Have You Read Your Ingredient Lists Lately?

OMGeeeHorses

Unless you go the expensive way which is all organic you will always be putting some kind of chemical in your body. I was horrified to ready an article about aspartame which is a chemical in all sugar substitutes. And can be deadly. Not only that but it triggers your brain to respond in different ways. One way it makes your brain respond is by making it crave carbs. Not to mention that it has been causing major illness and there is a reported 90 deaths from the intake of aspartame. And yet its FDA approved!

you realize that most "organic" fruit and vegetables are treated with some form of chemical right? I believe some of the "organic" farmers use DDT...

^^this

Howdoyoufeeltoday

I like to make stuff at home cause it tastes better for the most part. But with store bought things you have to put extra chemicals in it to keep it from going bad, otherwise you end up with stale granola bars and that's not much better. Is it ideal, no, but it's easy and they do taste good. Example: poptarts and Pizza pockets, they add tons of stuff to them, they're barely real food....but they taste soooo good, and the chemicals make that happen so I wont yell at companies for giving me poptarts.

jonnythan

We talk about all the horrid little chemicals in McDonald's food, right?

How come we aren't talking about all the horrid little chemicals in food that is labeled "healthy"? The pic below is the ingredients list for a WW cereal bar. Just because the package says it's healthy and good for you, doesn't mean that it is...

READ YOUR INGREDIENT LISTS, PEEPS!

Man, tapioca starch. It's horrendous that they put this stuff in food.

VelvetMorning

If you ever get the chance go to a legit oriental grocery store and check out their calories on pretty much anything. A pound of sugary awesome cookies? Only 100 calories. It's like sabotage for weight loss.

jayrudq

Why would anyone assume a weight watchers bar is healthy? Or anything labeled "healthy." I mean, WTF does healthy mean? Now give me something that is, just per se, labeled 5 ingredients or less and all of which you can pronounce and I may assume it is healthy. Ok, get rid of the 5 or less. Just give me something labeled "every ingredient you can pronounce." IF I was looking for "healthy"

edit: for those of you who are really concrete: every ingredient on the list is something I can readily identify and clearly is not BEAVER BUTT (see video link).

Tessyloowhoo

no *kitten* is given... if it was the right calories and fit my LGIT diet plan, i would eat it.... ALL FOOD IS CHEMICALS, everything in our world is made up of chemicals

tekwriter

having just had to start a migraine diet as the result of a 3 week long migraine, yes I was astonished at what has extra chemicals in the foods. I was told to stay away from natural flavors as it often contains MSG and I know that it often contains beaver butt but I was astonished at all the junk food contains. I bought some of the all fruit bars. the cherry ones had beet juice in them really? beet juice? why? I didn't want beet juice. It also had natural flavorings. so then I started reading. I am with you. Start reading it is a real eye opener.

tekwriter

http://foodbabe.com/2013/09/09/food-babe-tv-do-you-eat-beaver-butt/

Here is the link to the beaver butt article by the way.

toholio

And calling it glucose syrup isn't going to change the fact that it is also a sugar...

Tell that to the people who think there's something magic about fructose that makes it holy and never a problem.

Then, just for cheap kicks, point out to them that the sugar in apricots is 63% sucrose, 25% glucose, and 10% fructose.

Sugar isn't a problem. Sugar for the sake of sugar, and sugary foods with no redeeming qualities are a problem.

jayrudq

HA! I would take beet juice over beaver butt any day!!! You are a HOOT! Thank you.

EDIT: just watched the video. Love it. Beaver butt, indeed!

SoDamnHungry

I don't have time to read the ingredients in my peanut butter cups. It'd take all night.

piratesaregrand

The ingredients list on the Hershey's chocolate pie at Burger King used to amuse me.

Still eat it, mmmmm yum.

jofjltncb6

I don't have time to read the ingredients in my peanut butter cups. It'd take all night.

