.

You can add maca powder to smoothies, salads, drinks and juices.  I have been putting it into my applesauce.  I found a bar at my organic store by a brand called Amrita that sells chocolate maca bars, and the bulk bins at Whole Foods sell granola-type cereal that has maca as an ingredient.  

You're supposed to use it in very small amounts, around 1/2 a teaspoon when you first start taking it, and 1 tablespoon when your body is used to it.  You're also encouraged to rotate a few days on and off, because taking it daily can throw your hormones out of whack.  They sell it in pill form too, but all the health blogs recommend taking the powder.

Feel free to send us a thank you when you're obsessed with these new additions to your diet!

The best things in life aren't (calorie) free

Yes, that also counts when it comes to calories in artificial sweetener. I know this topic has been covered a million times before. However, every time I go for a coffee with friends I still see them pouring all the fake stuff into their already sugar-laden frappuccinos. Maybe the message isn't sinking in. There's also newer products on the market now that are claiming to be healthier - so after my brother asked last night, 'what about stevia? Isn't that one better for you?' I thought this would be a natural next topic to cover.

The sugar vs artificial sugar topic is a very interesting debate - is it better to have sugar in it's pure form or some derivative of sugar?  As you can see from my first post, the right answer is, if you can avoid sugar altogether, power to you - that's the way to go.  But after years of conditioning yourself of adding packets of pastel colored sweetener to your coffee, and developing an addiction to the sweet stuff, that's going to be a hard habit to break.  I'm going to go through each of the artificial sweeteners and break out what's actually inside of them for you, and you can be the judge of which, if any, is the least of the evils.

Sweet'N Low - Saccharin. The FDA actually tried to ban this back in 1977, but of course that didn't happen since it's still around and suddenly 'safe' today. Comes from a derivative of coal tar derivatives. Causes bladder cancer in rats, but claims to be totally fine for humans. I don't know how easy I find that one to believe.  Prior to 2000, saccharin was on the list of chemicals that cause cancer in humans, but the FDA removed it that year.  Since the components didn't change, I wonder what did.  I bet someone pretty senior at Cumberland.

Aspartame - Equal & Nutrasweet.  Equal is made from methanol and converts to formaldehyde when digested. Has been linked to brain tumors. Typing that just made me want to throw up all of the Weight Watchers brownies I ate back in 2005. Want to know how they discovered Equal? In an attempt to make a drug for ulcers back in the 60s. 

   

Splenda - Sucralose. Chlorinated sugar. Read that again please. Sugar with chlorine.  Have you ever gone swimming in a pool and decided - hey, the chemicals in this water seem really tasty? Maybe you have. If that's the case, please stop reading my blog because you're too far gone and I can't help you. The carcinogen in the sucralose is also used in pesticides, poisonous gas, plastics and disinfectants. Splenda was actually discovered in a lab when scientists were trying to make insecticides. Would you like one yellow packet of Raid or two?

Stevia - SweetLeaf, Truvia, PureVia. Comes from a plant.  That's great - except you're not eating actual stevia plant; you're using a genetically modified processed version.  For Truvia, the main component is erythritol, which has been proven to kill fruit flies exposed to the chemical in lab studies. Something that kills bugs is the main sugar substitute in Coca Cola products.  Good stuff. Other ingredients in stevia products are glycerine (found in liquid stevia extracts), natural flavors (which, in other words means - ANYTHING. What is a 'natural flavor'? Just say what it is. This is one of the biggest BS things found on a label. Then there's Xylitol, found in Truvia. Xylitol is made by hydrogenating sugar.  They use Raney nickel, which is a powdered nickel-aluminum alloy.  Heavy medal residue in your coffee.  Mmm. The last, and best part - Xylitol comes from GMO corn. So while you're running around buying things that say GMO-free on the label, you're accidentally eating it as a biproduct in your 'natural' sweetener.  Oops. There's a lot of other interesting things here about Xylitol - I won't continue on this topic, because hopefully you get the drift. But if you want to learn more, this was a great source: http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/xylitol-not-as-sweet-as-its-cracked-up-to-be/

Now one good thing with this one - stevia does lower glucose and insulin levels more than other sweeteners, so this is a better option for diabetics.  But overall, as you can see, still not great for you. Plain and simple, our bodies aren't designed to digest these products - any of them. Sugar-free sweeteners can trick the body into a state of hypoglycemia. Stevia is sweet, so your body thinks it's going to be getting sugar. It gets ready for it. Glucose is cleared from the bloodstream. Blood sugars drop, but no sugar actually arrives. Adrenaline & cortisol rise to take sugar from other places like your liver or body tissue... I'm getting too scientific here. I don't even understand what I'm writing. It's just not good what's happening internally when you eat this stuff, let's leave it at that.

