foodfaud.org

[Louisa]

I thought this site deserved it's own topic, though I posted this in another thread on green tea. This site, foodfraud.org, you can search for a food ingredient or adulterant and it tells you whether the food has been found to contain any ingredients that are not listed on the label, or which foods the adulterant you search for has been found in. There is some very questionable stuff, allergens, things not suitable for human consumption, contained in some foods, and not listed on the label.

If one suffers from "mystery symptoms", such things as this could be a trigger. I always suffered from many health symptoms and gradually transforming my diet, home environment to remove toxins and allergens and chemicals, and also exercising seem to help (I think the exercising detoxifies).

Sadly, so much is unregulated or self-regulated by the food industries, so there can be conflicts of interest. (often worse regulated in third world country exports, no surprise) Chemicals are often used before being tested adequately, or at all. Since I am somewhat sensitive and allergic to many things, I am always finding myself feeling out of it or achy or lethargic, even when I eat things that are supposed to be healthy, so I'm always trying to weed through the possible things that might be bothering me and look for more information about it. It is continual and slow progress, and since so much is poorly regulated, I am not sure I'll ever get it all in balance, but over the years, my health has greatly improved due to this effort and experimentation.

Anyway here is the site:

http://www.foodfraud.org/

[Berry]

Thank you so much Louisa for this informative site. I looked up grass and was very surprised to find that saffron and cumin seeds have colored grass in them. It just shocked me that green tea would contain grass and fern clippings.

[Louisa]

Yeah, I was surprised when I found that out about tea and saffron, and I didn't know about cumin seeds. It seems that more expensive ingredients are more often adulterated. I guess it might help to buy from organic and high quality sources, but even those are not always regulated the best. It is a little surprising, the more one digs into these things. I just try to stay informed, but take all information with a grain of salt and listen to my own body and track my reactions over time because sometimes something will only have a cumulative effect on me or sometimes it will have a delayed effect.

I will post the article, which had several specific examples (coffee and milk were two others, and somewhere I read about saffron), if I can still find it.

Originally Posted by Louisa

I thought this site deserved it's own topic,
http://www.foodfraud.org/

Amen! Great site... I moved it high up in my health related bookmarks!

Right now I'm studying wheat (no one should be eating this really nasty stuff, whole grain or otherwise!!) so I entered wheat and was deeply impressed with the response!

Thank you Louisa! ....this is a site that I'll be beating a path to often! :^)

[Louisa]

I hadn't looked up wheat, but I just did, and that is quite enlightening, to be sure. Now I'm thinking of going gluten free again - already cut back on wheat but not strictly.

[Louisa]

I did find this article on msn when I looked, different from the one I read, but has some of the same things on it -

7 most fraudulent foods
http://healthyliving.msn.com/nutriti...dulent-foods-1

There's quite a lot of other articles about this too if you google "food fraud" and "adulterated food" and such. This is something I just began learning about. I guess that processed foods are likely to be adulterated more than whole foods, especially things that are of ambiguous appearance, ground or mixed, etc.

Originally Posted by Louisa

I hadn't looked up wheat, but I just did, and that is quite enlightening, to be sure. Now I'm thinking of going gluten free again - already cut back on wheat but not strictly.

Wheat, gluten and even the gluten free products that are sold today are really nasty stuff! (...the problem with "gluten free" products is that they tend to use cornstarch, rice flour, potato starch, or tapioca starch which can actually spike our blood sugar even higher than wheat!)

For a most intense read on the subject visit this site:
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/

And I highly advise looking into his book! Read it and wheat will likely leave your diet and never return!

Just from a glycemic perspective alone wheat should firmly be avoided... There is this from William Davis's book entitled "Wheat Belly":

This information is not new. A 1981 University of Toronto study launched the concept of the glycemic index, i.e., the comparative blood sugar effects of carbohydrates: the higher the blood sugar after consuming a specific food compared to glucose, the higher the glycemic index (GI). The original study showed that the GI of white bread was 69, while the GI of whole grain bread was 72 and Shredded Wheat cereal was 67, while that of sucrose (table sugar) was 59.5 Yes, the GI of whole grain bread is higher than that of sucrose. Incidentally, the GI of a Mars bar—nougat, chocolate, sugar, caramel, and all—is 68. That’s better than whole grain bread. The GI of a Snickers bar is 41—far better than whole grain bread.

Add that to this little snippet from his web site (there is far more to read about all this at his blog ( http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/ ))

Intestinal cell destruction, immune stimulation, intestinal permeability, inflammation, opiates . . . and that’s just one protein in modern wheat!

Folks are correcting all sorts of major ills simply by removing grains from their diets!

