It's what inside that counts

By: Jeff

Ingredients make a huge difference in a person's health.

I wrote an article about the many gimmicks of the food industry last week, and thought I should expand on those thoughts this week. As a pseudo follow-up article, it is time we talk about ingredients.

If you haven't read my previous article, you can read it by clicking THIS, but if you did, you know terms like 'whole grains', 'free range' and 'natural' are all very loose terms the food industry can manipulate to make you purchase their product. The key to looking past the gimmicks is seeing the ingredient list and being able to decipher the actual items which are used in producing the product.

Let's take a look at a food label to help illustrate this point:

Here you see a label from Reece's Pieces candy. Obviously, no one would mistake this candy as healthy food, but the label itself tells the true tale of what you are putting in your body. 

The first ingredient listed is always what is used the most in the product. In this case, it is sugar. Every ingredient after is listed in the same order, from used the most to the least. So, on this label, after sugar are partially defatted peanuts, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, corn syrup, dextrose, and a ton of artificial colors and dyes to give the candy it's color. 

Being able to read beyond the words is a trait very few take the time to do, but is worth it's weight in gold when it comes to your health. Essentially, you are looking for foods that have real ingredients, and not ingredients that sound like a lab experiment gone wrong.

General rule of thumb? If you can't pronounce it, you shouldn't be eating it. In the above candy label, you can see the underlined words which are extremely harmful to your health. The hydrogenated oils, corn syrup and the artificial colors all can have drastic effects on your health and behavior. Guess that peanut butter in the candy isn't worth all that much after all...

Let's stick with the sweets, and I will give you a good example of what a product could look like that isn't horrendous for your health.

All Natural Turkey Hill Chocolate Ice Cream

Here is our go-to ice cream for our birthday parties for the kids, as well as for any get together where we might want to bring ice cream. Want to know the ingredients in this ice cream? 

Here they are: Cream, Sugar, Nonfat Milk, Cocoa.

That's it. Compare that 4 ingredient list to the myriad of junk in the candy we analyzed earlier. 

Simply put, you shouldn't have to have a science degree to know what is in your food. Will this require a little more searching and a little more time in the grocery store? It certainly will, but will the time spent make a difference in your overall health? No doubt about it.