Another problem with stevia is these brands are more expensive and not as readily available.  When you go to Starbucks, or any restaurant, you'll find regular sugar, and what I call the pastel trifecta - the pink Sweet N'Low, blue Equal and yellow Splenda.  Even if this is a better option, it's not there in front of you.  It's significantly more expensive (as all things better for you are), and you have to make a conscious effort to carry it around with you to add to your coffee.  

There's also the social dilemma; people think you're weird when you pull out your little packet of stevia to add to your coffee.  I don't care or mind defending my actions when it comes to food just because I have too many allergies, too many modifications and quite frankly, my health is more important than being a social pariah.  But some people don't want to feel weird or difficult, so they'll stick with what everyone else is doing.  The consistency of stevia products is a little bit strange too, and still has the problem of being overly sweet and screwing with your taste buds.

I was a huge Truvia fan once I banned all other sweeteners from my diet a few years ago, however now I have half a tub from Costco sitting on my counter that I'll never touch again.  If anyone wants some Truvia, it's up for grabs :)

All have been linked with causing migraines, tumors and depression.  Many of the studies that have claims that consuming any of these sweeteners in small doses is fine, are funded by the companies who manufacture them.  Connect the dots here for yourselves. 

The debate comes down to, if sugar is so bad for you then isn't it better to have the fake kind?  The truth is, the best things in life aren't free.  Taking out the calories and the chemical components of sugar isn't making it healthier.  Artificial sweeteners are anywhere from 200-700x sweeter than sugar, causing you to literally never feel full from any of the foods you're eating that contain them.  Ever drink a diet soda and feel starving afterwards?  You can thank the aspartame for that.  Artificial sweeteners also make you lose the taste for less sweet foods. It makes them taste bland and boring, and you need more and more of the fake stuff to taste anything at all.  I've actually noticed since cutting out these products how good foods like brussel sprouts taste (don't laugh - they're delicious!)

Another rebuttal I hear, and sorry mom and dad but I'm calling you out on this one because we debate about sweeteners ALL the time - is, if they're so bad for you, why are they everywhere?  And that's a great question, I have to say. But I'll tell you why.  Because the FDA sucks.  They approve these chemical-laden garbage-filled products because the companies behind them have billions of dollars, stamp their feet, make all sorts of threats and demands, and basically stronghold the FDA into giving the stamp of approval.  Once it's on the market, the public assumes it's fine, because it's on shelves - how can it be bad for you?  Know what else you can find in supermarkets? Cigarettes.  Next time you're grocery shopping, think of it this way - whether you put the cigarettes or the Splenda in your cart, both have a chance of giving you cancer.  Of course cancer isn't the only negative outcome.  Drinking diet drinks increase your risk of getting Type 2 diabetes by 67%.  So if you thought your chances of getting adult onset diabetes was lessened by choosing diet soda over regular, you're wrong.  The only beverage that truly has zero calories and is HEALTHY is water - anything  else contains something that has a negative impact on your body.  The most amusing part of all of this?  Studies have shown that consuming artificial sweeteners causes weight GAIN.  So great that you're cutting the 20 or 30 calories by swapping a pink or blue packet for the real thing, but you should've just eaten the extra calories and spend an extra 2 minutes on the treadmill.