As to what the preferred approach to eating should be I've finally wrapped myself around this following style as my most favorite for so many reasons... it just makes sense, and it works! There are numerous variations on this theme... a theme that is still in the process of being finessed and fine-tuned... I'm currently studying the Ketogenic diet, which shares similarity to the "Perfect Health Diet" , to Paleo, to the more modern version of Atkins.... it's essentially eating as our ancestors ate... with an emphasis on using healthy fats for around 60% of our caloric intake, while, by volume, vegetables would make up the bulk of the actual weight...

Here's a good readable summery of this approach... this guy wrote it with gym style exercise in mind, but the same principle applies overall... generally, back away from all processed foods, and high carb content, and essentially do the opposite of what they've been telling us over the last 50 years or so (it appears that the industrial and governmental powers-that-be have been either out-to-lunch or have purposefully been trying to make us sick as a culture?)

http://originalworkout.com/original_diet_primer_2012.pdf

[CrystalSong]

StephenK, over population is a problem world-wide and the government is worried about the financial effect on the country of medical care for the baby-boomers coupled with the fact they are living longer than previous generations, add to that that they are too old to go to war and be killed, many have quite drinking and smoking, they drive carefully etc and it becomes easier to see where misinformation from the government concerning what is healthy combined with loose quality control could be something they would have a financial vested interested in.

A friend of mine says it this way "To be the perfect citizen work, hard paying high end taxes till retirement then politely die in expeditious manner before drawing social security or pensions".

Originally Posted by CrystalSong

A friend of mine says it this way "To be the perfect citizen work, hard paying high end taxes till retirement then politely die in expeditious manner before drawing social security or pensions".

My wife has been watching this at her last couple of jobs.... We're old enough now that this idea of retirement is coming into focus... there is something that's really strange that's occurring... she's been watching folks who have been obsessed with retirement, worked at their one job, or at least the same employer, for the last 30 years, focused firmly on their security for retirement... then they retire, a couple of years later they die... they just spent 30 years planning around, perhaps a couple of very painful health-debilitated years, then dead.... oye... What a bonanza for the retirement fund... payed into for 30 years, paid out for just 2 or more... close books...

Now... if we were to play a game for a moment and devise a plan that would bring about ones demise in a way that served financial interests how would we do it....?

Perhaps we could get people to eat high carbs, eliminate healthy fats, inject them with various toxic chemicals; through medications, inoculations, prescriptions and over the counter drugs... alter the foods they eat at the genetic level, process the living essence out of it, process it with life-stressing chemicals, then sell everyone microwaves to further scramble what's left... study the body to find out what the limits are, when does a body fall apart?, then press against the foods, and stimulate our desires for those foods, while studying that point when people die in such a way that makes the medical industry rich...? And die at a pre-described time...

Then trash the alternative... sell people on the idea that food doesn't make a difference when it comes to health.. that any healing modality that is not "official" is quackery.... that we all will get old, get sick, get fat, get cancer, get diabetes, that our bodies are flawed and doesn't know what it's doing... that genetics has cursed us with our ills, while the processed/adulterated foods that we're eating have very little to do with it...

If this was a game that we were playing would we then be able to get people to go along with it...? Fast food would be a great place to start... the popular chicken mcnuggets have 38 ingredients with 56% of that composted of genetically modified corn... and then there's this:

*But perhaps the most alarming ingredient in a Chicken McNugget is tertiary butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ, an antioxidant derived from petroleum that is either sprayed directly on the nugget or the inside of the box it comes in to "help preserve freshness." According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, TBHQ is a form of butane (i.e. lighter fluid) the FDA allows processors to use sparingly in our food: It can comprise no more than 0.02 percent of the oil in a nugget. Which is probably just as well, considering that ingesting a single gram of TBHQ can cause "nausea, vomiting, ringing in the ears, delirium, a sense of suffocation, and collapse." Ingesting five grams of TBHQ can kill."
http://rense.com/general76/chk.htm

But people wouldn't actually eat this nasty collection of chemicals and contrived taste and texture concoctions would they?

*In 1970, Americans spent about $6 billion on fast food; in 2000, they spent more than $110 billion. Americans now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or new cars. They spend more on fast food than on movies, books, magazines, newspapers, videos, and recorded music - combined.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/schlosser-fast.html

And this is parents taking their kids to an early dosing of this stuff... looks good, smells good, then it must be okay?

Okay... that parts settled... if this were a game and we were making the rules and crossed our fingers that others would go along with our strategy, we can go-ahead and uncross our fingers... it looks like a winner...

[Sarian]

Picking my jaw off the floor...