Nutrition Makeover

I know you are anxious to begin your healthy lifestyle makeover so let's get started. This makeover consists of exercise and nutrition. Nutrition will be further sub-divided into two parts: 1) healthy foods to add to your diet and 2) unhealthy products to remove from your diet. Look to remove a ton of products from your daily menu.

Unfortunately there is no shortcut. The products which you will have to remove from your home all contain chemicals which are at the root of not only America's skyrocketing obesity epidemic, but soaring cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer's disease rates.

What you are going to do is go through your pantry and refrigerator. You will probably have to coordinate this with your family. But it is essential for everyone's health, longevity, and weight loss. You will be looking for all products which are bottled, jarred, packaged and boxed. Carefully read the ingredient label.

If any of the following ingredients are found, trash that product.

a. high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) b. monosodium glutamate (MSG) c. partially or fully hydrogenated oils (vegetable, soybean, corn, etc.) Hydrogenated oils are also known as trans fats.

You will be surprised at how many commercial products contain one or more of these ingredients. These are some of the worst food chemicals you could possibly eat. Each one of them could sabotage your health. In the quantities which the typical American eats them, high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate and trans fats raises the risk for, causes or leads to obesity, certain cancers, heart disease and other crippling diseases.

I went through my pantry and refrigerator to see how many of my wife's food products contain any of these ingredients. Here is my list:

1) Hellmann's Light Mayonnaise (HFCS) 2) Pathmark Cocktail Sauce (HFCS) 3) Shoprite Concord Grape Preserves (HFCS) 4) Shoprite Sweet Pickle Relish (HFCS) 5) Hunt's Tomato Ketchup (HFCS) 6) Shoprite Lite (reduced calorie) Syrup (HFCS, contains 25 grams sugar!) 7) Pfeiffers Thousand Island Dressing (HFCS) 8) Nature's Nectar Cranberry Grape (HFCS, contains 41 grams sugar!) 9) Pathmark Plain Reduced Bread Crumbs (partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) 10) Shoprite Plain Bread Crumbs (HFCS, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil) 11) Shoprite Peanut Butter (fully hydrogenated vegetable oils)

[NOTE: log onto www.living-a-healthy-lifestyle.com/dangerous-food-ingredients.html to see why HFCS, MSG, and trans fats are dangerous.]

Notice the amount of sugar in a serving of Shoprite's Lite Syrup--25 grams! Nature's Nectar Cranberry Grape is even worse at 41 grams per serving! Did you know that cancer thrives on sugar? America's consumption of sugar is one reason why the obesity rate is 33 percent. At the rate it is climbing, it is predicted that the obesity rate will soar to 41 percent by 2015! That's only 8 years away.

High fructose corn syrup is in 9 out of 11 products located in my pantry and refrigerator. This chemical is in almost every food product you can think of--ketchups, mayonnaise, bread crumbs, baked goods, jams and jellies, etc., etc., etc. (in the words of Yul Brynner from the musical The King and I.)

The sweetener high fructose corn syrup defeats two of your body's hunger flags. It doesn't allow the protein leptin to be released to let your brain know that your stomach is full. HFCS also affects ghrelin. A hormone, ghrelin stimulates the appetite before eating, and suppresses it after a meal. However, HFCS interferes with ghrelin's appetite suppressing job. This of course encourages you to overeat.

Food manufacturers are not required to list the number of grams of HFCS on their product labels. But considering that it is universally used in almost every food product, you can be assured that you are consuming much too much! Oh, by the way, HFCS is used in soft drinks too.

Trashing all food products (including diet and regular sodas) which contain HFCS, MSG, and trans fats will take away the major contributors to obesity and chronic disease. In order to make this nutrition makeover work, you will have to become a food detective. When you go to the supermarket, take time to carefully scrutinize food ingredient labels. Leave any product containing any one of the forbidden ingredients on the store's shelf.