How to Eat Foods Without Preservatives

by | Apr 10, 2013 | Food Choices, Natural food, Preservatives, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Checking the ingredients on any packet of food is something that we should do just as a matter of course and when you’re looking through those ingredients and you start coming across things you don’t recognize, it’s probably time to put that particular food item back on the shelf.

Processed food by necessity, perhapsly without exception have to contain preservatives and the sad thing is that the cheaper the processed food is the more preservatives it will contain as a general rule. That is simply because not only are cheaper processed foods filled with cheaper ingredients, quite often the price of those ingredients also means that they’re inferior in quality quite a lot of the time.

That means if they are containing a lot of “meat” products you will quite likely find that those meat products were coming towards the end of their useful life when they were actually used to make the food that you’re eating and in order to make sure that those ingredients don’t turn off the manufacturers put just a little bit extra amount of preservatives in so that they’re not faced with an expensive recall situation.

Another reason why cheap processed foods have lots of preservatives in is to give them a longer shelf life. This makes sure that shops don’t find themselves with goods that have gone pass their sell-by date and maybe want to return or at the very least get credit from the manufacturers. At the very least it ensures the stores continue to order the same quantities rather than ordering smaller quantities just in case the goods don’t get sold before the sell-by date.

So what with the quality of the ingredients going into processed foods being inferior, the quantity of preservatives and other questionable ingredients they contain. Continuing to eat processed foods is possibly not the best course of action to take if you want to improve your health.

Below you’ll find a very good explanation of how to eat foods without preservatives.

If you are trying to avoid preservatives in your diet, it is essential to learn how to identify them. Food preservatives are commonly added to slow or prevent undesirable spoilage, discoloration, flavor loss, bacterial growth, mold or microbial growth, and texture loss. Follow the steps below to learn how to eat foods that do not contain preservatives.

Steps

Learn How to Read a Nutrition Label

  1. Always scan the entire ingredient list. Preservatives will be listed with a statement about their intended purpose. For instance, the ingredient list may declare “ascorbic acid to improve color retention” or “sulfur dioxide to prevent rotting.”
  2. Learn common preservative names. Although there are hundreds of food additives that function as preservatives, some of the most common appear in a wide variety of foods.
    • Once you learn to identify common preservatives you can quickly avoid selecting foods with those preservatives in the future.
    • Some of the most common preservatives include citric acid, sulfur dioxide, ascorbic acid, propionic acid, nitrates and nitrites, sodium bisulfite, sulfites, and even formaldehyde.

Shop for Foods Without Preservatives

  1. Avoid heavily processed foods. Foods that spoil quickly or that are minimally packaged are unlikely to contain preservatives. Buy fresh, unprocessed produce and natural whole foods to reduce the time you spend reading ingredient lists.
  2. Shop for foods labeled as Certified Organic. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration only allows foods to be labeled as Certified Organic if they are preservative-free and meet other standards for production and processing.
  3. Make a note of preservative-free products you enjoy. After you have identified foods that are free of chemical preservatives, add them to a “cheat sheet” list to take shopping; this will spare you the trouble of re-reading the ingredient list on future grocery trips. 

Tips

  • In the United States, approved chemical food preservatives must be declared on ingredient lists. By carefully reading food labels you can identify and avoid food preservatives.
  • If you do not live in the U.S., search for a government public health or agricultural website to learn your country’s policies on preservative use and declaration on ingredient lists.

 

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Eat Foods Without Preservatives. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Long-Term Study Confirms High BMI a Risk Factor for LBP

by | Apr 9, 2013 | How Your Body Works, Obesity, Weight gain | 0 comments

1299867383kZua0VOne of the things that sorted itself out when I lost weight was the back pain that I used to suffer from time to time and it’s not surprising really because when you’re carrying a lot of weight at the front as many men do you tend to lean back and of course that does bring a lot more strain on the lower part of your back. Not only that, the top part of your body is heavier as well and all that extra weight goes through the one point at the base of your spine.

Once again here’s a study that’s interesting whilst you could say it points out the obvious. It’s nice having common sense proven by a bit of science once in a while.

Link to the article

Overweight While Younger Ups Kidney Risk Later

by | Apr 9, 2013 | Degenerative Diseases, How Your Body Works, Obesity, Weight gain | 0 comments

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According to this study by Dr. Dorothea Nitsch of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, we are more likely to suffer chronic kidney disease when we’re older if we are fat when we’re younger. In fact according to the latest research from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, you’re more than twice as likely to have CKD in your 60s if you’re overweight in your 20s than you would be if you stayed at a normal weight right up until your 60s.

What I found strange about the whole report interesting though it is, is that they don’t seem to be able to nail down the causes of this statistical correlation.

Yet when you consider what the kidneys do for our body, clearing out a lot of the garbage that it doesn’t need, someone who is overweight when they’re younger is producing a lot more garbage for their kidneys to clear out.

It shouldn’t be any wonder that after a lifetime of having to work harder than the kidneys of somebody consuming normal amounts of food that the kidneys of an overweight person would start to fail quite drastically as they get older.

Link to the article

Waistline Index Grows as Emerging Markets Eat Fast Food

by | Apr 8, 2013 | Diabetes, Fats, Food Choices, General Health, Nutrition, Obesity, Sensible Eating, Weight gain | 0 comments

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If anyone doubts the correlation between the increased consumption in fast food and the steadily growing waistlines in both men and women would do well to have a quick peek at this rather informative article from Bloomberg. It shows a direct correlation between the influx of fast food chains into many countries around the world in the late 80s and the average weight gain and waist size increase that has been measured in these countries today.

 Now while it may be unfair to lay the dietary ills of all these reason converts to fast food at the doors of the likes of McDonald’s and Pizza Hut and Dominoes and fill in the blank, it is certain that the changes in diet encouraged by the successful advertising of these companies has had an adverse effect on the eating habits of the countries that they have steadily been achieving a significant market share within.

Link to the article

How carbs are throwing your hormones out of whack

by | Apr 8, 2013 | Carbs, Degenerative Diseases, Diet, Nutrition | 0 comments

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It seems nearly everyday that there are studies coming out that show the correlation between the amount of sugar that we as both a population and individuals consume and the slow but steady rise in one health problem or another.

In this particular article the author shows quite clearly that hormone imbalances suffered by both men and women are the result of our hormonal system under daily attack from the unhealthy things in the food that we eat. As the author says the number one hormonal imbalance in general society is chronically high insulin levels. He goes on to say that the primary problem is related directly to our diets.

We all know that sugar will cause insulin levels to rise but any carbohydrate-dense food will do the same. It goes on to say that this chronically high insulin levels and fluctuating blood sugar levels are a major source of stress on the body and these imbalances can in turn upset the regulation of other hormones.

But it’s not all bad news. As the article also reveals a number of simple steps that everyone of us can take in order to reset our bodies and overcome the problems.

Link to the article