Processed meats – avoid them like the plague if you value your health. Even mainstream medicine is beginning to agree with that one. Almost all processed meats these days probably contain probably more chemicals and other junk than actual real food! These include ham, bacon, hotdogs, sausages, jerky, sandwich meats, salami, and pickled meats such as pickled pork and corned silverside. Pretty much all the cold meats that are found in the deli.

Almost all of these meat products these days contain Sodium Nitrite – a particularly harmful food additive added for flavour, colour and as a preservative. The Sodium Nitrite when combined with the amino acids in the meat create nitrosamines which are highly carcinogenic (cause cancer). The main reason that Sodium Nitrite is used is apparently to keep the pinkish colour in the meat and because it’s very, very cheap!

There are other ways to cure meat – plain old salt used to be used along with herbs and spices. There are other additives that can be used to keep colour also that are healthier choices, but they are no doubt a bit more expensive!

It’s a subject that is coming more into the mainstream, as research is in fact proving the very strong link between regular consumption of these meats with a massive increased risk of bowel cancer and pancreatic cancer in particular. A few companies are producing nitrite free products but they’re not easy to find and they’re definitely more expensive. The answer really is to just avoid these products. Just stop buying them – you won’t die from a bacon deficiency but you will die from pancreatic cancer!

If more people stop buying these products, then the companies that make them will have to look at changing their practices. Some are doing so now from what I’ve read, and my guess is that we’ll see more and more nitrite free products on the shelves as more and more research is announced in the media – my hope is that they actually do use healthier options and don’t just swap one cheap nasty chemical for another in an effort to con the consumer.

Even without the nitrites, most of the cheaper meats are still not worth even putting in your body. Those pressed ham and chicken products for instance – who knows what’s in them, it’s usually not much meat! Please, now that you’re aware, don’t buy them and put them in your kids sandwiches! The meat that is in them I’d say would be of questionably quality and from what I’ve seen on ingredient lists they also contain a whole lot of sugars, starches, MSG and other additives. I think they’re a pretty disgusting product that shouldn’t be allowed to be sold for human consumption.

My suggestion – Roast a free range chook or a leg of lamb and slice it up for sandwiches if that’s what you’re after. Eat fresh grassfed meat and avoid the processed stuff – it’s not only better for you, it tastes heaps better too!

What do you look for when you buy packaged foods? I’m guessing a lot of you don’t look at anything. You probably just buy it right? The ad’s say it’s healthy, full of calcium or protein or whatever. Many others look at the nutritional label – how much fat? how much sugar? how much salt? how many calories? We’ve been trained to look at the nutritional labels by who? The media? The advertisers? The occasional nutritionist being paid by the advertisers perhaps?

Would it surprise you if I told you that looking at the nutritional label and buying depending on fat or salt or sugar content won’t help to keep you healthier? It’s true and it makes no difference whether you have high cholesterol, whether you’re diabetic or whatever – you can’t judge any food product based on that nutritional panel. Your health depends more on the type of fat, the type of salt, the type of sugar as well as  how many chemical additives are in the food in question. This all creates the effect any given food will have in and on your body.

So, what do I look for? I know, confusion sets in, but it’s pretty much commonsense really.  Look at the ingredients! For many, many years, I’ve looked at and studied the ingredients in any processed foods that I buy (it’s been a standing joke in my family for many years about how long it takes me to shop – and now my son’s the same!). When I look at an ingredient list, if I couldn’t make it in my kitchen and if I don’t know what an ingredient is, then generally I don’t buy it.

There are little books available, and even on the internet you can find information on food additives – all those numbers and things. What they are and whether they’re even remotely safe to put into our bodies. The trouble these day is that most processed foods contain ingredients that aren’t safe to put into our bodies. Chemicals that will undermine your health and the health of your family and that’s a fact!

When it comes to food, fresh is always best. No doubt about it, but we do buy processed foods. It’s hard to avoid them these days. However there are generally some better choices than others and the ingredients are the key.

I myself don’t buy a lot of processed foods in comparison with most people. The ones that I do buy tho, tend to be the simplest and plainest versions. For instance I do buy tinned tomatoes. If you go to your supermarket and look at different brands or even different versions of the same brand you will find a few that contain only tomatoes, tomato juice and probably salt. Then you’ll find others that contain tomatoes, tomato juice, salt, and also maybe sugar, thickener, and/or preservative. I’d go for the one with less ingredients – after all I’m after the tomatoes. I could do without the added salt and if I find one without it I buy it and I definitely don’t want the other added stuff – it’s not food. It’s chemical additives – definitely not created by nature, and therefore have they no place in our food or our bodies!

Another example that I buy regularly is coconut cream. I buy organic where possible. If not possible, I buy a brand with only coconut and water usually. Other brands may contain emulsifiers, thickeners, preservatives and other additives.

I cringe when I see people buying flavoured rice crackers or potato chips. I don’t eat these often ( and shouldn’t at all probably), but when I do they are always plain. If you have a packet in the cupboard or next time you go to the shop, look at the ingredient list. How many of the ingredients would you use in your kitchen? How many of them do you actually know what they are? Not many. They contain MSG for one most of the time which is a nasty thing, added to give a salty flavour, but also added because it is proven to make us eat more! and it can cause many health problems. I’ll go into more detail in another post at a later date. The flavourings on these things are not food! They are a mixture of chemicals.

You see, all these added chemicals that you’re consuming are cumulative. Depending on your diet, each meal may contain a toxic cocktail of chemicals that are causing havoc in your body or your children’s bodies. This is something that is obviously not understood by most people I think and something I’m quite passionate about. I’m planning to go into a lot more detail with this including the brands of foods that are the worst for additives. I want to help people to realise what they’re eating and what these may be doing to their health. My hope is that if I can help people to realise what these food companies are doing – that they are taking you for a ride by taking your money and giving you garbage in return, we can make them create healthier foods and get rid of some of the nastiness from their products. It’s only through education and then people like us actually making choices instead of just buying, that we can hopefully force these companies to actually make real food that won’t cause cancer, heart disease and diabetes!

More to come…….