Posts Tagged ‘Nutrition’

Nutritional data is deceptive, because the food market depends on the packaging to sell their products. The sales pitch has to be on the carton. The consumer friendly pitch has to be on the label. When competing for shelve space labeling is more important than contents.

Pre-packaged Foods

Pre-packaged food has raised the bar, now their packaging will deliver health messages. Retailers will be able to pack their shelves with ready to go meals, with brands, which will promote their product as low calorie, low sodium, lactose free, vegan low sugar, no artificial flavors and high fiber.

Nutrition

The key nutritional benefits on package fronts are going to capture a loyal following. This strategy will be geared to the health conscious consumer. It will also fool many people into incorporating more packaged products into their diet. It will make eating healthy appear very simple. These will be wallet friendly and quick to make and serve, think microwave and easy to pour.

When shoppers look for products from boxed cereals with heart healthy symbols, frozen meals or snacks with the number of calories on the label or the vitamins per serving, they are being misled. Vitamin A or C means nothing since these are gong to be in products which are fortified with vitamins and minerals that come out of a lab.

Labels

As these brands capture the imagination and continue to expand, the line between real food and faux food are going to blur. All the rationalization in the world can’t position these products as food. Not only do they not mimic a whole food diet, they are emerging as a new and dangerous eating pattern for Americans. 

The deceptive wordings on these items are attracting devoted fans. Confectionery items are transforming sugary treats to a fiber source. Sodas sport photos of passion fruit, mandarin and citrus fruit to impart the image of natural goodness.

Marketing

Marketing a wide variety of packaged food to compete with produce, fiber, and protein is designed to increase brand value and strengthen market position. The aim is higher profit margins, and the only way to do that is to offer significantly less nutritional value. It is highly unlikely that the ingredients can be improved when price is the object. The facelift that is transforming the food industry is in the carton or carrier of their product.

Creating beverages, freezer pops, and meals with significant market power means to package these to imply a host of health benefits. Fresh food it isn’t and the shelf life doesn’t mean that the food is anywhere near fresh even with a good expiration date.  Because the contents is aseptically packed doesn’t mean its safe. For example, cans are lined with cancer causing material. There is a reason that things like genetically modified ingredients and high fructose corn syrup is used and that is price.  The health and wellness initiatives over the past years have gone into advertising and packaging not quality.

Health

Lite and healthy food may seem to be evident by the logo, carton, and label. The visible sign of health may be on the carton, and that may be more than a simple deception. Manufactures know how to hide the true ingredients in very deceptive ways. .Mum’s the word as far as the way food is manufactured. In fact the product isn’t even close enough to the natural source to be a ringer for the real thing.

More choices in pre-packaged breakfasts, snacks and dinners means that corn chips, tortilla chips, extruded puffs of crunchy cereals will begin to fit the customers’ requirements for sustenance. For the consumer it is lower costs, for the manufacturer it is bigger margins. Nutritional data deceptive practices have a real cost, which the consumer is paying for.

Calorie counting is destructive. The initial goal should be to get strong and fit. Counting calories can make many dieters weak. Being hungry all the time is counter productive.

Calorie control equals weight management to most people, and even the medical experts think this is true. What calories really do is different from the hype. When the weight loss industry capitalizes on the proven benefits of cutting calories, what they are doing is promoting a way to utilize diet in an unhealthy way.

Caveman Diet

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco (USCF) say their research has shown people on a high protein diet combined with plenty of vegetables show dramatic health improvements. These include weight loss, and lower blood pressure. What they are talking about is a diet that is considered similar to the “Hunters Gathers” or caveman diet.

Dr. Tim White a paleobiologist from the University of California Berkley said: “Our Biology is still basically the same biology that we had as hunters and gathers 100,000 years ago in Africa.” Dr. White said the constant physical activity that the cavemen had to undertake to hunt and find food kept them fit, lean, muscular and active. Their diet consisted of large amounts of lean meat, and vegetables.

