I am often asked to pro­vide a list of (click here->) the foods we eat and do not eat. Here is that list.

I am sure I have omit­ted some things but the major foods are there. It may seem extreme but it really isn’t. It is a lit­tle chal­leng­ing at times only because the bulk of mass pro­duced foods are not tai­lored to this lifestyle.Even so, it is quite easy to stick to once you under­stand the effects that cer­tain foods have on your health.

If you are inter­ested, do a lit­tle research. I did. It is no coin­ci­dence that this lifestyle is a com­mon choice amongst can­cer patients. It is easy to see why when you start tak­ing a close look at what is in the foods you are eating.

I recently read the results of a study that was con­ducted to deter­mine the pos­si­ble health effects of the com­mon every day food dye referred to as Red #40. Like so many of the count­less reports pro­duced to scare us into some type of mass pho­bia about the foods we eat, this one is no dif­fer­ent. This study, in which rats were fed a diet con­sist­ing of up to 10% Red 40 for two weeks, concluded

Red-40 sig­nif­i­cantly reduced repro­duc­tive suc­cess, parental and off­spring weight, brain weight, sur­vival, and female vagi­nal patency devel­op­ment. Behav­iorally, R40 pro­duced sub­stan­tially decreased run­ning wheel activ­ity, and slightly increased post­wean­ing open-field rear­ing activ­ity. Over­all, R40 pro­duced evi­dence of both phys­i­cal and behav­ioral tox­i­c­ity in devel­op­ing rats at doses of up to 10% of the diet.

Once again it seems we are fed infor­ma­tion from a half baked study from some fly by night orga­ni­za­tion called the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Med­i­cine, in an effort to scare us. We have been eat­ing this stuff for years. For that mat­ter I am sure many peo­ple con­sume more than the pre­scribed 10% noted in the study with rats. I have per­son­ally been con­sum­ing foods with things like red 40 since I was a kid and I am still breath­ing.  Big deal, so what if it is red. Besides I am not a rat!

That, was the old me talk­ing. The “me” that existed less than a decade ago. The one that often let reports about things like food dyes, go in one ear and con­tinue reading…

What exactly is Jello made of?

http://www.snopes.com/food/ingredient/jello.asp

This mys­tery has been long been over­due for an expla­na­tion. All I can is “Ewwww!”

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Where does red food dye come from?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=beetle-juice-is-your-food-bugged-2009–01-09

I knew this one, but nobody ever believes me…Double ewwwww!

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How about blue food dye while we are at it?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=where-does-blue-food-dye

I can speak from per­sonal expe­ri­ence with my son on both red and blue dyes. They have a very pro­nounced effect on his behav­ior. Given that, and their sources, does it make sense to eat it just because it looks nice?

Although bugs are a good source of pro­tein. I think I would rather eat the bee­tle to get the nutri­ents  rather than through M & Ms’ or cos­metic prod­ucts on my skin.