EAT REAL FOOD – food in its natural, pure state. It will help prevent disease, obesity, cravings and ill-feelings. Trust me on this one. When I look at product labels, one way to discern is to go with the label that has the fewest ingredients, like the items below.

Label Reading

Peanut Butter:

Natural Peanut Butter – Peanuts, Salt 

“Other” Peanut Butter – Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Molasses, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable (Soybean) Oil, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable (Rapeseed and Soy) Oils, Mono & Diglycerides, Salt

Yogurt:Organic Yogurt – Cultured Pasteurized Organic Low Fat Milk, Inulin, Pectin, 6 Live Active Cultures including L. Acidophilus, Bifidus, L. Casei & L. Reuteri

“Other” Yogurt – Sugar, Non Fat Milk, Reduced Fat Milk (cultured, pasteurized), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Modified Corn Starch, Kosher Gelatin, Nitrogen, Potassium Sorbate (added to maintain freshness), Vit. A Acetate, Lactic Acid Esters of Mono & Diglycerides, Cherry Puree

 
High Fructose Corn Syrup is BAD NEWS. Look it up! The bottom line?  It’s been linked to obesity, diabetes, hypoglycemia and cardiovascular disease. 

Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils: – Want to complicate matters for your heart? Raise your “bad” cholesterol and lower the “good” cholesterol? Increase chance of heart disease? Eat Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils. These fats are the BAD fats, the trans fats, the fats that clog up your arteries. Avoid them. (Even though our FDA considers them safe, ugh) Good read here: http://www.bantransfats.com/whatnottoeat.html and here: http://cspinet.org/new/pdf/trans_q_a.pdf  *Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils – Not nearly as bad.  The full hydrogenation process increases the amount of saturated fat, but most of that is stearic acid, which doesn’t raise “bad” (LDL) cholesterol levels. 

Potassium Sorbate – There’s quite a bit of controversy over this one, but regardless, it is used as a preservative in MANY foods. My thought, until we know FOR SURE what the potential health hazards are of all additives and preservatives, avoid when possible.  For a short explanation on additives, go to http://www.answers.com/topic/food-additive. 

Esters of Mono & Diglycerides: http://www.ukfoodguide.net/e472b.htm 

Other ingredients found in many products off the commercial shelves that you should be wary of: Calcium Disodium EDTA as Preservative, BHA, BHT, Aspartame, Food colorings, Sucralose, Artificial Flavors (very suspicious), and many more (see link above for list).