Things You'll Need:
- A product with a nutrition label.
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Step 1
When shopping, always read the food labels on packages and products, especially cereals, cookies and canned goods. This will tell you exactly what you are eating, how much sugar, sodium and artificial ingredients the item contains.
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Step 2
Ingredients are listed in the order of quantity. For instance, cookies will most likely list flour first and then sugar next. This means the product contains more flour than anything else, then sugar. Sometimes, a cookie will list flour, then fat, then sugar. Shortbread cookies come in this category.
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Step 3
One of things you want to look for is high fructose corn syrup. Sometimes it replaces the refined sugar in a product or is added in addition to it. Not only does fructose have more damaging effects in the presence of copper deficiency, fructose also inhibits copper metabolism--another example of the sweeteners double-whammy effect. A deficiency in copper leads to bone fragility, anemia, defects of the connective tissue, arteries, and bone, infertility, heart arrhythmias, high cholesterol levels, heart attacks, and an inability to control blood sugar levels. See http://www.westonaprice.org/modernfood/highfructose.html. This is a scientific study on high fructose corn syrup.
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Step 4
Just because the label says a product is "natural" or "all natural" doesn't make it good for you. Some ingredients like high fructose corn syrup have been labeled as natural but, as you can see, it has damaging effects on our bodies. Especially read the labels on fruit juice. Fruit juices should contain only juice. It should not be sweetened with corn syrups or sugars. Cranberry juices, which are really good for us nutritionally, most often list sugar as the second ingredient or contains high fructose corn syrup. Cranberries are naturally too tart for us to consume without sweeteners but you can find some that are sweetened with grape juice.
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Step 5
Look for the sodium content in products. A tolerable upper intake level (UL) -- a maximum amount that people should not exceed -- is set at 5.8 grams of salt (2.3 grams of sodium) per day. Older individuals, African Americans, and people with chronic diseases including hypertension, diabetes, and kidney disease are especially sensitive to the blood pressure-raising effects of salt and should consume less than the UL. Please see http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/hydrationandfluid/a/060704.htm.
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Step 6
Reading labels is essential to good health. In the 1800s, we did not have to concern ourselves with this as foods were raised by individual families and very little foods were processed outside the home. As the industry grew, convenience became an option. As convenience grew, manufacturers started looking at bottom lines to increase profits. We are now victims of cost versus nutrition and our health is suffering from it.
Comments
stjohnswood said
on 3/31/2009 Lots of great info. Thanks
turtledove said
on 3/21/2009 This is good advice. Too often, we don't even know what we're putting into our bodies. I'm glad you pointed out high fructose corn syrup. Lots of people I know think it's just another name for sugar. And it's in practically everything! 5*
miasavc said
on 12/11/2008 Very wise advice.I read labels in food packages but I've never seen them as very important. The info I read in this article sure changed the way I believed. Very helpful!
PABechko said
on 12/1/2008 Good points.
ALLinRueThyme said
on 11/28/2008 I think we have been uninformed about just exactly what it is we have been consuming! Great article