I used to be able to navigate a grocery store in short order. Now, it is put the glasses on and read the labels or make sure you buy the same brands all the time.
It is that time of year when I traditionally make honey cakes. Although, it isn't a dieter's delight, it is a ritual I do for Rosh Hashana with my famous honey cake. You can't imagine how surprised I was to read the bad news about honey. Apparently it isn't always natural. That is, unless like me, you buy Billy Bee or Bee Maid honey, made in Canada where the only ingredient is honey. But apparently not in the US. I have often found the same thing there when buying peanut butter. They have all gone through various levels of processing and it is hard to know how much just from looking at the labels. According to research done by Food Safety News, most store-bought honey isn't technically honey at all, because virtually all of the natural pollen has been filtered out. Their suggestion is to head to a farmer's market, where you can buy it raw from the local beekeepers. For me, I am cool with the Canadian manufacturers where the bottle reads "all natural honey" and it is the only ingredient.
Now, how many fitness instructors, gyms, weight loss coaches and generally those that profess healthy diets, promote you to eat granola bars? I am not that much of a purist to have never eaten them but they are very heavy on the calorie side and I am not sure what the benefit is over eating a beautiful 70% dark chocolate bar. If you really want a granola bar, make it yourself. The rest are garbage... even if they sell it in a health food store. While many granola bar brands have removed high-fructose corn syrup from their products in response to consumer concern, a laundry list of other less-than-natural ingredients remain, including processed sweeteners such as corn syrup, fructose, and invert sugar, and the vague "natural flavours" ... an umbrella term for flavours derived from natural sources, but which are often processed in a lab like artificial flavours. There there is cellulose, and ingredient made from nontoxic wood pulp or cotton that is added to up the fibre content. Nah, forget the granola bars... and stick to a handful or almonds or a banana.
Now onto non-dairy and soy cheeses. These aren't things I eat but I have friends that are either lactose intolerant or kosher, or both. But "natural" cheese substitutes often contain added colours and flavours to make them more like cheese. One of the common ingredients is Carrageenan, a processed carbohydrate that may upset some people's stomachs. Additionally, soy is one of the most commonly genetically modified crops around, roughly 94% of the soy grown in the U.S. is genetically modified. So if you're wary of frankenfoods, make sure you are buying organic. If you want to read more on genetically modified foods and why they are suspect, read Foods as Nature Made Them.
And lastly for today, how about the flavoured waters and sports drinks that people are touting as a healthy way to top off your workout? This week at Weight Watchers, it was quoted that 20% of daily calorie intake on an average comes from beverages. A bottled beverage "naturally sweetened" has some barely pronounceable ingredients like erythretrol and crystalline fructose. Take a glass of water instead and squeeze a natural lemon or lime into it.
So I am still eating Canadian honey, but not granola bars, non-dairy or soy cheeses or flavoured sports drinks. There is a lot of good stuff out there if you purchase from the perimeter of the grocery store.
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