Top 7 Supermarket Foods to Avoid
Emma Sgourakis
Food Matters
In a recent article, seven experts in the fields of both food and the environment (scientists, doctors and farmers) were asked just one simple question: “What foods do you avoid?” Their responses had nothing to do with calories or nutrient-density, but all to do with their insider knowledge on how certain seemingly “healthy” foods that they closely work with are produced and packaged. The findings are scary.
If the farmer who grows the food won’t eat it himself, then I won’t touch it either.
Here’s a summary of the findings. You can add these seven to your ‘Foods to Avoid‘ list:
1. Canned Tomatoes
An endocrinologist and expert on the topic of the synthetic oestrogen bisphenol-A (BCA), linked to heart disease and infertility, won’t go near canned tomatoes. Tin cans are lined with a resin containing BCA which is especially a problem with canning tomatoes, as the acid in tomato breaks this down in dangerous amounts. This is a serious health concern for everyone who loves a Spag Bol, especially children. My advice: if you still want the convenience of stored, ready-to-cook tomatoes, opt for sauces and passata in glass bottles.
Report: BPA Found in 18 of 20 Most Popular Food Cans
2. Conventional Beef
For fat cows (and fat people) feed them grain, corn and soy. This is what farmers do to increase profits. The end product is meat that is nutritionally inferior. Cows were meant to eat grass. Studies show that grass-fed beef (compared to corn-fed) is higher in important vitamins, minerals and the heart-healthy, anti-inflammatory fats. Then there’s also the issue of all the antibiotics used on those inappropriately-fed, sick cows… My advice: Look for “grass-fed” or “pasture-fed” organic beef from strong healthy beasts.
3. Microwave Popcorn
Another poisonous packaging issue: Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) lines the bags of those popcorn bags, and the heat in the microwave leaches this straight onto your movie munchies. The UCLA links this compound to infertility. My advice: Corn kernels + butter + sea salt + plus a big pot (with a lid!) Simple.
4. Conventional Potatoes
More than any other vegetable, non-organic potatoes are heavily sprayed with herbicides, pesticides and fungicides throughout every stage of their growth, harvesting and storage. So much so that potato growers never eat the potatoes they sell and grow their own separate plots without all the chemicals. My advice: Organic or Bio-dynamic potatoes only.
5. Farmed Salmon
This is particularly scary considering that in Australia, the only fresh Salmon we have access to is farmed; all farmed, this includes “Atlantic” Salmon. These fish are crammed in pens and fed all manner of junk from soy and hydrolyzed chicken feathers and pellets. A scientific study on fish contamination showed high levels of DDT and PCB’s (carcinogens). So serious were the findings that the director for the Institute for Health warns that any more than one salmon meal every 5 months increases your cancer risk. Not to mention that fact that the levels of Omega 3 and Vitamin D are devoid in these poor factory-versions that their wild, up-stream-swimming ancestors contain. My advice: For fresh fish, choose small & wild varieties wherever available. For salmon in Australia, your only wild option is out of a tin. Look for brands like Paramount Wild Alaskan Salmon, or other brands form Norway and Canada are often wild too. Even still, eat these only occasionally.
Shocker: Are you eating new genetically modified salmon? You may not even know
6. Conventional Milk
Dairy cows today are fed growth hormones to maximize milk production. Not only does this make for a potentially breast/prostate/colon cancer milk shake, but it also leads to increased incidence of udder infection for the poor cow, leading to pus in the milk. My advice: if you do drink cows’ milk, make sure it states clearly on the label that it is produced without artificial hormones, and ideally choose organic whole milk from pasture-fed cows.
7. Conventional Apples
There’s no coincidence that farm workers have higher rates of many cancers. Of all common fruits, apples are the most heavily and frequently doused with pesticides. Pesticide reside on conventional fruits is also linked to Parkinson’s. To limit exposure, be wary of apples especially. My advice: Organic. Or at the very least, wash and peel.
