Central West Virginia's Guide To Life

CHEW ON THIS
By Sue Cosgrove

10/07 - The Big Bad Four

Bill Byus, Allie Childers, and Lynn Degen correctly identified the ingredients in September's Name the Product Challenge as a salad dressing - to be exact, Kraft Creamy French Dressing.

Want to skip the unrecognizable substances when dressing a salad? Here's Lynn's recipe for tasty and nutritious dressing: Using a 2-cup measuring cup, pour in 1/3 cup raw organic vinegar, add filtered water to the 1/2 cup mark, add extra virgin olive oil up to the 1 cup mark. Add a dash each of sea salt, Italian herbs like oregano/basil, garlic powder and hot sauce. Pour into bottle and shake to serve. Store unused portion in fridge. Now, you know what you're eating!

September's Chew on This Challenge invited readers for one week to read the labels on every food item consumed and to jot down any unidentifiable ingredients from those labels. Readers who care about what they and their families eat were amazed. Consider the labeled ingredients from two jars of peanut butter read as follows:
Store brand --Ingredients: Peanuts, dextrose, hydrogenated vegetable oil [rapeseed, cottonseed, soybean], sugar, and salt. National brand -- Ingredients: Organic roasted peanuts, contains 1% or less of salt. (I know which product I'd eat.)

A mom took her kids to the grocery store and told them to pick out any food item and she would buy it.

"Anything? Candy, pop, even?" Questioned the astonished kids. "Yes, anything," said mom, "as long as it doesn't contain (1) hydrogenated or partially-hydrogenated fats, (2) corn syrup or high-fructose corn syrup, (3) artificial anything, (4) monosodium glutamate (MSG), or anything that serves as a euphemism for MSG (i.e., "natural flavorings").”

Gleefully the children scattered to their favorite snack aisle to inspect labels, only to come back dejected. "I can't find anything good," whined one child. "All that's left is vegetables," grumped the other. Another exhaustive search around the franchise supermarket and each child at last carried something that they could take home: a can of Pringles brand baked chips, and a tray of frozen shrimp with cocktail sauce.

For a strong investment in your health, avoid The Big Four substances in the preceding paragraph and immediately boost the health benefits to your body. Read the label first, before putting the product in the buggy and, if the label lists any of The Big Four, put it back. Read labels on similar products until you find one that passes muster. Be consistent and persistent! You are worth it.

NAME THE PRODUCT: Ingredients: Corn syrup, enriched flour (niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin), sugar, water, partially hydrogenated vegetable and/or animal shortening (contains one or more of: canola oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil, soybean oil, beef fat), eggs, skim milk, contains 2% or less of: whey, modified food starch, salt, leavening (baking soda, monocalcium phosphate, sodium acid pyrophosphate), mono- and diglycerides, lecithin, sodium stearoyl lactylate, and artificial flavors, artificial colors (red 40 and yellow 5) sorbic acid (to retard spoilage). Happy hunting!

Meanwhile, Chew on This: "Eating microwaved food results in abnormal blood profiles, similar to those that occur in the early stages of cancer." *

*Valentine, Tom, Search for Health, Sept/Oct 1992, 1:1:2-13.

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