Fortunately, I'm a faster reader than her^.

honeysprinkles

Unless you go the expensive way which is all organic you will always be putting some kind of chemical in your body. I was horrified to ready an article about aspartame which is a chemical in all sugar substitutes. And can be deadly. Not only that but it triggers your brain to respond in different ways. One way it makes your brain respond is by making it crave carbs. Not to mention that it has been causing major illness and there is a reported 90 deaths from the intake of aspartame. And yet its FDA approved!

haha, love this!

zagon_the_ultimate

The guy with the coffee list is correct, even the mundane things are LOADED with names that we can make sound evil and bad. Even water, everyday common water, is known as Dihydrogen Monoxide or Hydroxyl Acid.

Growing up in my house, my dad worked for general mills R&D, and we were taught to read the ingredient labels from a very young age. The neat part was my dad could tell me exactly why everything is in there, and exactly what it did. All of the stuff on that list is fairly innocuous; let me explain some of them.

The “raising agents” give the bar fluff so it isn’t a hard rock, similar to adding baking soda in some recipes. Yes it is a different substance, but the effect is the same.

The “emulsifiers” are there to help keep the various fats, and moisture dependant ingredients blended. If there were no emulsifiers the bar would have an uneven consistency, and they also VASTLY improve shelf life.

The “humectant” is a variant of glycerin, which is incredibly common, and also completely harmless. Glycerin is a water soluble extract from common everyday fats, EVERY FAT has a glycerol backbone, (glycerol and glycerin are the same thing) and it’s amazing at preserving moisture in food items. Glycerin is especially good when it’s in a low moisture content food like snack bars and cakes.

Now 61% of the substance of this bar is made from confectionary ingredients, with a few protein sources tossed in. the remaining 39% are bound up in flour, sugars, cocoa powders/extracts, and oils. The preservatives prolly don’t even register a full 1%.

Lola824

The things allowed in our food supply in this country is horrifying. Nothing we eat is safe unless its plant based organic. I would like to eat that way all the time but don't. It is very important to read your labels.

Featherweighttt

The only thing that bothers me is that I have extensive food allergies so I always HAVE to read labels.. but I have a rule (based mostly on time saving and lack of commitment) that if an ingredients list is longer than four lines I'm not bothering with it, it's too likely it'll have an allergen in there somewhere and I"m not risking missing it haha

meerkat70

I wonder if it looks less deathly when you understand what all the big words mean? I can't see anything that bad in there.

No deadly nightshade in there, for instance. I guess that's cause that would be a 'natural' ingredient?

I'd love someone to explain the difference between 'natural' and 'artificial' food for me. Which bit of the 'artificial' stuff didn't emerge in nature?

FWIW I don't eat much processed food at all. And I don't understand why anyone would put a ww bar in their body. Not because of the evil ingredients, but simply because it doesn't taste very good. I don't put anything in my body that doesn't taste nice.

zagon_the_ultimate

I'd love someone to explain the difference between 'natural' and 'artificial' food for me. Which bit of the 'artificial' stuff didn't emerge in nature?

FWIW I don't eat much processed food at all. And I don't understand why anyone would put a ww bar in their body. Not because of the evil ingredients, but simply because it doesn't taste very good. I don't put anything in my body that doesn't taste nice.

technically "artificial" is anything that has had any sufficient degree of processing, and/or does not occur commonly in nature. for example nearly all oils, save some, will go rancid within days to weeks. there are even some that will go rancid instantaneously the moment they touch air. these oils are mostly in seeds and nuts, and don't go rancid in that form because its bound up in a tight, tasty package. they modify the molecular structure so that they will last longer, it doesn't go "bad", its just tastes bad.

another example of an "artificial" ingredient is something that mimics an original substance, or is completely new. chew any common piece of gum and you are gnawing on a wad of plastic, rubbers, softeners, sugar alcohols, and flavor (mostly artificial). this mimics natural gums.

a "natural" ingredient would be something like peppermint oil, cocoa, fruit extracts, un-modified oils (olive oil is a fantastic example), basic sugar. things that are generally the same, but changed by means of manufacture. wheat grain becomes wheat flour, milk becomes cheese and yogurt, fruit becomes jams and jellies, and so on. the overall food stuff is there, just changed by means of evaporation, condensing, fermentation, extraction, expressing, ect...

peachcats

The chemicals are what make it taste good.
iifym.