The One Habit That Will Change the Way You Eat Forever
What you need to start doing that will have a dramatic impact on your health.
To eat healthily, you first need to know what you are eating. But unless prepare all your meals from scratch, home cooking from fresh whole ingredients, you rely on industrialized packed food. The thing is that food packages can be quite deceiving, and usually are. It’s easy to fall into the food industry’s traps. The package marketing is planned to fool you into eating a ton of crap, stuff that sometimes shouldn’t even qualify as food.
So, how do you avoid poisoning yourself with hidden stuff in your food? Simple: read the ingredients list at the back of the package.
I will repeat: Read the ingredients list at the back of the package.
Again.
Never eat anything without reading the ingredients list! Never!
You should build the habit of reading the ingredients list of everything you buy. Do it every single time you buy food. do it until it becomes second nature for you. Until you can’t understand how people don’t read the ingredients list at the grocery store.
I have been doing it for years, and believe when I say that you will reduce your meal options by about 80%. You will be astonished by the amount of weird stuff found in our food…
This is also valid for “Healthy” products. A lot of poison hides behind words like Whole, Diet, Light, and Protein, among others.
Note that the ingredients are listed per amount. So, the first ingredient has the greatest amount in that product, the second in the list is also the second in amount, and so on. So, sugar in second place is totally different from sugar at the sixty spot on the list. In Europe and some countries, like Brazil, the percentage is also informed, which is very handy. Unfortunately, in the US, the percentage information is not required by law.
Ok, you already read your ingredients list. Now, let’s see what to avoid.
Do your best to minimize the following ingredients in your food:
- Vegetable Oils, like Soy, Canola, and Corn Oils.
- Hydrogenated Fats: It may be called only Vegetable Fat. Also includes Margarine.
- Sugar: Also comes as Inverted Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Corn Glucose, Maltodextrin, and Fructose (no, it’s not from fruits).
- Flours and starches.
- Glutamate.
- Artificial Colorings, like Caramel (E150). Always be suspicious about codes in your food. Real food has no code.
- Preservatives, like Nitrites and Sodium Benzoate.
- Artificial Sweeteners, like Aspartame and Sucralose
Another red flag is a list that resembles a periodic table, food shouldn’t have chemical names on it. Also, keep an eye on huge lists. Real food usually doesn’t come with loads of ingredients, except maybe for natural condiments and herbs at the end of the list.
Get used to reading the ingredients list. It is a small habit that will have a huge impact on your health and longevity.
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