The Unhealthy Truth

Last month I read the book The Unhealthy Truth: How Our Food Is Making Us Sick and What We Can Do About It, by Robin O'Brien. It caught my eye because her whole "adventure" started when her youngest had an allergic reaction to eggs. And since we get to deal with allergies at our house, I though I'd check it out. It was an eye opening read and I'm still trying to process it all. Here is a little summary on it taken from her website.

"Robyn O’Brien is not the most likely candidate for an anti-establishment crusade. A Houston native from a conservative family, this MBA and married mother of four was not someone who gave much thought to corrupt government agencies and chemicals in our food. Until the day her youngest daughter had a violent allergic reaction to eggs, and everything changed.
­ The Unhealthy Truth is both the story of how one brave woman chose to take on the system and a call to action that shows how each of us can do our part and keep our own families safe. O’Brien turns to accredited research conducted in Europe that confirms the toxicity of America’s food supply, and traces the relationship between Big Food and Big Money that has ensured that the United States is one of the only developed countries in the world to allow hidden toxins in our food—toxins that can be blamed for the alarming recent increases in allergies, A.D.H.D., cancer, and asthma among our children."

I want to put a warning out there: If you read this book, be prepared to change the way you think about food, what you eat and buy. As well as spending more time reading the labels on your favorite foods. You might even be on the Internet looking up more articles.

My kids curse this book because it has changed the way we eat and what we buy. I would say that for the most part, we were fairly healthy before reading it. We tried to eat our daily fruits and vegetables and a home made meal at least 4x a week. But it is the snack and convenience foods that got us!

The last few times I've gone to the grocery store, I've had my three kids with me. Yeehaw!
I don't know about you but, when I take my kids to the store, our cart seems to fill up a ton faster with stuff I would not normally buy. However, after reading this book I've put my kids to work at the grocery store. If they come asking if they can have their favorite bag of chips or candy, I say, "I don't know does it have any of the yucky ingredients in it?" They will then read the ingredients list and most of the time it does but, when they find a product that is o.k. they are so excited. It's made them more informed shoppers. My kids are thinking about what is put in their food. And starting to ask questions of why the manufacturers need to put the crap in that they do. My kids have discovered chips that they love, that are organic and others that don't have the food dyes and high fructose corn syrup in them. They have found that the orange Goldfish crackers that they eat like they are going out of style are ok. We have even found some candy that can pass the test. Grocery store shopping has become a bit more work and takes a little more time but as we learn what is better for us, we can just walk by all the rest.

Here is a short list of the ingredients we consider in the "yucky" or not so good for us category.
-high fructose corn syrup.
-Food dyes in general.
-Milk products that contain rBST .
-We try and stay away from things with soy products too but it's almost impossible.
-Nitrates

It's hard to get off everything at once so, we have kind of eased into it. I'm not totally hardcore, we still have crap in our house. We have just eliminated some things out of our diet and replaced them with better versions. I think the biggest thing is just being more aware of what is in our food! Try for products that have the least amount of ingredients or at least ingredients you can pronounce.

May the force be with you if you choose to listen to this crazy green girl.