| Processed Foods |
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Read the ingredients of pre-packed, processed foods when you can. The list of some additives in foods isn’t necessarily bad as something needs to be added to preserve it and modify taste for enhanced sales. Be honest, if we all enjoyed true flavours we would stick to the natural whole foods.  Why eat banana flavoured ice-cream when there’s the banana fruit or the apple flavoured sweet/confectionary when there is the wide variety of apples. The sour tinged green skinned granny smith or the more sweet yellow speckled golden delicious to various red skinned apples. There even are the smaller red-greenish apples that have that tangy sweetness. The fact is that the apple flavour is not one type. Explore, select and taste the types available and you’re sure to discover and become aware of how dull that apple flavoured sweet can be. Five more reasons to chow on an apple instead of the apple sweet! The apple fruit is mostly moisture that brings in water to hydrate the body.  The apple fruit gives a boost to the immune system by fitting in antioxidants and helps prevent premature aging by those antioxidant deliveries! The leaner figure is aided by more fibre brought in and can satisfy hunger between meals while giving a natural simple sugar increase. Apples generally starve away illness by supplying health promoting minerals, vitamins and other phytonutrients. As we know nothing is a 100% perfect! Too many apples or an apple only diet is a strain by over-loading digestion and causing mal-nourishment by only supplying limited nutrients. Apples are great but not excessively, that’s for the apple fanatics! Pick organically grown over the others if available and possible, as the skin can be feeding in more pesticides. Overall the skin holds the most of applied pesticides and other sprays. What’s more is that a waxed apple skin isn’t praise-worthy for our health. Try to wash and scrub the skin if eaten and then chomp away! If you think that the apple juice is better than the whole fruit, then you need some more info. The juice is concentrated in sugar. Yes, preservative free fruit juices exist but they need something to preserve them. Sugar is that preservative. Dried fruit and fruit juice is fine but when you have blood sugar imbalance it’s best to desist from indulging in those. Have fruit juice diluted with extra water. Remember sugar feeds our brain! Yet too much suppresses the immune system. Pick a soup over a juice when unwell and in bed with the flu. Have a fruity moment, have a fruit. At the end of the day the common farmed apple still scores more than that apple flavoured processed food in our goals for a healthier lifestyle. Anastacia Sampson D.N. Med |