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Rationale

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about eating healthy, eating organic, or eating green.  But some of these foods have bad chemicals that people put in to preserve the food longer.  I would like to contribute a few tips to eating healthy foods that your body can understand and breakdown.  Also I believe that educating the people will make them understand what they are eating and putting themselves into.  There are three specific types of chemicals I would like to analyze today and they are the Hydrogenated oils, High fructose corn syrup, and Enriched foods.

I would like to say that I am not a doctor or anything but I have read, listened, and watched many documentaries and interviews about doctors talking about these three bad ingredients.

Hydrogenated Oils

Hydrogenated oils are oils that are chemically changed (messing with the hydrogen atoms) adding hydrogen atoms to the molecular makeup of the oil.  This method is widely applied to the food industry, especially in fats and oils.  In simpler terms, hydrogenation converts liquid vegetable oil to a semi-solid or solid fatty form.  This results in higher saturation and trans fat content.  The food industry uses these oils to preserve food to last longer while it is cheaper to produce than using regular oils.

The impact to your body?

Hydrogenated Oils are like poison.  Your body does not recognize these oils and just stores it in your body without breaking them down.  According to Dr. Oz, hydrogenated oils increase your bad cholestrol while decreasing your good cholestrol.  So these oils are a double whammy.

Find these hydrogenated oils listed in your ingredients as Partially Hydrogenated Oils, Hydrogenated Oils, Partially Hydrogenated * Oils.

* = Vegetable, Corn, Cotton, etc…

High Fructose Corn Syrup

High fructose corn syrup is something many people cannot get rid of in their pantry.  It is in almost everything we eat or drink.  Almost all sodas have high fructose corn syrup and many candy brands have this too.  Why does the food industry use this then?  Since it is man-made, it is cheaper to produce than use regular sugar.  High fructose corn syrup is very very concentrated, thick sugar that is stored in your body.  It takes longer to burn off these sugars and you should avoid consuming these.

Food producers use high fructose corn syrup as a means to substitue sugar.  Because sugar is more expensive than the high fructose corn syrup, companies opt in to these bad sugars instead as another option as a cheaper means.  You can find many of these high fructose corn syrup in juices and soda.

These “sugars” directly impact your body by increased calorie consumption and is linked to obesity, diabeties, and high blood pressure.

Your options?  Drink regular sugared drinks or cane sugared flavored drinks such as the Coke from Mexico, Jones soda, and some Sobe drinks.

Enriched Flour

Sounds like it is a good thing huh?  Think again.  Enriched flour is when all the good ingredients has been sucked out of the flour so the only things left are the bad ingredients.  It is used to make white flour when before it was whole grain.  Enriching the grains causes the lost of the good nutrients that promote good health and may help prevent some diseases.

It is not that bad to consume these but it is better to find foods that are “fortified” instead of “encriched”.

Foods that contain enriched flour are normally cereals, bread, and pasta.