consuming

What Meat Do You Eat?

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What Meat Do You Eat?

Are you a meat eater? On the paleo diet? Low carb diet? Atkins? A Carnivore?

If you choose to eat meat, there are several things to consider when you weigh your options for the best choice to consume.

Obviously, we want to choose a source of meat that is the least processed – that you can still see fat or bone present – such as a steak, ribs, pork chop, chicken leg or even the whole raw chicken.

Steer clear of the processed meats, such as hot dogs, deli meats, cold cuts, pepperoni, bacon and anything else that you know has undergone some sort of processing to get to its current state.

But when choosing the best meat for you and your family, it goes much deeper than just finding what is available at your grocery store that is the least processed.

Let’s consider for a moment the animals and animal products that we are consuming.

They have taken months or possibly years to get to their full size before slaughter. This gives them plenty of time to eat and eat and eat to grow large enough to be sent to market.

This also gives the animal plenty of time to gather up toxins in their bodies from the food supply they are given to eat when they are conventionally grown. Often, they are being fed genetically modified corn, soy and mixed feed that has been sprayed generously with many doses of pesticides. These pesticides are accumulated in the bodies of these animals and passed on to us when we eat them.

The animals are generally kept in tight quarters with several hundred other animals and can easily pass germs around to one another. This means that there is often antibiotics added to their food supply to control illness among the population. This is also passed on to us when we eat them, not to mention into the ground water supply from their excretions.

For these reasons and many others, it is important to choose meat that has been naturally raised to ensure that your family is getting a high quality product. When animals are raised in their natural environment and eat their native diet, they naturally produce meats that are higher in minerals, essential fatty acids and vitamins. 

Look for labels such as:

• organic
• grass fed
• free range
• pasture raised
• wild caught
• antibiotic free
• GMO free

The best place to find the highest quality meat for your family are directly at organic farms, Farmer’s Markets, and health foods stores in your community. Talk to the famers, the producers and associates to purchase humanely raised, and as-organic-as-possible animal products. 

Including animal products in your diet can add variety to your diet and provide you with essential vitamins and minerals if you are mindful of selecting high-quality products. Pairing meat with a salad and lots of colourful vegetables can make a great meal filled with the nutritious fuel your body needs to function at its best.

Master The Psychology of the Supermarket

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This information is courtesy of bon appetit and the research they have put together from a massive study on how we buy food.

Here, we summarize the most interesting pieces of information discovered about how supermarkets are designed, how and why we buy what we choose, and how it’s all a trap!!

I want you to be aware of these things the next time you go to the grocery store so you can be mindful about why you’re walking the direction you are, what you are choosing to put in your cart (with which hand!) and how many items you are walking past to get to what you actually wanted in the first place!

The five experts who contributed to the original study are:

• BA senior food editor Dawn Perry
• Environmental psychologist Paco Underhill and author of What Women Want: The Science of Female Shopping
• Architect and supermarket designer Kevin Kelley, of the firm Shook Kelley
• The director of the graduate nutrition program at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University, Sharon Akabas
• Efficiency expert Gwynnae Byrd

• “Upward of 50 percent of what we buy in a supermarket we had no intention of buying as we walked in the door,” psychologist Underhill says.

• The average supermarket has 64,000 products (you’d have to eat or use more than 175 different products every day for a year before you tried everything once).

• There are too many choices!! With this vast array of options, our brains overload and instead of the two items on our list, we come out with 20! Marketers are really good at getting us to buy stuff we don’t need.

• The primary goal of supermarkets is to subtly convince shoppers to spend more time inside, to give products more opportunities to fly into your cart!

• Very similar to casinos, it is rare to see many indicators of the time, like clocks, skylights, or even windows.

• Dairy is generally in the back corner—the deepest section of the store, because virtually everyone who walks in has some dairy product on their list. (aka stop buying dairy!! check out this blog for the reasons why!)

• About nine in ten people are right-handed, and a counterclockwise route through the store makes it easier for right-handed people to put stuff in their carts. (really!! can you imagine who studied and realized this!)

• Most stores work better with a counterclockwise circulation pattern because you tend to push your cart with your left hand and pick things up with your right hand.

• Of every ten people who walk through the entrance, only one will go down the soda aisle, so supermarkets hijack shoppers’ subconscious to linger in these aisles, often by literally slowing them down with bumpier or tackier floor surfaces. (or giant bins in the centre of the aisle that need stop lights to navigate)

• It is not a coincidence that brightly coloured, sugar-laden cereals with the new kiddie-cartoon craze is on the shelf at knee level – it’s in the perfect line of sight for a six-year-old kid.

• The point of those bite-sized food samples is not only to get you to buy a particular product. It’s to trick your body into thinking it’s hungry. And we all know what happens when we shop hungry!!

These are really interesting points to consider when you are navigating your grocery store. Be aware of these subconscious tricks to get us to buy more, eat more, spend more and consume more and be sure you are only buying what you set out to buy! (Stay in the produce section as much as possible!)

With Sources From:

http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/how-to/article/supermarket-psychology

What’s in your chicken sandwich? DNA test shows Subway sandwiches contain just 50% chicken

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What's in your chicken sandwich? DNA test shows Subway sandwiches contain just 50% chicken

What are you eating? Do you really have any idea what you are buying when you whip into a fast food restaurant?

CBC’s Marketplace recently had chicken from 5 fast food restaurants DNA tested to see what is actually in their chicken.

If you can believe it, DNA tests on Subway’s Oven Roasted Chicken show that just 53.6 per cent was chicken! The majority of the remaining DNA was soy.

