In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to grab processed foods that promise convenience and taste. But many of these foods contain ingredients that can be harmful to our health. From artificial sweeteners to strange preservatives, our grocery store shelves are filled with items that might sound more like science experiments than real food. The good news? We can take charge of our health by learning about what’s in our food. In this blog post, we’ll look at some of the most concerning ingredients you might find in everyday products. Together, we can make smarter choices about what we eat and live healthier lives in this toxic world. Let’s get started!
The Top 12 Chemicals
The Environmental Working Group gives us a list of the top 12 most common chemicals that we should avoid that are found in our food:
- Potassium bromate: A flour additive in baked goods that may cause cancer.
- Propylparaben: A preservative in pastries and tortillas that can harm development and reproduction.
- BHA (Butylated hydroxyanisole): A preservative in cured meats that might cause cancer.
- BHT (Butylated hydroxytoluene): A preservative in cereals similar to BHA, possibly cancer-causing.
- Titanium dioxide: A color additive in candy that may damage DNA.
- Artificial dyes (Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3): Found in many foods, can affect child development and behavior.
- Aspartame: An artificial sweetener that may disrupt metabolism and increase risk of heart disease and cancer.
- ADA (Azodicarbonamide): A dough conditioner in breads that might cause cancer and organ damage.
- Propyl gallate: A preservative in various foods that could disrupt hormones and increase cancer risk.
- Sodium benzoate: A preservative in drinks that can form cancer-causing benzene when combined with certain acids.
- Methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, ethylene dichloride: Solvents used in decaf coffee/tea production linked to increased cancer risk.
- Sodium nitrate: A preservative used to preserve meat. Linked to increased risk of cancer.
What Do We Do About These Chemicals?
Our best weapon against these chemicals in our foods is reading labels. It’s as simple as that. Read the label and make your purchasing decisions on what you find there. Can’t pronounce half (or more) of the ingredients on the box? Put it back. A good rule of thumb is that if it has more than 5 ingredients or you can’t pronounce any of them – don’t buy it.
A Story of Shopping with My Daughter:
We are going out of town this week. We are taking a little family retreat from the farm, which has been all consuming for the past few months.
As my daughter and I were shopping at Walmart for a few snacks to bring, I was being more strict than usual with our snack selections. Eryn and I were standing in the aisles reading labels and looking for canola oil, other seed oils, corn syrup, and other chemical names. We put A LOT of snack foods back on the shelf. It’s alarming how many unknown (to us), and harmful chemicals appear in seemingly harmless foods.
We ended up with Planters dry roasted peanuts, where the only ingredients are peanuts and salt. They were a little more expensive than the store brand peanuts, but the store brand peanuts had two other ingredients as preservatives. No thanks.
We found some good Tillamook beef jerky with very few ingredients, which were mostly spices.
And we decided on one treat, the Brookside dark chocolate blueberries. They are one of my daughter’s favorites. Ok, my husband and I love them too. They do have corn syrup, and a few ingredients I wasn’t sure of, but no artificial colors, and overall better than most treats we could have purchased. Not perfect, but an indulgence we don’t eat very often.
Freeze dried fruit and nuts from our pantry, along with some sunflower microgreens, which are very snack-able, were the treats we also decided to take.
And guess what! We all felt good about what we were eating, and didn’t get sick on MSG covered Pringles. After great conversations on the 3.5 hour drive, we still had energy to stay up and play a game. Good foods engender good focus and good energy!
How About You?
What’s your experience been like as you’ve been more mindful of the foods you’re putting into your body? Learn more about toxic
