Sunday, May 5, 2013

The Ingredients in Sunscreen Destroying Your Health

...by Food Babe

Your skin is your largest organ.

It covers and protects everything on your body. How you treat it is incredibly important to your health. However, the skin is one of the most unappreciated organs, and one that I used to totally take for granted, slathering products full of toxic chemicals on it day after day. When I look back at all the different potions I’ve tried, I shake my head in disbelief and wish I would have known better. Not only would I not have developed eczema all over my body and face, but I would have looked a million times better growing up.

One of those products that has always caused me issues – is sunscreen. Every time after a beach vacation or going to the pool, I’d end up with a rash on my face or body. I wondered if I’d eaten something that I was allergic to. Little did I know at the time – the culprit was sunscreen.

Sunscreen

The unknown long-term consequences of the chemicals in sunscreen are just starting to be revealed and the results are shockingly horrific, going beyond the common skin rash. Here in the United States, the FDA does not regulate cosmetics as rigorously as pharmaceuticals or food – allowing cosmetic companies to get away with using all types of chemical ingredients that are not used and in some cases banned in other countries. Sounds familiar – eh?

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Friday, May 3, 2013

Are Baby Carrots Soaked in Chlorine?

...by Food Babe

If you’ve been following along on Facebook, you know that I was in NYC earlier this week to film an investigative report… well, now it is out! Inside Edition interviewed me as a food expert, regarding the “baby carrot controversy“ sweeping the web.

Watch the full story here:



For the record: I love carrots, I eat them or juice them almost everyday, but personally I do not buy baby carrots, because I prefer the taste of larger, non-ready to eat carrots better.

Also, if you know me, you know this – I want the least amount of environmental chemicals to enter my body. I filter my water at home (to remove chlorine and other chemicals) and wash my vegetables with filtered water before consuming them.

The most important decision you can make at the grocery store regarding carrots is not whether they come in a bag or not but rather if they are organic or conventional.

According to the USDA Pesticide Data Program, conventional carrots can have up to 26 different pesticides on them (16 of them are hormone disruptors, 8 are carcinogens, 7 are reproductive toxins, and 3 are neurotoxins). My recommendation for everyone is to choose organic carrots for this reason. 

Here are some behind the scenes photos from the shoot. I had an absolute blast chatting with Paul Boyd from Inside Edition – he’s quite the comic! We even taste tested the carrots. Baby carrots are grown from a sweeter variety and you can definitely tell the difference in taste!

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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Why You Should Avoid GMOs at Mexican Restaurants + Recipe

...by Food Babe

Figuring out how to eat Mexican food and avoiding GMOs is one of the toughest dilemmas I have encountered since I started living an organic lifestyle. I love Mexican food and it is one of my favorite types of food (next to pizza, french fries and cake). The problem? If you go to any popular mexican restaurant you are destined to consume genetically engineered ingredients. Everything is either made or fried with vegetable oil (corn, soybean, or canola) or corn – and over 90% of corn, soy and canola are likely to come from genetically engineered crops. And let’s face it, going out to a Mexican restaurant and avoiding the chips, the tortillas, the enchiladas, etc. is NOT FUN.

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Thursday, April 25, 2013

Stevia: Good or Bad?

...by Food Babe

Sugar is one of the most dangerous ingredients on the market. It’s addictive, added to almost every processed food, and will make you overweight, depressed and sick if you eat too much. In fact, Americans eat close to 130 pounds of the stuff per person per year (4 times more than the recommended daily allowance), likely because it is so addictive. That’s why it’s exciting to know there are alternative sweeteners made in nature, like “stevia,” that don’t wreak havoc on your health – or do they? That’s what I went on a quest to find out. Here’s what happened…

Stevia

What Is Stevia? Stevia Plant

For those of you that are hearing about stevia for the first time, it is a plant that is typically grown in South America, and while it’s extract is 200 times sweeter than sugar, it does not raise blood insulin levels. That’s what makes it so popular. However in 1991 the FDA refused to approve this substance for use due to pressure from makers of artificial sweeteners like Sweet n’ Low and Equal (a one billion dollar industry). But in 2008, the FDA approved the use of rebaudioside compounds that were derived from the stevia plant by Coca-Cola (Cargill) and PepsiCo – hmmm doesn’t that sound suspicious? Not until a major food company got involved did stevia become legal, and only after it had been highly processed using a patentable chemical-laden process…so processed that Truvia (Coca-Cola’s branded product) goes through about 40 steps to process the extract from the leaf, relying on chemicals like acetone, methanol, ethanol, acetonitrile, and isopropanol. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens (substances that cause cancer), and none of those ingredients sound like real food, do they?

The whole leaf stevia that you can grow in your backyard (and has been used for centuries in countries like Brazil and Paraguay) remains a non-approved food additive by the FDA. However, rebaudioside A (the stevia extract) that was approved by the FDA has not been used for centuries and long term human health impacts have not been studied and are still unknown. The sweetener/sugar industry wields powerful influence over what is ultimately approved at the FDA, and this is just another example where they are influencing decisions that don’t make sense. How can a chemically derived extract be deemed safe in processed food and a plant from mother nature not?

What Kind Of  Stevia To Avoid

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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Jason’s Deli: What’s Healthy & What’s Not

...by Food Babe

Jason’s Deli is one of the places my family loves to eat. When I would come home from college to visit, we would go there all the time. We’d have sandwiches, soup, salad, those little free mini corn and gingerbread muffins and free ice cream at the end of every visit. The prices were economical which suited my Dad’s frugality and the location was super convenient. But as soon as I started figuring out what was in restaurant food, my trips to Jason’s Deli stopped. I didn’t really have a specific reason other than the fact that home prepared meals tasted better and made me feel great – much better than the days I would go out to eat.

JasonDeli

Jason’s Deli is a very popular choice for a lot of people out there, not just my family, so I thought it would be crucial to investigate their food. Besides, many of you have asked for this specific investigation on facebook for quite some time now… so with no further delay, here’s what I found out.
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