Decoding Labels: KOYO Asian Vegetable Ramen

Photo Credit:http://www.theramenrater.com

'Okay, so it’s time to admit it. For a long period of college, I subsisted almost entirely on ramen and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Ramen is cheap, filling, and versatile. You can add meat to it, add frozen veggies to it, dress it up or down. It’s also super tasty and addictive.

But after my Real Food conversion, ramen could no longer be my go-to choice for a quick lunch. It was packed with MSG, artificial colors and flavors, deep fried noodles, you name it. It’s been years since I’ve eaten it. 

And then, a reader emailed me asking about a “natural” ramen she’d found at her supermarket that’s made with organic noodles. It’s called KOYO Asian Vegetable Ramen.'

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For Most Foods, The Faster It Spoils, The Healthier It Is - The Toxic Preservation of Food Is Killing Us

The food industry has created an era of convenience for consumers through packaged, preserved, emulsified, pasteurized, sterilized, irradiated and chemically altered foods. It's not an exact science, but generally speaking the faster a food spoils, the higher the nutrient density it contains. Living foods will perish within days to weeks while processed foods can last months or even years due to the removal of all microorganisms, enzymes, oxygen, and moisture in food.

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Why High Salt Consumption Alone Will Not Increase Your Heart Disease Risk

  

Photo Credit: www.nlm.nih.gov

You Need Salt, But Make Sure It’s the Right Kind

Salt provides two elements – sodium and chloride – that are essential for life. Your body cannot make these elements on its own, so you must get them from your diet. Some of the many biological processes for which natural salt is crucial include:'

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Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods To Autoimmune Disease

'The modern diet of processed foods, takeaways and microwave meals could be to blame for a sharp increase in autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, including alopecia, asthma and eczema.

A team of scientists from Yale University in the U.S and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, in Germany, say junk food diets could be partly to blame.

'This study is the first to indicate that excess refined and processed salt may be one of the environmental factors driving the increased incidence of autoimmune diseases,' they said.

Junk foods at fast food restaurants as well as processed foods at grocery retailers represent the largest sources of sodium intake from refined salts.' 

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Raw milk is Under Siege!

Raw Milk Benefits – #1 in the Raw Milk Series

'Do you wonder if raw milk is safe? Is real, fresh milk more nutritious? Ask yourself this question: do you agree that anything in its natural and unprocessed form, the way God designed it, is always better for us as opposed to super-heated, processed foods? Do you agree that the fewer the steps between where your food originated and your table, the better for you it is? Keep those questions in mind as you continue reading…

I split up the information so it wasn’t too long and overwhelming.'




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Make Your Own Energy Bars!

Photo Credit: http://runhardeatclean.blogspot.com/


'Just look at the back of the label of your favorite bar. Clif for example is pretty darn high in sugar. Yes, I have brown rice syrup in my cabinet, but how much would I myself put into a recipe? And, it's still sugar. And not the only one. Clif also contains barley malt extract AND Cane juice.. 3 types of sugar? At least the sugar in a Larabar for example is naturally occurring/unprocessed (dates, dried fruit). "Natural Flavors" (I'm sorry, WHAT? I hate seeing that on a label.. if it's 'natural' it doesn't need to be 'flavored.'

Citric Acid, Absorbic acid, Synthetic fiber (inulin), all things I want to avoid. And I'd love to get into my new war on soy protein isolate.. that will be a whole other post. Protein is a hard subject with athletes. It's been a huge issue for me. I like Rebecca Wood 's (amazing woman by the way!) take "All protein powders—whether they’re from rice, soy, hemp, egg or whey—are highly processed, shelf-stable ingredients. Read “shelf-stable” as dead or lifeless. Furthermore, whey protein and whey protein isolate contain toxic MSG!" It's a difficult thing to give up. There is a lot of information out there. A lot of research to be done. My jury is still out. Your take?


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How To Wean Yourself Off Processed Foods in 7 Steps

By Dr. Mercola

'If you have ever seen or heard my lecture live you will know I typically say that someone has to spend quality time in the kitchen to prepare high-quality meals for your health.



If you rely on processed inexpensive foods you will simply exchange convenience and short-term cash savings for long-term health miseries.

Swapping your processed food diet for one that focuses on real, whole foods may seem like a radical idea, but it’s a necessity if you value your health.

And when you put the history of food into perspective, it’s actually the processed foods that are “radical” and “new.” People have thrived on vegetables, meats, eggs, fruits and other whole foods for centuries, while processed foods were only recently invented.

It’s easy to forget that the processed, packaged foods and fast food restaurants of today are actually a radical change in terms of the history of food production. The frozen food business didn’t begin until the mid-1920s when the General Seafoods Company set up shop and began selling crudely frozen fish fillets, and fast food restaurants didn’t get a foot hold until after World War II.

TV dinners didn’t even come around until the 1950s … before that it was a home-cooked meal or no meal at all.'

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