FEEDING YOU LIES
I have been following @thefoodbabe for a while now & when I saw her second book was coming out I knew I had to read it. I am going to recap some of the takeaways and things I learned but honestly get on Amazon and buy this right now. If you’re one of those people who things organic food is a scam please read this book. You will learn some very unfortunate shocking truths.
1. Companies (like Coke, General Mills, etc…) pay an exorbitant amount of $$ to have people come out as “experts” to state their products aren’t bad for you. In this book Vani details very explicitly how they do this and how dishonest they are with swaying science & just outright lying or covering up actual science regarding food.
2. The FDA doesn’t regulate what goes into your food. Companies get to decide what is “safe” for us to eat. What this really means is that they deem things “safe” that allow them to make the most money while they poison us with chemicals and fake food.
3. These same companies also troll health advocates (like @thefoodbabe) even going as far as emailing death threats and stalking them in their homes just because they are trying to expose the truth about our food in America.
4. American food is crap. Ingredients used in our food are banned in other countries or they have to come with a warning label on the product. This goes for junk food too. Example- even a Mountain Dew in Europe is better than a Mountain Dew here. (Not that Mountain Dew is good at all ha)
5. Fake sweeteners are linked to cancer and weight gain—I’m looking at you diet soda drinkers. Aspartame is in this category.
6. When you buy something “low fat” or “fat free” this just means other additives that are horrible for you have been put back into the product to make it taste/feel better due to taking out the fat. Just eat full fat foods- they are better for you. Same goes for “gluten free”. Most of these products have digestive disruptors in it to make up for the lack of gluten so they aren’t doing you any good unless you’re the 1% of people who absolutely cannot have gluten at all.
7. The sugar industry has donated $ to organizations like the American Heart Association and American Diabetes Association so they will approve sugar as part of a healthy diet. So the organizations that are supposed to be advocating for healthier living are being paid directly by companies who are giving you health problems.
8. Read ingredient labels. A “healthy” Clif bar has the same amount of sugar as 2 Reese’s PB cups. Don’t let marketing gimmicks fool you. Companies can put whatever they want on the front to trick you. Don’t fall for it!
9. Foods can be labeled as trans fat free and still have trans fats in them disguised under a different name.
10. Natural Flavors can be made up of upward of 100 different chemicals including propylene, glycol, polysorbates and can also be castoreum (which comes from a beaver’s anal gland) -yummy.
11. Cereals are heavily marketed towards kids so their parents will buy it. Most cereals are highly processed with tons of questionable ingredients like BHT, artificial colors, cellulose and GMO ingredients.
12. Food makers pack products with vitamins, minerals, herbs and other nutrients to try to make them appear healthier than they really are. Adding a few good things doesn’t negate all of the other crap in them.
13. Nutrition Facts labels can have a 20% margin of error so you really can be getting more or less of a daily recommended amount of something.
14. Glysophate is a hormone disruptor that gets rid of good enzymes in your body that are supposed to help you eliminate toxins. It can also fuel estrogen dependent breast cancer and it messed up your gut microbiome. It is the ingredient in Round Up that is sprayed on all of our foods coming from non-organic farms and wreaking havoc on our bodies. It’s in the atmosphere and virtually unavoidable now. Eating organic foods is one way to try to limit exposure to it.
15. The World Health Organization deemed glysophate a probable human carcinogen… and then they were attacked by the agrochemical industry who sells it.
16. Chemicals sprayed on non-organic foods can make you tired, destroy your gut, impact your skin, cause mood issues and put you at risk for cancer.
17. In general the consumption and overload of pesticides can lead to cancer, alzheimers, parkinsons, obesity, food allergies, infertility and harm to babies in the womb.
18. Growth promoting antibiotics given to non-organic meat sources can put you at risk of developing a resistance to antibiotic infections.
19. If you can’t afford all organic then at least buy the Dirty Dozen organic and buy the Clean Fifteen conventional.
20. Marketing terms like “diet”, “light”, “free”, “natural” and “healthy” typically mean a product is not good and the company is just trying to trick you.
Whew! That was a lot! I honestly didn’t even scratch the surface of all of this either. For real- read this book and let me know what you think! This is something I have become so incredibly passionate about. I don’t want to be fed all of this horrible food.