Easy tips to help you in the grocery store!
If your food can go bad, it's probably good for you.
- Foods that can go bad contain enzymes to naturally break it down - this helps with your digestion. And in our fast-paced, gulp-down our food, eat on the run, busy/stressed out lives, we need all the enzymes we can get!
- Plus, food that can go bad usually hasn't been messed with - or at least minimally. Anything that can last a long, long time on a shelf is likely not that great for you - and it's not specifically the preservatives I'm referring to - it's the food quality/processing.
- Now, a couple caveats to this are dried foods (watch the sugars in dried fruit!), which can still be good for you but last a long time. If you find that dried fruits/foods (ie apricots) give you a headache, bloating, etc., try organic non-sulfite versions, but they won't look as "nice" as the sulfite preserved versions. However, dried foods may have lost their beneficial enzymes, and potentially some vitamins depending upon how the product was dried.
- Pickling foods is also a great way to preserve them (ie, sauerkraut, or um...pickles!) are actually great for you as they contain beneficial bacteria - again helping you digest your foods. So these are usually fairly safe - unless there are also loads of preservatives
If your food lables preach how good it is for you, then it probably isn't:
- Skinny this, light that...
- Low Fat - usually contains extra sugar, salt/sodium, or chemicals to make it taste like the original.
- Lowered Salt/Lowered Sugar - lowered "too much" is still way too much!!!
- Be careful with "Gluten Free." I AM a proponent of gluten free eating, but not everything that is labelled "gluten free" is good for you- food manufacturers have turned it into a marketing thing!
If it's in a box, it may not be really all that natural (or healthy), even if it may be labelled as such. A fruit or vegetable is all natural. Boxes of sugary, sodium-added, processed granola bars for example, are technically natural, but often contain lots of other "natural" junk.
- Now, I'm not knocking oats/oatmeal. Steel cut oats (and even regular rolled oats to a lesser degree) are a great thing - but often oatmeal/oats, especially instant or the kind you find in cereal/granola/energy bars are so processed there is almost no nutritional value but lots of sugar.
- Speaking of "all natural," yes things can be natural, containing minimal or zero chemicals, but it doesn't necesarily mean it's good for you. Natural things can still be loaded with sugar, salt, which are both very "natural.
Until next time, go have your best day ever!