Food labels

Aisle 2: Look for Lean Ground Meat and Poultry, Ignore “Natural”Claims. Lean is the key word in this department. Read the label carefully because it’s natural to assume that ground turkey is lower in fat than hamburger, but this isn’t always the case. The key wording here is lean and white; packages labeled as such are markedly leaner than other brands.

Ground beef and hamburger are not nutritionally identical. Ground beef is usually leaner than hamburger because the latter can contain as much as 30% fat. Ground sirloin, ground round and lean ground beef will have the least saturated fat. In the meat aisle, natural means very little.

According to USDA, natural is about how the meat was processed not how the animals were raised. Instead look for poultry that is antibiotic free and red meats raised without hormones. Hormones are not allowed in the poultry or egg industry, so labels that say “hormone free” are a useless ploy to get you to buy their brand over another.

TIP: Always place meats, poultry and seafood in plastic bags to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria to other foods in your cart.

Thank you Kimberly Stewart for this Food News.  We did take out Kimberly’s reference to pork as we feel this “unclean” meat should be avoided.

… for the health of your family,
ellen and sally

Get 100% chicken when you buy chicken – not 15% added water weight, no antibiotics, no artificial additives,  not given feed with pesticides and herbicides – just chicken that has been fed healthy food so it produces healthy tender tasty meat. Listen to Matt Flanagan of Shelton’s Poultry – look for real chicken, ones that don’t do drugs.

… for the health of your family,

ellen and sally

If asparatame is sprinkled on this naturally sweet fruit, she’s a fool!

NutraSweet, Equal, Canderel and now AminoSweet are table top brand names for asparatame, the artificial sweetener known to “excite brain cells to death.” As an ingredient, aspartame is also found in over 6,000 foods: sodas, chewing gum, diet foods and drinks, cereals, jams, candy, supplements… the list goes on and on.

From headaches, mood changes and even hallucinations, aspartame seriously impacts your nervous system. (That includes your brain.) It mimics and/or contributes to diseases such as MS, Alzheimer’s, ADD, depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s, seizures and hythyroidism. This is serious stuff. Plus, when exposed to heat, it turns to formaldyhide and then formic acid which is stored in your fat – not a good thing. Aspartame makes you crave carbohydrates. Instead of losing weight with this “Sugar-Free” artificial sweetener, you tend to gain weight.

When the public gets wind of the questionable properties of a product, it gets rebranded – it is given a new name and package. This is what has happened here. Don’t be fooled by their use of the word “Amino” which may lead you to believe it’s a healthy sweet. It is absolutely the opposite. Please, out smart the producer of asparatame. Do Not buy their song and dance. Keep it away from you kids. Eat pure sugar cane instead, just not too much.

… for the health of families,
ellen

What does Free range really mean? Good question, one we are asked often. The official definition of Free-Range is “allowed access to the outdoors.” You can see that this is a broad qualification. If you have a warehouse filled with hundreds of cooped-up chickens and have a one foot square hole in this building’s side, this environment would fit the definition of free-range. The fact the most if not almost all the chickens never or rarely step outside is not considered. Yet, it is fresh air, natural sunlight, freedom of movement, innate pecking and scratching on the ground behavior which helps a chicken be a chicken – naturally growing and happy. Stress, agitition, confinement all contribute to the release of survivial acting hormones. Humans are not the only species that experiences this reaction. It is instinctial for most living creatures. The presence of these stress-related hormones will effect the taste of a chicken.

How do you know which brands follow the true concept of Free-Range? You have to know the brands. We have a list on our website: www.KidKritics.com. Two you can count on are Shelton’s Poultry and Bell and Evans. Both are great companies with integrity. They care.

… for the health of families,
ellen

Cut through the mustard with the USDA seal.  Every product wearing this seal on the package has been through the rigorous process of insuring its ingredients meet the required organic standards.  That means there are no artificial additives, no growth hormones, it has not been sprayed with toxic chemicals,  it is not GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) altered - all USDA products have gone through an extensive examination and paper trail determining their validity of being organic. Science has said that organic products have higher nutrient values than conventionally grown and processed foods.  Thus USDA products are worth the extra cents – and they may help you stay away from the doctor office!

… for the health of your family,
ellen