It actually make me really mad that in the 2 years I was in Weight Watchers, these were the foods they were telling me to eat.  If you're hungry, have a Weight Watchers meal! Full of chemicals. Snack time? Try a fat free low calorie muffin! Only 140 calories! Because it contains a ton of aspartame. Thirsty? Don't drink your calories. Never drink your calories! That's a mantra that I still have trouble getting past today. If you're thirsty, drink water or diet coke! They actually pushed the diet coke because it 'filled you up more'. I was 23 years old, super impressionable, and really wanted to be skinny. I listened. And my body has been suffering the consequences ever since.  I'll end by saying - just make the right choices. Be educated in your decisions.  If you want to wean yourself off of sweeteners (and it's NOT EASY. It's something I'm trying to do every day) - just use something natural. Put a tiny bit of agave or raw honey into your coffee/yogurt/baked good.  Google paleo recipes, that use great substitutes and let you make healthier versions of cookies and cakes and on and on.  What I'm noticing as I'm no longer using Truvia or sugar in my coffee anymore, is I don't even want coffee anymore!  I now crave unsweetened green tea. Matcha (more to come on this amazing new discovery later).  I still function getting my caffeine from tea, and natural sources like - exercise and sleep - crazy notion, right? But every day I feel myself getting healthier and stronger and know that eventually these chemicals will be gone from my bloodstream. Hopefully they'll be gone from yours too.

What exactly is Paleo Diet?

Many of you have probably heard us talk about Paleo or more specifically the Whole 30 program Lori and I were following over the past month.  In our detoxed deprived state we may not have provided the best explanation of why we were following this restrictive plan. 

First you may ask, “what the hell is Paleo?"

Paleo is a lifestyle choice in which you eat whole, unprocessed foods, which, theoretically should mirror what our ancestors ate during caveman times, before industrialized agricultural came into existence. 
“Ummm. What is wrong with you people,” you may think.. “ Why would you want to do that?”
First you don't have to hunt your own food and it doesn't mean you literally eat only what caveman ate.  It's about getting back to basics.

In the past our ancestors lived off meat, fruit, and vegetables and didn't have the health issues we are plagued with today. Yes, they had other issues but gluten allergies, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease were not one of them. Why are so many people affected with these issues?  Because we eat packaged garbage that we have been taught is ‘healthy.’  Low fat varieties of our favorite foods have been created because we have been taught full fat items are BAD. Instead, to make up for the lack of flavor, chemicals and sugar have been added which is making us fat and sick.  
If something has more than 5 ingredients you should not be eating it, especially unpronounceable items. Lean cuisines, gluten free cookies and chips, vitamin water, energy bars are not ‘healthy.’ 

OK fine you may say but meat is not healthy either..  Isn’t it loaded with saturated fat and can cause heart disease.

No.. But  I thought this too.  I avoided meat especially red meat for YEARS.  However if you purchase lean, grass fed cuts (more on this later), meat offers tons of protein and vitamins that our body needs to function properly.  Since eating more red meat on Paleo I have  not gained any weight and feel more energetic and full after meals, and am no longer reaching for my chocolate fix.

Do I eat red meat every day?  No but I make sure to include tons of protein (chicken, fish, low salt deli meat, pasture raised eggs) into my diet as our bodies need protein to function. 

In addition to eating meat (serving size about 1 to 2 Palm sized helpings)  a typical Paleo meal will also include tons of vegetables (cooked or raw, your choice)  and vegetables starches such as sweet potatoes,  plantains,  etc (you are encouraged to eat more of this if active).

In addition fats also have a place on your plate.. Yes, fat is important and helps the body to function properly and absorb nutrients.  It is a crucial energy source. However, the type of fat is important.    Coconut oil, ghee, coconut milk and extra virgin olive oil are examples of good fats. Vegetable oil (including canola is not).

What items can you NOT have on Paleo?
The things you cannot eat are dairy, grains, legumes and sugar.  Some people who can tolerate dairy continue to eat it which is based on individual preference.  Paleo discourages eating dairy because more than half of Americans exhibit a type of lactose intolerance.  Instead of dairy ghee(clarified butter),  almond milk,  cashew milk, etc is used.  

Grains are not part of a typical Paleo diet because many people report allergies and they also have low nutrient content. Additionally white grains cause a spike in insulin levels which causes blood sugar to rise. As a result excess sugar is removed from the blood stream and stored as a fat. Because there is no nutrient extraction your body is still searching for food, causing you to crash and leaving you hungry.

