LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!
“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth, only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself, no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are completely - the good and the bad, and make changes as YOU see fit, not because you think someone else wants you to.”- Stacey Charter
GMO INGREDIENTS TO LOOK OUT FOR
Yes, its a long list and will be hard to memorize, but on your future shopping trips, just make sure to pay attention to the labels of all foods and products. Unfamiliar ingredients usually equals chemicals, so keep it simple and organic! Many people use an excuse for not buying organic because its "too expensive", but it only costs $2-$5 more at most stores and is always worth it!
GMO INGREDIENTS TO LOOK OUT FOR:
- Aspartame (aka AminoSweet, NutraSweet, Equal Spoonful, Canderel, BeneVia, E951)
- Baking powder
- Canola oil (grapeseed oil)
- Caramel color
- Cellulose
- Citric acid
- Colorose
- Condensed milk
- Confectioners sugar
- Corn flour
- Corn masa
- Corn meal
- Corn oil
- Corn sugar
- Corn syrup
- Cornstarch
- Cottonseed oil
- Cyclodextrin
- Cystein
- Dextrin
- Dextrose
- Diacetyl
- Diglyceride
- Erythritol
- Equal
- Food starch
- Fructose (any form)
- Glucose
- Glutamate
- Glutamic acid
- Glycerides
- Glycerin
- Glycerol
- Glycerol monooleate
- Glycine
- Hemicellulose
- High fructose corn syrup (HFCS)
- Hydrogenated starch
- Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
- Inositol
- Inverse syrup
- Inversol
- Invert sugar
- Isoflavones
- Lactic acid
- Lecithin
- Leucine
- Lysine
- Malitol
- Malt
- Malt syrup
- Malt extract
- Maltodextrin
- Maltose
- Mannitol
- Methylcellulose
- Milk powder
- Milo starch
- Modified food starch
- Modified starch
- Mono and diglycerides
- Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
- Oleic acid
- Phenylalanine
- Phytic acid
- Protein isolate
- Shoyu
- Sorbitol
- Soy flour
- Soy isolates
- Soy lecithin
- Soy milk (non-organic)
- Soy oil
- Soy protein (non-organic)
- Soy protein isolate
- Soy sauce (non-organic)
- Starch
- Stearic acid
- Sugar (unless specified as cane sugar)
- Tamari
- Tempeh (non-organic)
- Teriyaki marinades
- Textured vegetable protein
- Threonine
- Tocopherols (vitamin E)
- Tofu (non-organic)
- Trehalose
- Triglyceride
- Vegetable fat
- Vegetable oil
- Whey
- Whey powder
- Xanthan gum
More info on GMO's and how they affect the body:
http://healthhappinessandhottness.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmo-food-alters-our-digestive-systems.html
http://healthhappinessandhottness.blogspot.com/2011/08/whole-foods-isnt-doing-whole-lot-about.html
http://healthhappinessandhottness.blogspot.com/2011/07/gmo-food-alters-our-digestive-systems.html
http://healthhappinessandhottness.blogspot.com/2011/08/whole-foods-isnt-doing-whole-lot-about.html
FOODS THAT BOOST YOUR MOOD
Fish, flaxseed, beans and walnuts produce a fair amount of serotonin, and those foods a much better choice than simple carbs because the foods rich in omega-3s as well can even decrease depression. Many claim that it is the specific foods that you consume over the holidays and at special events that cause drowsiness, but too much of anything can do that! Think about how much you eat while with relatives, and how badly you want to take a nap after a big meal. All of those carbs and protein is to blame, so don't have such generous portions, keep it light. Veggies give you the right amount of energy, while animal products, especially from those that are not from local farming can make you feel stressed. This is because the animals were basically tortured before slaughter, and that negative energy transfers to the low-quality meat that you're eating! This may seem hard to believe, but its true!
Darker greens such as broccoli, kale and lettuce bring more oxygen to the bloodstream because they grow under direct sunlight and contain the most chlorophyll. Ground vegetables such as potatoes and squash bring more balance to your mood, and root veggies like beets and carrots absorb the nutrients in the soil and can make you feel more grounded and calm. I absolutely love spinach, and I'm glad that its one of my favorites, because it truly is a fantastic superfood. Spinach is full of antioxidants, which protect the membranes in brain cells from free-radicals which are a negative influence on both the mind and body. The folic acid and B Vitamins can also aid in reducing depression and fatigue, which explains why Popeye was such a tough guy!