Robert Lustig, MD. an endocrinologist at UCSF, said that people on the diet have experienced a regression of their diabetes as a result, to the point they are effectively cured.

Dr. Kim Mulvihill, a reporter from CBS tried the diet herself and doctors recommended she should stay on the diet permanently. Her cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels dropped dramatically over a few weeks. After seven weeks she was no longer pre-diabetic, and by combining the so called paleo diet with a weight loss program she lost thirty pounds.

Fish

Another article talked about people who eat fish as their primary source of animal protein. They reported lower glucose concentrations with a reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Researchers at the University of Valencia reported in the journal Nutricion Hospitalaria that there are benefits from a Mediterranean diet high in fish consumption. This study showed the benefits of the omega 3’s in fish. Omega 3 from fish and grass fed meat controls inflammation. Micronutrients from both vegetables and fruits also, turn off inflammation.

Inflammation

There are a good number of studies that show weight gain may be linked to chronic inflammation. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition researches looked at nine years of data tracking 1,222 adults and found that weight gain was associated with an increase in chronic inflammation. This may be why weight gain is associated with heart disease and cancer. Both these conditions are associated with chronic inflammation.

Counting calories is counter productive, especially when you buy 100 calorie packs of pure carbohydrates in the form of crackers of cookies. The only weapon against obesity is whole foods diet with all the omega 3 fatty acids and nutrients your body need.

A diet based on vegetables, and fruit with some high quality protein is better than a calorie restricted diet for weight management. A nation that has embraced calorie counting as a way to control weight is deluding itself into thinking that saving calories can repair the damage done by faux foods. By changing your goal from weight, to having more energy by becoming healthier your will achieve a consistent weight.

The power of green smoothies is in the raw greens, which are blended into an very easy to digest form. This is the one place you can super-size and avoid becoming obese.

Nutrition

This is one of the easier ways to take control of your health. It doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to come up with some wonderful tasty smoothies. This is an easy lifestyle change that may change the way you think about food. Food isn’t a calorie counting exercise, it is meant to feed every cell in your body.

By blending greens and fruits in a high speed blender it breaks oven the cell wall of the plant, and makes it easy to digest. Digestion is a process that takes energy, when you hand your body pre-digested food it makes its job so much easier.

Green vegetables are loaded with calcium, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc as well as vitamins A, C, E, and K. You get all these nutrients with few calories. The greens used in smoothies include: kale, spinach, collard greens, dandelion greens, arugala, mustard greens, romaine lettuce, green and red leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, turnip greens, chicory, beet greens and parsley.

Green smoothies are certainly an easy way to get greens into your diet. In many smoothie recipes greens are paired with brightly colored fruit. When you use vegetables and fruit, the brighter and deeper colored ones typically have the highest concentration of nutrients.

Health Benefits

The health benefits range from the fact that you are replacing poor quality food with highly nutritious ones.  The fiber alone is a reason to incorporate green smoothies into your diet. Blended fruits and vegetables can take the place of supplements. Green smoothies can provide plenty of protein. You can add chia seeds, hemp, coconut, or any combination of things that will add distinct nutritional value.  

Chlorophyll

Chlorophyll is what gives green plants their vibrant color, and it is what helps boost our energy and replenish and rebuild our red blood cells. The molecular structure is identical to hemoglobin, except for the center atom. In hemoglobin this is iron, in chlorophyll it is magnesium. The rapid delivery of magnesium has an alkalizing effect on the body, 

Chlorophyll works at the molecular and cellular level, by increasing the health and number of red blood cells.  This important function increases the oxygen utilized by our body. Also, greens help rid the body of heavy metals.

Green smoothies are a source of sustainable health, which does more then help people with weight management. It is a lifestyle change, which improves both the quality and quantity of ones life.

If you really want to consume super foods than go green, no matter how much fanfare a new supper food product gets, the proven fact is consuming greens is vital. Green smoothies satisfy appetite, promote a healthy lean body mass, support healthy blood, control sugar levels, detoxify, and help with digestion.