To follow is a post I read from Dr. Mercola regarding the coveted golden arches "McDonalds", like I needed to tell you what golden arches meant. I have to say that prior to starting my own journey and goal to get healthy and learning so much about nutrition and nutritional supplementation, my entire family was like most of us out there, addicted to fast food and processed foods. It was controlling my food choices on a daily basis. I couldn't drive past the fast food restaurants without cravings for some or all of them. I couldn't keep the chips and crap out of my shopping cart.
I thought to myself:
- What is going on?
- Why do I buy McDonald's and hide in the garage in the car to eat it, then hide the bag in the garage garbage can, when I know how unhealthy it is?
- Why am I doing this? I was trying so hard not to eat it and to teach my kids not to eat it but couldn't control my own cravings.
- How can I help my family if I can't help myself?
- What is it going to take to get my health and my families health turned around?
- How can I be the example that I and my family so desperately needed?
Health on downward spiral!
The sad part is that my health and my husbands health was on a downward spiral, yet I had no self control. Until, I was introduced to Usana Health Sciences and learned about cellular nutrition, insulin resistance and how the daily roller coaster of my insulin was fueling the cravings. It wasn't in my head, this was real and it's real for you too. We started with nutritional supplements then after a year or so we decided to give this RESET a try. We completed the RESET program which was a life saver for my entire family. The cravings really did go away and we learned how to eat a healthy low glycemic diet which keeps your insulin balanced. RESET cleansed our bodies, the cellular nutritional supplements help keep our bodies insulin balanced and our cells have the nutrition they need. Our health has had such a dramatic improvement. Now, that doesn't mean we don't ever eat a sandwich or order a pizza from time to time. We don't crave these foods anymore and we have learned, when we are out or at a party, traveling or not able to choose what is being served, techniques for each of these situations. Techniques we will teach you.
We have a problem, Houston.
I am happy to say that both my husband and I have a problem, and it's actually a good problem to have. Perhaps you are familiar with a flexible spending plan. It's a before tax deduction taken from your paycheck and deposited into an account to be used toward qualified medical expenses. This helps to reduce your taxes based on your gross income. Well, we used it regularly for prescription medications, that by the way were increasing yearly. You know, the blood pressure medication, cholesterol medication, acid reflux medication and a few others. Not only where the medications increasing so was our waistlines. I am sure you get the picture. It has now been over a year since the RESET took place and we have nothing to use the money on. Did you get that? No more prescriptions, no more high cholesterol, no more high blood pressure, no more acid reflux. What a wonderful problem to have, wouldn't you agree. We have lost the weight and have kept it off.
Of course, if you want change you have to decide to make things change. No more excuses, RESET makes it so simple to stop the cravings and enables your body to use your insulin correctly instead of storing it as fat. That is why there is a side effect of weight loss. Couple this with award winning nutritional supplements, moderate exercise and a low glycemic diet and you will regain control of your health. Watch my free online nutrition seminar at www.livewellintl.com/jackiebennett and learn about insulin resistance and what you can do about it. Take action by contacting me for a personal RESET challenge or enroll in one of my RESET events.
With this said, I wanted to share with you the following article by Dr. Mercola regarding fast and processed foods. Although, we all know it's bad for us we don't always know just how bad it really is.
The Chicken Which Should be Banned Posted By Dr. Mercola | November 08 2010
Do you put dimethylpolysiloxane, an anti-foaming agent made of silicone, in your chicken dishes?
How about tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a chemical preservative so deadly that just five grams can kill you?
These are just two of the ingredients in a McDonalds Chicken McNugget. Only 50 percent of a McNugget is actually chicken. The other 50 percent includes corn derivatives, sugars, leavening agents and completely synthetic ingredients.
Organic Authority helpfully transcribed the full ingredients list provided by McDonalds:
"White boneless chicken, water, food starch-modified, salt, seasoning (autolyzed yeast extract, salt, wheat starch, natural flavoring (botanical source), safflower oil, dextrose, citric acid, rosemary), sodium phosphates, seasoning (canola oil, mono- and diglycerides, extractives of rosemary).
Battered and breaded with: water, enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), yellow corn flour, food starch-modified, salt, leavening (baking soda, sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium aluminum phosphate, monocalcium phosphate, calcium lactate), spices, wheat starch, whey, corn starch.
Prepared in vegetable oil (Canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, hydrogenated soybean oil with TBHQ and citric acid added to preserve freshness). Dimethylpolysiloxane added as an antifoaming agent."
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Dr. Mercola's Comments:
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There's no doubt about it. Processed food like that from McDonald's is just not part of a healthful diet – in fact, much of it cannot even pass for real food.
After reviewing the above article I am very grateful I can say I have never had a Chicken McNugget from McDonald's. If you can't say the same at least you can commit to never having another one again.
This sentiment was echoed by Federal Judge Robert Sweet in a lawsuit against the restaurant chain back in 2003 when he said:
"Chicken McNuggets, rather than being merely chicken fried in a pan, are a McFrankenstein creation of various elements not utilized by the home cook."At the time, Time Magazine reported that Judge Sweet "questioned whether customers understood the risks of eating McDonald's chicken over regular chicken."
That was seven years ago, and I still wonder whether or not McDonald's customers truly understand the risks they take when consuming fast food on a regular basis.
