Tag Archives: eat this

There’s a reason they call them dyes!

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Because most of them are horrible for you!! They should call them DIES!! Here’s what prompted this blog post. I got a bunch of crap for having mini chocolates in my fridge at work!! Now, because I’m constantly telling the office people that they are eating “CRAP”, they decided that their only recourse to feel better about eating this crap was to get back at me by making me feel bad about having said chocolates in my fridge 😦 You get the picture. So I swiftly pulled the bag outta the fridge and started reading the 5 or 6 ingredients in the chocolates. After that, I reiterated, that it’s the ingredients in the foods you people are eating, not the foods themselves. “Why day gotta hate”? Anyway, there are plenty of natural dyes, but are the big companies willing to pay for the natural dye when the #ed dyes are so much more inexpensive?

The Most Dangerous, yet cheap, Food Colorings

Many pediatricians have asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban certain dyes, including –

  • Blue dye #1 and #2
  • Green dye #3
  • Orange dye B, which is prevalent in hot dogs
  • Red dye #3 and #40
  • Yellow #5 and #6

Several if these dyes are banned in countries other than the United States. Manufacturers that sell in this other countries have to change their formulas. For example, in Great Britain Kraft boxed macaroni and cheese is pale because the yellow dye is banned.

Let me give a shout out to Kraft – There was a petition that went around to get kraft to take the yellow dye (the one that makes it look super yummy) out of their mac and cheese and so many people signed it that I believe they don’t put it in any of their mac and cheese any more!! 🙂 THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD 🙂

First of all, if every company started using natural dyes, which include:

Examples of natural food dyes are –

  • Brown is often made from caramelized sugar
  • Blue made from red cabbage or blueberry skins
  • Green made from vegetable extracts like spinach, parsley, etc.
  • Orange is typically made from the pulp around the annatto seed but can also be made with carrots
  • Red may be made of hibiscus, beets or the Cochineal beetle (sounds gross but it has been used for over a century)
  • Pink may be made from beets
  • Purple can be made from blackberry, purple carrots or red cabbage
  • Yellow can be made from turmeric or carrot

that the demand would be so high, they would start mass producing natural food colors/dyes and the price would come down!!

If you would like to know more about why you shouldn’t eat some dyes, schedule an appointment for a consult at Main Line Integrative Nutrition and while you’re there, sign up for an integrative nutritional plan that fits your lifestyle 🙂

Tumeric or Turmeric?

Tumeric or Turmeric? Whichever way you say it, it is one powerful spice!! It is a member  of the ginger family which also has numerous health and digestive benefits which we will talk about at a later time. Here is an excerpt from drugs.com:

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What is it used for?

Traditional/Ethnobotanical uses

Turmeric has a warm, bitter taste and is used extensively as a food flavoring and colorant; it is a primary component of curry powders and some mustards. The spice has a long tradition in Asian medicine to treat problems ranging from flatulence to hemorrhage. Use to treat ringworm, as a poultice, for pain, and in the management of jaundice and hepatitis has been documented. It is also being heralded as an anti-inflammatory which is perfect as lately science is learning more and more about how people are becoming more and more susceptible to inflammation because of their horrible lifestyles!! “Eat more turmeric, live longer”!!

Miscellaneous uses

Turmeric is used as a spice in curry powders and mustard. It is being investigated in clinical trials for the treatment and prevention of cancers, particularly of the gastrointestinal tract, and for treatment of colitis and Alzheimer and Huntington diseases. And this one is my own discovery; it is also used as a non-dairy creamer and is super delicioso in my coffee, here’s a link: Laird Hamilton Superfood Turmeric coffee creamer!!

You should experiment with turmeric and find your own path to turmeric happiness. If you would like to learn more about the benefits of turmeric in your diet or would like more information on how you can make better lifestyle choices regarding your nutrition, set up a consult meeting with Dr. McBride at Main Line Integrative Nutrition

Going green? Don’t stop at recycling!!

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Go green with your grilling too. Vegetables taste better and are healthier for you if you grill them because you are not losing any of the nutrients in the cooking medium (water, oil, steamer). And make sure you don’t “char” them because that char is loaded with carcinogens according to some recent studies. You can see here that I took some corn and just threw it on the grill as is. It comes out great!! Plus, I’m not too concerned about the nutritional value of corn 🙂 I have also found that the thicker you slice the zucchini, the better it comes out and once you grill asparagus, it’s hard to do it any other way!!

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Grilling your proteins are also a healthier alternative to “indoor” cooking.

Grilled meats have a reduced fat content. This is because the fat drips off as the food cooks. It results in healthier meals and makes it easier to manage a low fat diet. Grilled foods also have lower calorie content than fried foods. This helps in weight management and keeping fit. Reduced fat intake helps to lower bad cholesterol levels in the blood. Healthy cholesterol levels improve cardiovascular health. Various health conditions such as obesity, stroke, heart disease, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes become a risk with fried foods.

When you grill your food, it helps to reduce the risk of such diseases. It also ensures that you get more value out of your food. This is because of the shorter cooking time involved when you grill. It results in minimal loss of moisture and vitamins from vegetables. This ensures that as much of the nutritional content is retained in the food when cooked. Healthy cooking contributes to good health and overall wellbeing.

To learn more about how to integrate more healthy eating habits into your everyday routine, visit Main Line Integrative Nutrition