Haven't you noticed how the energy that you get from simple carbs is so short-lived? This is yet, another reason to load up on veggies and fruit to be your absolute best from the inside out! Berries such as blueberries are the ultimate superfruit full of antioxidants that bring positive energy by maintaining your brain's neural pathways and actually recharges your genes to produce more positive enzymes in the brain. Plus, they're delicious! Besides berries, cherries are also full of antioxidants and also contain melatonin, which can aid in improving sleep, something that we all need! The Vitamin C in oranges pumps more oxygen throughout your body to enable your brain to "recharge" your system, which is why it makes perfect "pick-me-up" snack at any time of day!
Remember to never skip breakfast either, it is the most important meal of the day, after all! Starting your day with fiber, good fats and whole grains brings energy, better memory, and a calmer state of mind. Obviously skipping meals makes you feel like crap, and when you skip breakfast, your fatigue and anxiety is at its absolute worst. Eat your happiness, darlings!
TIPS TO STAY POSITIVE
Whenever you're feeling down and it seems like nothing is going right, remind yourself that there's always someone who has it worse than you do. Stop complaining and be grateful to have a roof over your head, food on your plate, and loving friends and family. There are plenty of people out there who don't have any of those things, so stay positive!
Here is a great post from http://pathofawesomeness.blogspot.com:
15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situation
Here is a great post from http://pathofawesomeness.blogspot.com:
15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situation
1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.
2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
5. Look at the content of what people say to you for somethingpositive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignoreit.
7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.
9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.
10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.
12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation.
14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.
THE ADA IS NOT CUTE!
Pesticides Are Good for You
Big Food's Co-optation of Nutrition Professionals
The top-paying sponsors, whom ADA called "partners," were Coca-Cola, Aramark, the National Dairy Council, and Hershey (their "Center for Health and Nutrition" - really). "Premier sponsors" included PepsiCo, Mars, and General Mills.
The exhibit hall seemed more like a processed food trade show than a nutrition conference. I saw very few booths with actual information, apart from that being peddled by the likes of Nestle, Kraft, and McDonald's, along with (of course), ubiquitous product samples, tastings, and myriad swag. (Oddly, Monsanto's booth featured its branded, soy-based lip balm.)
But the worst cooptation came during the "educational sessions," which should have been off limits to marketing. Numerous panels were hosted by industry players, including, "Dairy Innovations," brought to you by (surprise!) the National Dairy Council, which also hosted a media-only session, as did others.
"Culinary" demos were offered by cooking experts such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Hershey, and McNeil (maker of the fake sugar, Splenda). For attending several "Expo Impact Sessions," described by ADA as "scientific and evidenced-based," RDs could even earn continuing educational units. Who better to teach, "Are Sugars Toxic: What's Wrong with Current Research?" than the Corn Refiners Association? I attended a silly session called "Snacking and the 2010 Dietary Guidelines" brought to me by the largest snacking experts in the nation, Frito-Lay, who also had a huge booth touting their deceptively-labeled "natural" products, nearby the monstrous booth hosted by parent company PepsiCo.
But while all this was obvious industry spin, several sessions had backers harder to identify because of the stealth names, lack of transparency, and impressive backgrounds of the presenters. Enter the International Food and Information Council. Certainly sounds legit. But if anything sets off my BS detector it's the word "council." It's often used by corporate front groups to magically transform public relations into credible science.
A closer look reveals IFIC's true agenda. On its board of trustees sits representatives from PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, and General Mills, whilefunders include the likes of Coca-Cola, Hershey, McDonald's, Nestle, and Monsanto. (Funny how this list sounds remarkably similar to ADA's sponsors.)
IFIC's mission is "to effectively communicate science-based information about health, nutrition and food safety for the public good." Heartwarming. Under "Food Safety Resources" IFIC communicates about such sticky issues as arsenic in food and "The Science of Bisphenol A." For the public good of course.
What sort of science-based information was IFIC communicating to 7,000 nutrition professionals at the ADA meeting? The session, "A Fresh Look at Processed Foods" promised to "share new research on how processed foods contribute to key nutrition needs." Sounds a tad defensive.
