UNDERSTANDING LABELS

The purpose of the creation of this page is twofold:

Educate and Uncover ~ I think a lot of people (myself included) really don’t have a clue what some of the words on the backs of labels are.  We have been programmed through the media, magazines, and health gurus to count, calories, watch fat intakes, avoid carbs, eat low fat or no fat….when in reality what we really need to be doing is eating whole real foods and avoiding the low fat, no fat, highly processed foods completely.

Processed foods, however are a big part of the American diet and it would be unrealistic to expect all of us to avoid every processed food out there.  But what I can do is at least educate you on what those ingredients are and how to avoid them and how to use them in the least amounts possible.

So each week I come up with a victim and pick it apart.  I want you to be able to recognize the words in processed foods and know which ones to avoid.  So if some of these posts seem redundant it’s because the same ingredients keep showing up over and over again in processed foods.

Provide Alternatives – When we were “un”processing ourselves one of the things that ended up happening was we stopped buying the processed food but then had nothing to fall back on.  I had to search for alternatives.  I’m still doing that.  I’m always researching and learning and discovering.  It takes time.  Not all of you have the time (or desire) to do endless research on Carageenan and it’s effects.  Or what really is in strawberry flavoring.  I seem to have an endless quest to find out (and then tell you).

Anyway, it’s one thing to educate and blog about processed foods and their consequences, but then I wouldn’t be helping you if I didn’t offer some healthier alternatives or solutions.  Hopefully this page will help you when you need an alternative.

If you have a product in your pantry that you are stuck on and can’t seem to find an alternative, please let me know and I’ll do the best I can to find one for you!  🙂