Fooducate

In this world of technology overload, I have found a positive to my smart phone that is quite helpful. FOODUCATE is a fabulous app for all our wellness patients and website followers to use. Here is a little information about this app and how/why to get started using it. It not only grades nutritional content of the items at the grocery store, it allows you to scan the barcode and get the information right on your phone. Then you can search for alternative, healthier options based on their suggestions. It’s ingenious! Why didn’t I think of this first?

http://www.fooducate.com/

Get the Fooducate mobile application and use it to:

Automatically scan a product barcode
See product highlights (both good & bad)
Compare products
Select better alternatives
Dig deeper and learn more about food and nutrition

Features:

Created by dietitians and concerned parents
Uses your mobile’s camera to effortlessly scan UPC barcode
Over 200,000 unique products and growing daily
Simplified information helps you make better choices
Works on iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android OS version 2.2 and up

This is what is nice about this app

You get to see the stuff manufacturers don’t want you to notice, such as

excessive sugar
tricky trans fats
additives and preservatives
high fructose corn syrup
controversial food colorings
confusing serving sizes
and more…

Read the labels or let fooducate do it for you. And remember, eat your veggies people. Eat your veggies!

Posted on September 11, 2012 by Angela in Body, Diet, Nutrition, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food 2 Comments

The Reality of the Intrusion of Red Dye #40

Ok–hold on because it’s going to be a bumpy ride!

The following foods contain the infamous Red Dye #40:

Cereals—Kix, Lucky Charms, Reece’s, Trix, Fruit Loops, Fruity Pebbles, and Captain Crunchberries

Yogurts–Dannon, Yoplait, Breyer’s, Colombo, and Trix

Juices and drinks– V8, Hi-C, Minute Maid, Gatorade, Sunkist, Hawaiian Punch, Koolaid, Crystal Light, Pepsi, Ocean Spray , and Lipton iced tea

Sauces and dressings— bullion cubes, BBQ sauce, Catalina dressing

Snacks—Nutragrain bars, Poptarts, Jello pudding, Little Debbie products, granola bars

Cakes and doughs—Pillsbury/Duncan Hines cresent rolls, frosting, pie crusts, cake mix, quick breads

Candy— Brach’s, fruit snacks,Jolly ranchers, Twizzlers, M&M’s, Starburst, Skittles, Lifesavers, Altoids, Smarties, Trident, Tootsie Rolls

ETC ETC ETC—This list is incomplete! Please visit http://www.red40.com/ for the complete details.

Remember: This small dye changed Susan’s life for the worst ( see post When I let go..) and eliminating it changed her life back for the better. Do you believe in miracles?–I do now!

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Angela in Diet, disease, Green Living, Nutrition, Organic, vegan, Weight Loss, Whole Food Leave a comment

I’m a plastic girl living in a plastic world!

“Margarine was originally manufactured to fatten turkeys. When it killed the turkeys, the people who had put all the money into the research wanted a payback so they put their heads together to figure out what to do with this product to get their money back. It was a white substance with no food appeal so they added the yellow coloring and sold it to people to use in place of butter. How do you like it? They have come out with some clever new flavorings….

DO YOU KNOW.. The difference between margarine and butter? Read on to the end…gets very interesting!

Both have the same amount of calories.
Butter is slightly higher in saturated fats at 8 grams; compared to5 grams for margarine.
Eating margarine can increase heart disease in women by 53% over eating the same amount of butter, according to a recent Harvard Medical Study.
Eating butter increases the absorption of many other nutrients in other foods.
Butter has many nutritional benefits where margarine has a few and only because they are added!
Butter tastes much better than margarine and it can enhance the flavors of other foods.
Butter has been around for centuries where margarine has been around for less than 100 years.

And here’s the most disturbing fact…Margarine is but ONE MOLECULE away from being PLASTIC… and shares 27 ingredients with PAINT.

These facts alone were enough to have me avoiding margarine for life and anything else that is hydrogenated (this means hydrogen is added, changing the molecular structure of the substance).

Open a tub of margarine and leave it open in your garage or shaded area. Within a couple of days you will notice a couple of things:

* no flies, not even those pesky fruit flies will go near it (that should tell you something)

* it does not rot or smell differently because it has no value ; nothing will grow on it. Even those teeny weeny micro-organisms will not a find a home to grow. Why? Because it is nearly plastic. Would you melt your Tupperware and spread that on your toast?”