I'm curious as to why you recommend avoiding low fat milk and cheese. This is because high fat contains more polychlorinated dioxins and furans. These inadvertently created chemicals come from the burning of plastics and paper; industrial and medical wastes, and have contaminated some herbicides like 2,4=D. Burning fossil fuels also creates dioxins. They are never purposely created, but inadvertently created and concentrates each step of the way in the food chain, with the greatest known source in fatty animals.
Whole fat dairy even if it's organic, receives dioxin from long grazing being downwind or downstream from a toxic source of emissions, like a medical waste or garbage incinerator.
Can we have the original source for this article? It is strange that it is missing. I can't find it on the net either. For all we know this article could have been engineered by the wild salmon industry. BTW, I don't doubt for a minute that it isn't true but I would like to know more about the original article that inspired this one.
Top 7 Supermarket Foods to Avoid
By Emma Sgourakis
Food Matters, March 3, 2011
Straight to the Source
For related articles and more information, please visit OCA's Health Issues page
JUST LOOK UP HER NAME. SHE IS A CERTIFIED NUTRITION COACH. THERE'S LOTS OF MATERIAL ON HER IF YOU DO A QUICK SEARCH.
Becca,
I am assumming that the recommendation for whole orgainic milk is comming from a growing movement within the nutrition community stemming from the Weston A Price Foundation spearheaded by Sally Fallon that people should consume raw, unpasturized, unhomoginized whole milk. They argue that animal products come with fat and that is how we should eat them. And that animal fats supply vitamins A and D needed for the assimilation of protein. Whereas consumption of lowfat milk, egg whites and lean meat cause deficiencies of fat soluble nutrients.
But really I think that if you have fat elsewhere in the diet that you will still absorb those nutrients and that lowfat dairy products may be useful for those trying to lose weight.
Thank you for the information about the dioxins in the milk. It was very imformative.
Personally, I don't consume any dairy.
It's hard to get enough vitamin D from dietary sources, so I take a D3 supplement of 3,000 IU's a day unless it is summertime and I've been out in the sun and then I skip it. In spite of what Sally Fallon claims it is not hard to absorb a D3 supplement. I eat a faw brazil nuts (for the fat and the selenium) when I take it; and in two months' time I went from 9 n/g d/l to 35 nano grams per deciliter (from crically low to optimal).
I was unaware about the canned tomatoes, they're one of the few canned items I buy (organic). But it makes sense, I already won't store tomato produts in tupperware beacause I was aware that the acids cause the chemicals in the plastic to leach out. So now what to do? I froze some fresh ones last year that I lightly boiled and removed the skins and diced, but I still stored them in freezer bags because glass frequently cracks in the freezer. I'd like to buy nothing but fresh organic, but canned are usually cheaper (and that's an issue for me). Anyone have nay good ideas?
I grow my own tomatoes and freeze them in plastic bags. When I need them, I run them under the hot tap to crack the skins so that I can peel them off, then I put them in my stews and soups.
I was curious about the tomato topic. Since I avoid HFCS or FCS, I make my own tomato ketchup. I buy tomato paste in the small cans and ONLY buy where it says "tomatoes". Sometimes some brands say more than just "tomatoes", and I don't buy them. My question is: If canned tomatoes have the issue of leaching the BCA, and since the acid from whole tomatoes is different than paste, will the BCA leach out into processed tomatoes like the paste?
You can get the paste in tubes (near anchovie paste)
It makes me cringe that product we pay a premium for because it has been organically raised or grown ends up being packaged in plastics or other stuff from which toxins leach into the food thereby negating the term "organic", or at least negating the reason we buy the organic product in the first place which is to avoid toxic chemicals. e.g. organic peanut butter in plastic jars, organic milk in plastic bags, tin linings that contain toxic chemicals, etc. etc. Why can't we go back to glass, and recycle it?
Whether or not one beleives the word of the Bible, which I do, I beleive as well that it is best to lean on the side of caution than to go solely on blind faith. Education on all the things we ingest is far more use of God's Intelligence than repetition of verse in trying to outweigh the good works we do. We should be praying and doing all the same not against oneanother.