As a runner I lived on and loved bread.  Once I cut it out and began eating sweet potatoes for carbs I realized I didn't crash as much and had more energy. 

Legumes are also ruled out because they cause digestion issues in many people and contain phytic acid which tends to block the absorption of other nutrients.

Sugar is forbidden. See Lori’s post about this!  Stay away from any added sugar!!  Fruit is fine in moderation.  Dried fruit also in moderation (more moderation than fresh fruit,  as it still has high sugar content). 

These are only guidelines, you can make this diet your own. The point is to try ruling out the above foods and  see how you feel.  If the foods don’t bother you, continue eating it. The biggest takeaway from this type of eating style is getting away from processed foods and eating “real” food.

This is where “Whole 30” http://whole30.com/ comes in. It is a plan challenging you to eliminate the items listed above for 30 days.  After the 30 days there is a plan to reintroduce these foods and determine whether or not any of the excluded items has an adverse effect on your body. Alcohol is also excluded.

Lori and I did the Whole 30 and learned a great deal, thus this blog.  It was extremely challenging but it taught us how to eat real food and meals, rather than snacking all day. It is not easy to change habits, but life is all about the journey and the crazy things that happen along the way! 

The Sugar Demon

There's so much to cover that I'm not really sure where to start.  I'm going to start with what's currently on my mind after seeing "Fed Up", Katie Couric and Laurie David (yes, Larry David's (ex?)-wife's documentary about sugar and it's impact on childhood obesity in America.

Now let's take a step back.  In April, Caryn and I decided to do the Whole30 paleo challenge.  Caryn will be covering the details of the Whole30 and the book It Starts With Food in the next entry.  The challenge is essentially removing a ton of food - most things that your body has trouble digesting, such as soy, gluten, grains, dairy, and things that have negative effects on your body; sugar.  

My reason for doing the Whole 30 stemmed from the fact that my soy allergy was getting worse, and while my nutritionist had told me that eating soy lechitin was fine because it was a derivitive of soy and used in small amounts;  my friend Becca had developed a soy allergy as well and said, plain and simple, that my nutritionist was an idiot.  This was coupled with noticing that when I was out of the country, I felt fine.  I spent 5 months in South America with no issues.  Two months in Asia with no pain (until China, but soy is in everything there).  Any country OUTSIDE of the US I went to, eating natural, unprocessed foods, and my body was able to handle it just fine. The second I would get back?  I would feel pains so intense, it was like an alien baby was trying to kick it's way out of my stomach.  So what's a girl to do?  Find out the root of the problem for herself.   I planned to cut out soy completely, and see how my body reacted.  I mentioned this to my friend Abbe who follows the paleo diet, and she started talking about the Whole 30 - a complete food elimination that essentially makes you go back to a natural state.  Increases your energy, makes you faster, stronger, no pain, etc etc.  Ironically when mentioning this to a third friend, Melissa, she said she was planning on doing a Whole30 (it's really big in the Crossfit community which Melissa had gotten into), so with a little support from my friends, I decided to sacrifice 30 days and give up almost everything I like to eat.  With my partner in crime Caryn in for the long haul of course, since we do pretty much everything together, and all things food and fitness related especially!

It was a challenge cutting all of these things out simultaneously.  My body felt like it was going into shock the first few days.  The lack of sugar hurt the most.  For someone used to having chocolate after every meal, I felt like I was going to collapse.  I was like a drug addict, roaming around in a daze, dreaming of a fix.  After a few days my body adjusted, and I started craving sugar from other sources.  I literally broke down in tears one night in Trader Joe's because they were sold out of pineapple.  PINEAPPLE!  Who cries over PINEAPPLE!?  My body was that dependent on sugar; I felt like I was going to collapse if I didn't get it somewhere, somehow.  A couple weeks later, I decided to have a macaroon.  Since they're made with mostly almonds and egg whites, I decided they were paleo-friendly.  I omitted the fact that there was coconut sugar on the label, even though I was supposed to be detoxing from sugar.  Well, one macaroon did not do the trick.  Once I had one, it was like a demon was released from inside of me.  All I wanted was another macaroon.  And another.  And another.  I ended up eating probably 6 macaroons that night.  And I know what you're thinking - big deal; if you're going to binge on something, at least it's healthy, right?  But that's not true.  There was no need for me to ingest 800 calories of macaroons as a 'snack' at 10pm.  Sugar literally took over my brain and mandated that I just keep going.  I've never felt this way eating vegetables, or chicken, or anything else sans sugar.  