Another panel asked, "How Risky is Our Food? Clarifying the Controversies of Chemical Risks." Who exactly is attempting to clarify the controversy? While the session was not listed in the program as being organized by IFIC, the moderator, Marianne Smith Edge, is the group's senior vice president of nutrition and food safety. At no time during her remarks did she disclose IFIC's corporate funding, although ADA rules require speakers to disclose any conflicts of interest. The two panelists were Julie Miller Jones and Carl Winter, both academic researchers, apparently hand-picked by IFIC for their industry-friendly positions. And indeed, each speaker downplayed any risks of chemicals in food such as pesticides, food dyes, and other additives, while practically making fun of organic production.
Jones lamented about organics being too expensive and offered tired arguments about how risks are everywhere, so really, why worry? She also claimed people automatically fear something because it is artificial. But Andy Bellatti, an RD in attendance told me he found this "rather insulting; she's trying to argue we have no capacity for rational thought. The concern with artificial ingredients is over studies showing harmful effects."
But the lowlight of the session came when Carl Winter launched into a lengthy attack on the Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen, an annual list of the 12 fruits and vegetables most contaminated with pesticides. Winter claimed the list wasn't backed by science, resorting to outright mockery at times. This was the same theme Winter struck in his "Expert Perspective" for IFIC this summer. His core argument is that EWG only considers pesticide residue and not actual exposure, which he argues, causes "negligible risks to consumers."
Now reasonable people can disagree on this point and I am no expert in pesticides, but most troubling was how the audience only got to hear one side of the story. Why wasn't anyone from EWG invited to participate to defend their scientific analysis?
During the Q&A, several frustrated attendees challenged the presenters--the only time the audience heard any opposing viewpoint. Several who spoke up are members of the Hunger and Environmental Nutrition Dietary Practice Group, which represents a growing number of RDs who are challenging ADA's corporate ties and making inroads, slowly but surely. (I recently became a "friend of HEN" to support this brave group of professionals challenging the status quo.)
I asked the moderator why IFIC had organized such a one-sided panel and complained that as a writer for Food Safety News, I was unable to cover the session in an intelligent way given the biased information. IFIC denied any such bias and defended its selection of presenters. Afterwards, an IFIC rep approached me to offer to put together a more balanced panel at next year's event. I am still waiting for the follow-up phone call.
But the corporate-funded, pro-pesticide spin didn't end there. A few of us took to Twitter during the session, which in turn inspired a hit piece onForbes.com called, "Cleaning up the EWG's Dirty Dozen," co-authored by Henry Miller and Jeff Stier. Both have ties to the American Council on Science and Health, (there's that "council" moniker again) a notorious industry front group that has attacked the likes of Marion Nestle. Miller is currently a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, right-wing / libertarian think tanks that favor deregulation, both heavily funded by corporate interests.
Here's how the Forbes article describes what happened at ADA, although neither author was actually in attendance:
Winter presented his report at the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo this week. The food police on hand were outraged with his findings, but the best they could muster were ad hominem attacks on Dr. Winter and IFIC, such as, "Google Carl Winter and industry front group IFIC and you will understand." In fact, EWG's Senior Communications and Policy Advisor, Don Carr took to Twitter to call IFIC "industry goons." So much for scientific debate.
OK, so the Google suggestion was mine and I've been called the food police before. But scientific debate? That was sorely lacking at the event itself, as Don Carr noted in his comment in response to the article:
EWG was not invited to the American Dietetic Association's Food and Nutrition Conference and Expo nor were we even alerted that our Shopper's Guide would be the topic of discussion at the event sponsored by an industry front group. We welcome any opportunity for an honest, open and transparent discussion about pesticides and our consumer guide - but that was not afforded to us.
Indeed how about a lively debate on whether chemicals in food are dangerous? That would have far more interesting and useful for the audience. But industry front groups are not interested in debating. IFIC only wants to present the spin that supports its funders' economic interests, which is entirely understandable. But how can the American Dietetic Association allow such powerful economic interests to completely control the message its members hear?
Between the junk-food dominated expo and the industry-friendly educational sessions, the American Dietetic Association conference is yet another disturbing example of Big Food's co-optation of the nation's health professionals.
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Photos by Michele Simon
Michele Simon is a public health lawyer specializing in industry marketing and lobbying tactics. She is the author of "Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back" and president of Eat Drink Politics, a consulting firm.
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