Choosing Canned Meat
by Shereen Jegtvig
Chances are, most of the meat you buy at the grocery store is either fresh or frozen, but there are several types of meat available in cans. The most popular canned meats include fish like tuna and salmon, plus you can also buy shrimp, clam and crab meats in cans. It’s a convenient way to buy and use seafood.
Beyond seafoods, you’ll find chicken and other meat products in cans too, such as deviled ham, the often maligned Spam, corned beef and perhaps your grocery store carries a canned pate or two. These products are good for sandwiches, as additions to salads and as ingredients in recipes. And they last for a long time in your kitchen cabinets.
Some of the canned meat products will combine the meat with potatoes, like corned beef and hash, or other ingredients. These foods are easy to use, just heat and serve, but are they good for you? The main problem with canned meats, as with most canned goods, is the high amounts of sodium from salt and additives. Look for low-sodium varieties whenever possible. Some cured meats sold in canned form also contain sodium nitrite, which has been linked to increased rates of some types of cancer. Read more
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What are BHA and BHT?
by Shereen Jegtvig
Food manufacturers add things to their products to keep them from going bad before we eat them. When you look on the package for the ingredients list, you might find BHA and BHT listed there. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) are preservatives that keep fats from going rancid.
Both BHA and BHT protect fats from oxidation damage caused when the fats in the food product are exposed to oxygen. Actually, they work in a similar way as vitamin E (although that similar action doesn’t mean BHA and BHT are good for you). BHA and BHT are often added to potato flakes, dry breakfast cereals, enriched rice, and foods containing animal fats and shortening. Read more
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Are Flavored Waters the Same as Soft Drinks?
by Shereen Jegtvig
When I walk through the beverage aisle at the grocery store, it looks like about one-quarter of the shelf space is devoted to bottles of water. Quite a change from when I was a kid. Back then there were a few gallon jugs of distilled water, and the only reason my mom bought those was for use in the iron – we didn’t drink it.
Getting enough fluids every day is important and the bottled-water industry has done a great job pushing their products. They’re convenient, possibly better than some tap water, but they still taste like water and not everyone likes the taste of water. So between the bottles of water and soda, you’ll see several brands of flavored water. If water is good for you flavored water must be good too. But isn’t that the same as a soft drink? Read more
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Bisphenol A (BPA): Tainting Our Food?
by Shereen Jegtvig
Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical compound used to harden plastic that some experts fear may be hazardous. You’ll find BPA in some hard plastic baby bottles, water bottles, hard plastic microwavable cookware, plastic storage containers and lining aluminum cans. In large amounts, BPA is toxic and exposing those plastic items to heat increases the amount of BPA released. The BPA can be absorbed into the food and the liquids stored in the containers. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration decided that the amount of BPA that we are normally exposed to every day is not enough to cause any harm.
Some experts have been concerned about the potential danger of this chemical because lab animals exposed to BPA develop health problems. The evidence supporting the notion that BPA is dangerous is mounting, but not all research in conclusive. A human study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a correlation between the amount of BPA found in the urine and the likelihood of also having heart disease and diabetes. The University of Cincinnati published an article entitled BPA May Cause Heart Disease in Women, Research Shows. But I think the title is a bit misleading, since the actual research had nothing to do with human females – the researchers exposed cells extracted from the hearts of female rats directly to BPA. Read more
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Artificial Colorings in Pudding and Gelatin Cups
by Shereen Jegtivig
I’m getting into back-school-mode (or maybe my bored kids are getting on my nerves – not sure which) so today I was thinking about things to pack in school lunches, both good things and bad things. Small, one-serving pudding and gelatin cups are popular for school lunches. They’re convenient, properly portioned and they taste good, so kids love them. Of course, most of them are crammed full of artificial colors and other additives your kids don’t need. So what do you do?