Once we completed the challenge, Caryn and I stopped at Levain bakery after completing a 10K in Central Park.  For those of you not familiar, Levain makes unarguably the best cookies in New York City; quite possibly the world.  They're about a pound of melted chocolate and probably contain about 500g of sugar.  I had half a cookie, and felt like I was going to pass out.  I went home and did exactly that.  I PASSED OUT from sugar.  I woke up 3 hours later feeling hungover (no, I hadnt drank the night before).  I stumbled around feeling nauseous, disoriented and lethargic.  This wasn't a normal after-effect of eating a cookie.

The point here is addressing the effects that sugar has - it's just not good for you.  It makes you crave more; it makes you have a burst of energy and then crash.  There are much more scientific places to go with this, but we'll cover that later on.  It needs to be limited, and consumed in healthy doses.

What we learned after watching "Fed Up" last night, is that sugar is hiding EVERYwhere.  So while we've gotten pretty good about scanning the aisles of Whole Foods to avoid blatant bad-for-you foods, here I was still buying 'healthy' foods that had upwards of 20g of added sugar!  

The American Heart Association says that the normal daily allotment of ADDED SUGAR (not natural sugar that comes from fruit and regular sources) is:

Women - 25 grams (6 teaspoons)

Men - 37.5 grams (9 teaspoons)

That is the equivalent of pretty much one snack a day.  Now the good news is, there are a lot of products that are being made that are low in sugar.  One I discovered at Whole Foods the other day is called In Bar.  It's a low sugar chocolate fudge bar.  I haven't actually tried it yet.  Caryn and I plan to have lists of foods that we find as we find them.  

I will say this though - not all sugar is created equal.  Fruit? Good sugar. Eat all the pineapples and apples and oranges you want.  But when it comes to everything else - check the label.  Added sugar needs to be avoided.  Yes, you can still have chocolate in moderation.  Many dark chocolates 85% and higher meet all of the requirements on our checklist - gluten-free, soy-free, low sugar.  Just check the label.  If it comes in a package, it's going to have to be analyzed. Question everything. Eat fresh when you can. Go to farmers markets! The one in Union Square (for the New Yorkers) is massive.  I know there's one right by Borough Hall certain mornings; definitely weekends. Grand Army plaza by the entrance to Prospect Park on Saturday mornings.  Outside the Bowling Green train station.  They're everywhere, and the vendors sell more natural products.  One of the most immediate items on my checklist is to stop buying packaged foods entirely and buy things from greenmarkets.  Again, baby steps.  This is year of bad habits ingrained in my DNA.  But we'll get there!

Also I forgot to mention this earlier, but if there are specific topics you have questions about - what is soy lechitin? Why is gluten bad for you? What should I be drinking at a bar??  Ask away.  It'll be great for us to have a focal point, since we don't even know where to really start :)a

Back To Basics: A New Beginning

Hi friends, paleo followers, health enthusiasts and anyone else who may have stumbled upon us:

Welcome.  Lori and Caryn here.  We're two girls who have been invested in the health & wellness world for the past 15 or so years.  We've spent the majority of our lives trying our best to keep up with food and fitness trends, and have found that even with all of the research we do, we're learning something new every day.  We thought it would be helpful to share what we're discovering with others, so that as we continue to become the best version of ourselves, you too can learn what foods to avoid, healthy solutions, and so forth.

