Part Two: Eat This, Not That

I had originally planed for this post to have a lot of details and lists, but that would get LONG and BORING.  I am giving you a general idea instead.

Chips: Most main stream chips (like Cheetos, Doritos, Lays) have at least one of the following ingredients, and sometimes all of them.  Artificial food color, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Oils, MSG...  This is an easy fix.  Choose all natural chips, veggie chips, many pita chips or organic chips.  Also, give up chips all together and eat fresh veggies for your 'crunh' needs.

Condiments:  Condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayo, relish, pickles, cheese, olives, dressings and other such items are usually loaded with artificial food color, hydrogenated oils or sodium.  When in doubt go organic.  By-the-way, the only place I have been able to find non-offending pickles or relish is at Whole Foods.

Cereal:  Yikes!!!  It pains me to even walk down the cereal isle.  The marketing teams attempt to hide the yuck with 100% whole grain labels, but who are they fooling?  Remember, we feed our kids this stuff, what do you want them to eat while they are developing?  Go organic, like Cascadian Farms or Kashi brands.  Otherwise, you are probably getting high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, fake sugars, and artificial food colors.

Dairy:  Items like cheese, yogurt, butter, pimento cheese are deceptive.  Most of the 'cheap' or store brand items of these are full of artificial food color.  We go with organic butter and Greek yogurt.  We also use Horizon's Organic cheese to avoid the artificial food colors.  We have yet to find a pimento cheese to go on our celery that is acceptable.

Dessert:  My kids and hubby have a real sweet tooth.  We try to avoid sweets often, but we also indulge from time to time.  Almost all desserts that are pre-made in the bakery section, packaged on shelves, sold in restaurants, or the ice cream parlor are loaded with artificial food color, fake sugar and hydrogenated oils, so it is a must avoid in our home (be sure to use organic, non-bleached, non-GMO flour).  No boxed goods here unless we buy organic.  Make Popsicles, cakes, cookies and muffins and icing from scratch.  Hagendaz is a pretty good ice cream that we can eat most flavors of.

Bread:  Yup, we even choose our bread.  We go with Peppridge Farm All Naturals, or make our bread at home.  Most other breads contain bleached flour and hydrogenated oils.  You can get good breads at Whole Foods or your local farmers market.

Drinks:  Ummm...we drink water.  Yup!  Ok, we can have fresh squeezed lemon aid and juices, but really, we dring water.  All the processed lemon aids, kool-aids, powder packets and sodas contain something (artificial food color, high fructose corn syrup, fake sugar...)

Snacks:  Just get fresh fruits and veggies, some dried snacks like banana chips, raisins and craisins.  Avoid the kids snack isle...it will make your body cry!  We also like to make homemade smoothies as a snack.  Pudding, Jell-o, fruit snacks (for the most part) are loaded with offensive ingredients.  There are some safe granola bars and fruit leathers if you look hard.

If you have specific items that you want to know about just comment me!