Two major red flags are waving here.

1. What else is the company hiding in their products?
2. What if someone was allergic to soy and unknowingly eating it in a piece of chicken?! Additionally, regular consumption of soy can wreak havoc on the hormonal system.

Subway states that “Our recipe calls for one per cent or less of soy protein in our chicken products.” This is still quite concerning for those of us who like to know what we are actually consuming.

• A&W Chicken Grill Deluxe averaged 89.4 per cent chicken DNA
• McDonald’s Country Chicken – Grilled averaged 84.9 per cent chicken DNA
• Tim Hortons Chipotle Chicken Grilled Wrap averaged 86.5 per cent chicken DNA
Wendy’s Grilled Chicken Sandwich averaged 88.5 per cent chicken DNA

Each restaurant’s chicken actually averaged approximately 15 ingredients per piece of chicken.

How is this even possible? Isn’t chicken supposed to be just chicken?

These restaurant chains are actually serving meat that has been “restructured”.

Restructured products are smaller pieces of meat or ground meat that are bound together with other ingredients to make them last longer, taste better and ‘add value’ – i.e. – to make them cheaper.

The ingredients can include simple items like salt, honey or onion powder, as well as shocking industrial ingredients. They most likely also contain transglutaminase, which is meat glue. Yes – glue to hold together scraps of meat to bind them into a new form for consumption.

What is the Solution?

Plan ahead and bring your own food when you’re on the road, or when you go to work. It’s much cheaper to eat food that you prepare yourself, and you will also have a better idea as to what you are eating! Here is a quick recipe to make your own delicious chicken wrap that is actually 100% chicken, instead of just half!!

RECIPE: Savoury 100% Chicken Wrap – Great for Lunches

Slice 3 organic chicken breasts into strips and bake or fry ahead of time. (this will make several lunches for a few days for yourself or a day of lunches for your family)

Grab a whole wheat wrap and spread hummus onto it.
Place a large lettuce leaf in the middle.
Add sliced tomato, cucumber and onions.
Add your chicken slices.
Sprinkle with pepper and wrap it up!
Hold it together with a tooth pick and you’re out the door!

Whenever possible, avoid fast food by planning ahead and bringing your own food. Take control of your health and empower yourself by being proactive about your meal choices!

With Sources from:

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/meat-glue-an-ingredient-to-fear-or-cheer-1.855985

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-chicken-fast-food-1.3993967

How Processed Sugar Destroys Your Body

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How Processed Sugar Destroys Your Body

How much processed sugar sneaks into your diet in a day? You may be surprised at how many grams of sugar you are consuming without even realizing it.

For example, a quick visit to Tim Hortons for breakfast, lunch or snack with a fairly routine order can tip the scales of sugar content at over 30 grams!! That is a lot of sugar for your body to process all at once, especially when the sugars are all processed, accompanied by equally processed foods around it.

A Tim Hortons Cinnamon Raisin bagel (11 grams) with plain cream cheese (2 grams), Double-Double Coffee (18 grams) = 31 grams of sugar

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Centre advises that women should consume no more than 25 grams of sugar per day, and men should consume no more than 37 grams of sugar per day.

So after one stop at Tim Horton’s you’ve maxed your entire daily recommended sugar intake in just one blow! Think about the rest of your day… how will that look? A sandwich for lunch? A granola bar for snack? Pasta for dinner? Your processed sugar intake is adding up to look mountainous.

So what is the problem with sugar?

Sugar is an anti-nutrient. It causes your body to leach nutrients in its attempt to clean up the damage that sugar leaves behind. It also directly feeds cancer cells, and causes serious inflammation.

Inflammation is the cause behind almost every single illness and condition, and sugar continues to fuel inflammation rather effectively once it has started. Because of its oxidative effect on the body, it can contribute to a whole host of conditions and issues that may be misdiagnosed as other illnesses or causes, but in actuality, the cause is actually the over consumption of processed sugar.

How can processed sugar affect your body?

According to Nancy Appleton, Ph.D., there are over 146 reasons that sugar is ruining your health. Here are the worst offenders, and if you’d like the full list and references, head over to http://www.rheumatic.org/sugar.htm

• Sugar can suppress the immune system.
• High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn’s disease, and ulcerative colitis.
• Sugar can cause a rapid rise of adrenaline levels in children.
• Sugar can cause heart disease.
• Sugar can cause appendicitis.
• Sugar can cause multiple sclerosis.
• Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
• Sugar causes food allergies.
• Sugar can cause cataracts.
• Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.
• Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).
• Sugar increases the risk of gastric cancer.
• Sugar can cause depression.
• Sugar can adversely affect school children’s grades and cause learning disorders..
• Sugar feeds cancer.
• Sugar can exacerbate PMS.
• Sugar can slow down the ability of the adrenal glands to function.
• Sugar can increase the risk of stomach cancer.
• Sugar can cause low birth weight babies.
• High sugar intake can cause epileptic seizures.

These are very serious conditions and illnesses that are completely preventable! Reduce your processed sugar and processed foods intake by increasing your whole foods intake. Crowd out the bad foods with lots of delicious, colourful produce! Focus your diet on lots of leafy green vegetables, smoothies with berries and healthy fats, fresh fruits and vegetables, raw nuts and seeds, legumes and if you choose to eat meat or eggs, be sure they are from organic / grass fed / free range / wild sources.

With Sources from:

https://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/pdf/TH_Nutrition_Guide_CE_2013_-_FINAL.pdf

https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/focused-on-health/may-2015/FOH-cancer-love-sugar.html

http://www.rheumatic.org/sugar.htm