Let us introduce ourselves:

I'm Lori.  31, born & raised Brooklynite before being from Brooklyn was cool.  From a physical standpoint, I've been an overly active individual since about 2001.  I've been going to gyms (pretty much every gym in NY, from Dolphin to Bally's to Gold's to the Y to New York Sports Club to Equinox), doing cardio 5x a week literally since I was 18.  As the years progressed I moved into more endurance-type activities.  Began cycling in 2007, starting off with a mountain bike from Toys R Us and now complete 1-2 century (100+ mile) bike rides a year (no longer on a mountain bike).  In 2008 I got into running, and despite a plethora of injuries over the years I've managed to complete 3 half marathons and a bunch of smaller races; 5 & 10Ks over the years.  I do yoga, pilates and barre classes.  I love trying out new studios all over the city; some of my favorites are Soul Cycle, Prana Yoga and Chaise 23.  From a food sense, I've struggled with it since I was a kid.  I've always loved food, but sadly, food doesn't love me back.  I have to watch everything I eat so I don't gain weight, and I've developed allergies over the years that have caused me to move from a low-calorie to a vegetarian to a gluten-free to soy-free to now paleo diet.  It's been a hell of a journey, but what I've learned every step of it is that when it comes to  health, things change every day.  New nutritional benefits are uncovered; foods that were once thought to be healthy actually aren't; other foods that were thought were bad for you have positive effects.  It's a lot to keep up with, and Caryn and I have done a pretty good job of keeping up to speed with the evolution in nutrition and spend a lot of time (maybe too much time) wandering the aisles of Whole Foods, discovering new foods, drinks and vitamins each and every day.  For me, this blog will serve as a place to house all of this information, a place to evaluate new findings, and share with our friends and fellow health-nuts new products we find so you can enjoy them too.

I am Caryn, very similar background to Lori; ran a few marathons, biked multiple centuries, and practically live at the gym 4-5 times a week. When not at the gym  I am walking everywhere perusing the shelves of Whole Foods and any other health food market.

However I was not always this way, born and raised in SOUTH Brooklyn, growing up in the 80’s and 90’s to a family who had no idea what a “healthy” meal meant. Dinners consisted of frozen meals, jarred tomato sauces, and whatever item was on sale for the week. You could be sure our house was always stocked with Bryer’s or Edy’s ice cream along with cookies, chips, soda etc.  By some miracle I was never overweight, but was always interested in food and fitness.

By sixteen, saving my small income from my job selling pretzels at the mall I joined my first gym (back then a gym was  $15-$20 a month!!!). I lived on the elliptical machine and ignored weights like the plague. At this point I still had no idea what a vegetable was and feasted on “healthy” cereals all day 3 meals a day such as Special K, Reese Pieces cereal (for those hard days on elliptical), and whatever other sugary item I could find. At this point Lori and I met and congratulated ourselves on being so healthy, as she followed a similar routine. No one we knew even went to a gym!

 On weekends we would be very “cool” and take the B/Q train to Broadway Lafayette and walk uptown to Bloomingdales, burning  calories, and treating ourselves along the way with more sugary treats.

Then came college…Wal-Mart and Wegmans was my heaven on earth. The aisles of cereal, candy, cookies, chips--- all so much cheaper than at home!  I literally spent my first two years of college living off anything in a package, especially cereal and wheat thins (my healthy snack). I still continued to go to the gym and at this point I added salad into my diet (super healthy).

It wasn’t until my junior year that my roommate and I moved in with a bunch of people who were environmentalists and spoke of this weird term ORGANIC. My roommate and I had no idea what these “hippies” were talking about. Why would you spend more money on food because its “ORGANIC.” Who eats ORGANIC eggs and drinks ORGANIC milk… Being curious about health, my roommate and I took a class on environmental studies and learned about “ORGANIC” and why it’s better for you, and so much more (which will be discussed throughout the blog).. The class was eye opening. It began my journey to eat cleaner and healthier- and to pay attention to ingredients.

However this has been a long journey. After college “healthy” eating meant packaged dinners at Trader Joe’s  laden with soy, gluten, and god knows what else. Lori and I would meet up after work and raid TJ, then eat our meals and we both had same reaction--- stomachaches, bloating, etc.. How could this be if we were eating healthy???

As time went on, we learned more about soy, gluten, additives and continued to modify our diets, however it wasn’t until very recently (like 2 months ago) that our worlds changed by reading “It Starts With Food,” which basically outlined and scientifically proved why everything we thought was correct was hurting us… So begins our quest to share our knowledge with you!

Thanks for reading!