One thing you can do is to pack something else for dessert, like dried fruit, but if you want to send pudding or gelatin cups to school with your kids, be sure to do your homework first and find one that contains the least additives. I’ll warn you, it isn’t easy. I looked up coloring free gelatin and pudding cups because more than a few experts believe artificial colorings trigger behavioral problems in kids and it doesn’t seem like a good idea to add artificial colorings to a school lunch, when your kids need to be at their brightest. Of all the varieties of puddings and gelatins, only one has no added colors, the Kraft Mega Cup Chocolate 126 Oz pudding. Read more
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Food Tip: Hummus and Preservatives
by Shereen Jegtvig
I love hummus! It’s delicious and good for you because it contains only healthy ingredients – just chickpeas, tahini (from sesame seeds), olive oil and a little garlic (and maybe some other tasty additions or seasonings). Hummus has healthy monounsaturated fats and protein and when you combine some hummus with whole-wheat pita bread, you’ll have a healthy snack that will keep you feeling full for quite a while.
It’s always interesting to look up a normally healthy food, like hummus, on the FoodEssentials tool, to see just how badly processing can change it. We want convenient foods that last a long time, but that comes with a lot of added preservatives and ingredients that we may not want and definitely don’t need. Read more
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Calcium Propionate: What Is There To Know?
by Shereen Jegtvig
Chances are, that loaf of white bread sitting in your kitchen cabinet contains a little bit of something called calcium propionate, which has been added as a preservative. Calcium propionate keeps bread and baked goods from spoiling by preventing mold and bacterial growth. So if it’s bad for bacteria, does it mean it’s bad for you too?
The answer to that is maybe. Calcium propionate (along with propionic acid and sodium propionate) is used as a preservative in bread, baked goods and some dairy products; however it also occurs naturally in butter and some types of cheese. Rats fed large amounts of calcium propionate and similar chemicals didn’t show any negatives effects, so the FDA allows food companies to use as much as they’d like. And we certainly don’t want to eat bacteria- or mold-infested bread. Read more
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Sweet Substitutes: The Alternatives To Sugar
Sugar. It’s sweet, tasty, and everywhere. It occurs naturally in many foods, and is often added to processed foods, in a variety of forms. Unfortunately, too much sugar can contribute to many health problems: tooth decay, obesity, and related medical conditions such as diabetes and heart disease. Artificial sugar substitutes are often added to foods to replicate the sweetness of sugar, without the added energy or calories. Most are suitable for people with diabetes or hypoglycemia, and are usually much friendlier to your teeth.
However, artificial sweeteners have been the subject of much controversy. Some people claim they have experienced negative health effects after consuming sweeteners, while others question the political motives behind the approval process and labeling protocols for each additive. Many dietitians recommend you avoid some artificial sweeteners, or that you avoid large amounts of sugar substitutes at any one time. (Larsen – Ask the dietitian, 2009)
Before you can decide which additives you want to consume or avoid, you need to know some basic facts about each sugar substitute. Read more
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Sweeteners Exposed: Acesulfame Potassium
Ingredient Name: Acesulfame potassium
E-number: E-950
Alternative Names: Acesulfame K, Ace-K, ACK, Sweetener (950), market names (e.g. Sunett, Sweet One)
Use in Food: Acesulfame potassium is one of the five FDA-approved calorie-free artificial sweeteners currently used in the US. As it is around 180-200 times sweeter than sucrose (common sugar), very small amounts of the additive produce the desired sweetness in a variety of foods. Unlike other artificial sweeteners (such as aspartame) acesulfame potassium is stable at high temperatures and pH levels, enabling its use in baked goods. It also increases the sweetness shelf life of many products (IFIC Foundation, 2009). Read more
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Sweeteners Exposed: Aspartame
Alternative names: E-951, APM, sweetener (951), market names (e.g. Equal, NutraSweet, Canderel).
Use in food: Aspartame is an artificial sweetener, often used to replace sugar in food and drinks. About 180 times sweeter than sugar, aspartame only needs to be added in very small amounts to obtain desired sweetness. Its taste is only similar to the sweetness of sugar, and is often blended with other sweeteners (e.g. acesulfame potassium or saccharin) to achieve a more “sugar-y” taste.
As it is non-carbohydrate based and only used in very small amounts, aspartame contributes very few calories to food, and is mainly used in “diet” products. These include many carbonated soda drinks (diet and non-diet), ice cream, yogurts, cereals, chewing gum/ breath mints, ice teas, juices, instant milk drinks, confectionery, pharmaceutical drugs, vitamin supplements and as tabletop sweeteners for tea and coffee. (Aspartame information centre, 2006) Read more
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