If you missed Morgan Spurlock's documentary Super-Size Me, I highly recommend you watch it with your entire family. It's a real-life illustration of just how dangerous – life threatening, in fact – an excessive fast food diet can really be. And "excessive" consumption is likely far less than you imagine: Eating fast food just twice a week DOUBLES your risk of developing insulin resistance, compared to eating it just once a week, for example. Insulin resistance, as I've discussed on many occasions, is one of THE primary driving factors behind most of the diseases we currently struggle with, from diabetes to cancer and heart disease...
The truth is, McDonald's fare contain non-food ingredients that can seriously harm your health.
This shouldn't come as any great surprise. After all, how healthful can something be that shows no signs of decomposing after being left on a counter for more than a decade?
Clearly there's more chemicals in there than actual, real foodstuff.
Chicken McNuggets: "Made With White Meat"... and What Else?
According to McDonald's, their chicken nuggets are "made with white meat, wrapped up in a crisp tempura batter." But as the article above shows, these chicken nuggets are a far cry from what you might expect, based on that description.
About half of it is actual chicken. The rest is a mix of corn-derived fillers and additives (most likely genetically modified), along with a slew of synthetic chemicals, including:
The latter, TBHQ, is typically listed as an "antioxidant," but it's important to realize it is a SYNTHETIC chemical with antioxidant properties – NOT a natural antioxidant.
- Dimethyl polysiloxane, a type of silicone with anti-foaming properties used in cosmetics and a variety of other goods like Silly Putty
- Tertiary butylhydroquinone (TBHQ), a petroleum-based product with antioxidant properties
The chemical prevents oxidation of fats and oils, thereby extending shelf life of processed foods. It's a commonly used ingredient in processed foods of all kinds, but you can also find it in varnishes, lacquers, pesticide products, as well as cosmetics and perfumes to reduce the evaporation rate and improve stability.
At its 19th and 21st meetings, the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives determined that TBHQ was safe for human consumption at levels of 0-0.5 mg/kg of body weight. However, more recently, the Codex commission set the maximum allowable limits up to between 100 to as much as 400 mg/kg, depending on the food it's added to. (Chewing gum is permitted to contain the highest levels of TBHQ.)
That's quite a discrepancy in supposedly "safe" limits!
So, is the safe level zero, or 400 mg/kg? Who knows?!
According to A Consumer's Dictionary of Food Additives, one gram of TBHQ can cause:
Based on animal studies, health hazards associated with TBHQ include:
- Nausea
- Vomiting
- Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
- Delirium
- Sense of suffocation
- Collapse
The good news is that it is not suspected to be a persistent toxin, meaning your body is probably able to eliminate it so that it does not bioaccumulate.
- liver effects at very low doses
- positive mutation results from in vitro tests on mammalian cells
- biochemical changes at very low doses
- reproductive effects at high doses
REAL Food "Lives" and "Dies"
I recently commented on the curious ability of McDonald's food to remain impervious to degradation. It's as if the food has been embalmed to stay "fresh" forever! After sitting on a shelf for 14 years, the hamburger bun has yet to develop a single trace of mold. It's barely even begun to shrivel...
Folks, these buns bear absolutely no resemblance to real bread, and when you read the list of ingredients, this mysterious mummification feature becomes less of a mystery.
Here are just a few of the ingredients in a McDonald's hamburger bun:
Always remember that wholesome, health-promoting food is "live" food, and the hallmark of live food is the fact that it will decompose.
- calcium sulfate (aka Plaster of Paris)
- calcium carbonate (Antacid medication)
- ammonium sulfate (According to MSDS,“harmful if swallowed”)
- ammonium chloride (Causes irritation to the gastrointestinal tract. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting and diarrhea)
- calcium propionate (Preservative)
- sodium propionate (Mold inhibitor)
The fact that these burgers, buns, and fries do not decompose, even after a decade or two, is a clear sign that it's just not real food, and should not be part of your diet.
You Are What You Eat...
The bottom line is that if you want to stay healthy, and keep your children healthy, you have to avoid fast food and other processed foods, and invest some time in your kitchen, cooking from scratch. Reclaiming your kitchen is part and parcel of healthful living, so you know exactly what you're putting in your body.
Ideally, you'll want to consume as much whole, raw, organic and/or locally grown foods as possible. That's one of the major reasons why vegetable juicing works so well – you're consuming living raw food!
Most vegetables also have very low carbohydrate levels that minimally disturb insulin metabolism – another important trait of a healthful diet -- but there is something very special about vegetable juicing and eating live raw foods in general.
In addition, I believe optimal health is also largely dependent on eating the right foods for your nutritional type. I think this is such an important part of an optimal diet that I am now offering the entire Nutritional Typing program to you for free.
If you're "hooked" on fast food and other processed foods, please review my recent article How to Wean Yourself Off Processed Foods in 7 Steps. If you're currently sustaining yourself on fast food and processed foods, this is probably the most positive life change you could ever make.
And if you have children, remember that feeding your children home cooked meals can have far reaching benefits, extending even to your future grandchildren. Yes, that's right! It is now well known that dietary changes can prompt epigenetic DNA changes that can be passed on to future generations. For instance, pregnant rats fed a fatty diet had daughters and granddaughters with a greater risk of breast cancer.
Making wise food decisions can literally "override" genetic predispositions for disease.
If you need help determining what foods are actually healthful and which are not, please review the shopping guidelines listed at the end of this recent article.
I sure hope you are ready to make a change in your life and your families. I look forward to getting you started today.
God Bless,
Jackie Bennett
Live Well Certified Coach
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