Save Your Health and Wallet
With food prices rising every year while incomes continue to stagnate, going grocery shopping can turn into a real squeeze for anyone looking for top nutrition. One thing we can do to make ends meet is to drop the illusions we have been conditioned to think are truths. Most of these illusions have been created for the purpose of selling us a product that we could do quite well without. Slaying these illusions can help save big money over time.
Here are 6 widely accepted food myths that, when busted, will help you not only save your health, but also your wallet.
Myth #1. If the Product Says it’s ‘Healthy,’ it’s a Good Buy
The food company making the product that says ‘healthy’ is using this buzz word to get sales, not because the product is actually healthy. In fact, many of the foods that advertise themselves as being ‘healthy’ are loaded with unhealthy ingredients.
As an example let’s look at canned chicken noodle soup, a simple food in a line known as Healthy Choice. Besides the usual chicken and noodles, this soup contains:
- Monosodium Glutamate – A substance toxic to brain cells.
- Soy and Corn – Odds are great that these are both GMOs, since this soup is not organic.
- Carrageenan – An indigestible gum that replaces real fat and has been found to cause intestinal damage and increased permeability, a condition that leads to leaky gut syndrome.
- Caramel Color – Classified by the state of California as a known carcinogen and shown in animal testing to cause lung, liver, and thyroid cancer and leukemia.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup – Linked to obesity, weight gain, hypertension, liver damage, and mercury exposure.
Compare this to a can of organic black beans that makes no claim about being ‘healthy,’ but contains nothing but organic black beans, water and sea salt, and sells for substantially less than the chicken soup. There is a big difference.
Myth #2. The Most Important Foods to Buy Organic are Fruits and Vegetables
It’s easy to understand why many people think this is true, since articles voicing this notion abound. Though while fruit and vegetables should indeed be organic, buying organic meat and dairy products should also have top priority if you’re on a budget. This is because most conventionally raised cattle used for food have been confined to filthy feedlots that are cesspools of manure and disease. They are fed almost entirely with GMO soy and corn, and may have been given a growth stimulating drug, known as ractopamine, up until just before slaughter and without any clearance time.
The harshest chemicals and pesticides are relentlessly used in producing the corn and soy used as animal feed. The bodies of these animals store their toxicity in their fat, so if you are consuming fatty meats or conventionally produced full fat dairy products (the best kind to consume), you are sharing the toxic load with the animals. Toxicity travels up the food chain.
Myth #3. The Food Sold in Healthy-Image Grocery Stores is All Organic
Whole Foods, Lucky’s Market, Trader Joe’s, and many others are in the healthy image grocery business. These are probably good places to shop once you have lost the illusion that all the items they sell are organic. Whether it is meats, fresh produce, canned goods, cereal, drinks, snacks or any other food category, many of the items sold in these stores are not organic.
The organic items they do sell are clearly marked as ‘organic’ and they carry the seal of the organization certifying them as organic. Most will e ven have the USDA organic seal. If items do not have a label that says they are organic and a certifying seal to back it up, they are not organic, pure and simple, and you will be overpaying for what you are getting.
The bargains in these types of stores are the organic items, once you are able to identify them. They are usually fresher and could be lower in price than organic items found in conventional grocery stores.
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