If you’re searching for key points in managing a healthy diet, here’s one thing to keep in mind – real nourishing foods are natural whole foods not processed foods loaded with preservatives. Processed foods aren’t real because they don’t tend to go bad like fresh foods. Place a Twinkie on the counter 
unwrapped and see what happens two weeks later. Now slice an apple open and watch, in a matter of minutes, how the white inner portion of the apple turns brown – now that’s real. Processed foods lose much of their nutritional value through the slicing and dicing process. That’s why some processed foods like cereal are fortified and then you have to wonder what exactly is the quality of the stuff the manufacturers are fortifying this processed food with. There’s nothing like natural to nourish the body. Bread and pasta are a couple of big offenders which I call staple foods meaning people tend to eat a lot of this sort of food. A recipe for disaster in health is eating a lot of processed food that is low in nutrients and high in calories like bread and pasta. With such a diet you may encounter weight gain, tiredness, allergies and inflammatory conditions like arthritis, heart disease and more over time.
Here’s a list of ingredients to identify overly processed foods loaded with preservatives to avoid when reading labels. Ingredients that may cause cancer and are found to be often banned in other countries.
- Preservatives: sodium benzoate, sodium nitrite, potassium sorbate, BHA, BHT, TBHQ
- Sweeteners and artificial sweeteners: fructose, high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucralose, acesulfame potassium (acesulfame-K)
- Artificial colors: FD&C Blue Nos. 1 and 2, FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red Nos. 3 and 40, FD&C Yellow Nos. 5 and 6, Orange B, Citrus Red No. 2
- Artificial flavors
- Flavor enhancers: monosodium glutamate (MSG), hydrolyzed soy protein, autolyzed yeast extract
Another help hint: if you buy lots of food that requires lots of label-reading you are probably eating too many processed foods. Take note that when you buy a bunch of broccoli there’s not much to read regarding ingredient because it’s a health natural whole food. At least the non-genetically modified versions are healthy. We’ll have to wait and see how the experiment regarding GMO’s goes.
reference: Mercola.com