Thank YOU for providing this information and article about our food.
On the other hand…Very much agree with Joanne's comment. Sorry to offend the poster, Pip, although I thought the subject was about food and the types of healthy foods we need to purchase…NOT religion. I, too, believe in the Bible and respect your right of free speech and of religion, but it is unrelated to the topic and consumed too much space for comments ABOUT the subject. Peace…Do not be pushy about preaching, out of the blue.
Pip,
I too am a believer however, people do not listen when they are beat upon by the word.
Remember too please that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we are to take the best care of it that we know how. Being ignorant of the facts is being neglectful of our duty to take care and share.
Anyway, there is a time to speak and a time to listen. Bless you!
I can my own tomatoes. I cold pack them whole or quartered and then pressure can in a pressure canner. Hopefully…it's healthier!
It seems everyday more and more items appear on the "Do not eat" list. At least my family has left the meat food chain, and not buy farm direct. It took awhile to figure out how to do that since we don't know any farmers, then we found home grown cow, found a farmer we liked and eat better for less. Anyone know a potato farmer?
Well you had me about the food and the GMO crap. But when you started on the 9/11 stuff I tuned you out.
Bt toxin makes crops toxic to pests, but it has been claimed that the toxin poses no danger to the environment and human health; the argument was that the protein breaks down in the human gut. But the presence of the toxin in human blood shows that this does not happen. here is the info…
Cry1Ab, a specific type of Bt toxin from genetically modified (GM) crops, has for the first time been detected in human and fetal blood samples. It appears the toxin is quite prevalent, as upon testing 69 pregnant and non-pregnant women who were eating a typical Canadian diet (which included foods such as GM soy, corn and potatoes), researchers found Bt toxin in:
* 93 percent of maternal blood samples
* 80 percent of fetal blood samples
* 69 percent of non-pregnant women blood samples
Writing in the journal Reproductive Toxicology, the researchers noted:
"This is the first study to reveal the presence of circulating PAGMF [pesticides associated with genetically modified foods] in women with and without pregnancy, paving the way for a new field in reproductive toxicology including nutrition and utero-placental toxicities."
you need to do some serious research and not be afraid of the truth.911 was not the first time the government was involved in false flag events
Ok, but do you have to yell?
HOW DID ALL THIS TURN INTO A FRIGGIN BIBLE CLASS? JEEZ………………………………
I purchase all my food from a local health food store. (not Whole Foods) In the store there is a list of additives they do not allow in their foods, No Hormones, No HFC, No Antibiotics. Notably absent was No GMO's. I asked the manager why the signs did not state No GMO’s and he stated they could not keep GMO's out and that even Organic contained GMO’s. What I have read and researched stated Organic does not contain GMO’s. Is this true or not? I know USDA and FDA are corrupt but are the Organic farmers corrupt also?
When the wind blows, pollen from GMO crops growing upwind of an organic crop can blow on an organic crop and contaminate it. There can also be contamination from shipping in railroad cars, or even in a warehouse. The wind contamination is so prevalent that Monsanto has constantly been suing farmers who were unlucky enough to be downwind of their crops for patent infringement. Since Monsanto's GMO seeds are patented, they claim the farmers whose seeds were contaminated owe Monsanto money. Obscene but true.
I don't think so. I buy directly from the farmers as a produce manager for a health food store….wind, water, bees…they can all track poisons and pesticides without the farmer knowing…or the customer. That's why we must stop it altogether…
NUTJOB!
Most of those foods I don't eat except for the canned tomatoes and apples. I love making paleo chili and I make it using canned tomato sauce and sundried tomatoes. Very disappointing.
Can we also refuse any extraneous packaging ? Can we ask that we go to a system of buying from a green grocer , a baker, a fishmonger ,a butcher , a cheese shop and not super stores. No offense to the owners of the following but instead of all the cupcake , fried chicken, donut, ice cream and burger stores cropping up, its time for health and that we see our food as medicine and our medicine as food ( Hippocrates)