Which type of butter is the best?

Butter, Butter, and yummy Butter....

It seemed to be a constant battle of which butter is best for my family. First, it was which had the best taste, then it was which was the lowest in fat, and finally which has no additives/preservatives / chemicals? To eliminate the chemicals, I could just resort to standard real butter, but it's just so fattening.

So in comparison, I have tried these popular brands of margarine and decided to eliminate them from my diet with reason: (items in question in blue)

	I can't believe it's not butter...The sound of it just makes your mouth water. But if you look at the ingredients in this yellow tub, you will see why it's best to avoid eating it. Mostly soybean oil and chemicals. And in my last post you saw what soybean oil really is... Ingredients:Water, liquid soybean oil, buttermilk, xanthan gum, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, lactic acid, (potassium sorbate, calcium disodium edta) used to protect quality, natural and artificial flavors,
	Smart Balance. You'd think this one was the winner, but think again. The writing and and advertising all over the box fool you. Ingredients: Natural oil blend (palm fruit, soybean, fish, canola and olive oils), water, plant sterols, sorbitan esters of fatty acids, monoglycerides of vegetable fatty acids, natural and artificial flavors, TBHQ (to preserve freshness), potassium sorbate, lactic acid, soy lecithin, vitamins, calcium disodium EDTA.
	Country Crock. Looks good, tastes good. spreads soft and great with bread. But do you really know what you are eating? Ingredients: Vegetable oil blend of liquid soybean oil, partially hydrogenated soybean oil and hydrogenated cottonseed oil, water, whey, salt, vegetable mono- and diglycerides, soy lecithin, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium-preservative, citric acid, artificial flavor, vitamin A and beta carotene for color.
	Earth Balance. This one I thought would be the healthiest of them all, but I'm skeptical about the soybean oil in it and "natural flavor" what exactly does that even mean - plant derived from corn? Ingredients: natural oil blend (palm fruit, canola, soybean, flax and olive oils) filtered water, conains less than 2% of pure salt, natural flavor (plant derived from corn, no msg, no alcohol, no gluten), pea protein, sunflower lecithin, lactic acid (non-dairy), and naturally extracted annatto for color.
	Land O' Lakes Whipped Butter. Finally, a butter that is all natural, with awesome taste and low calories! This wins the list!!!!! Ingredients: Pasteurized Sweet Cream, Salt.

Where to find GMO Free seeds

So now that we know GMO foods are everywhere and even hidden in our foods, what do we do if we want to plant our own garden? What about those seeds? Where do they come from? Are they GMO too?
Unless you do your homework before buying them, you will never know.

One place that has a list of GMO free seeds is the Council For Responsible Genetics
CLICK HERE to find out which companies are against GMO seeds.

Before purchasing any seeds from your local hardware store or nursery, make sure they have these seeds.

How to Avoid GM (Genetically Modified) Foods

Genetically modified (GM, or GMO) foods have made their way to becoming a majority in markets all across the world.

Why should anyone be concerned?

Well, for me, until I suddenly "popped up" with a food allergy along with several people I know and then looking at what's happening to people all across the world today with Autism, rare diseases, super-bugs, and all sorts of unexplained goings on, it raised a question for me.

What's going on? Is it just a coincidence that the decline in our health along with Autism and other weird food allergies have come about the same time GM foods have become mass produced?

I stumbled upon several articles about these "Genetically Modified" foods and what can happen as a results from eating them over time....There were photos of lab animals exposed to GM foods. Cows, pigs and plants that have mutated or become sick and died prematurely after digesting GM crops, rare illnesses animals have been passing to humans as a result of Genetically Modified DNA, many other gross and disturbing things I would rather not mention go on and on due to this madness of trying to "fix" one thing, yet not realizing how it's truly breaking other important factors of life.

Playing with mother nature is not good. It's as simple as that.

So how does one know what is a GM food or not? And how can we stay away from it?

1) Understand what products and derivatives are most likely to be Genetically Modified:

Soybeans - Gene taken from bacteria (Agrobacterium sp. strain CP4) and inserted into soybeans to make them more resistant to herbicides.
Corn - There are two main varieties of GE corn.
[1] has a Gene from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis inserted to produce the Bt toxin, which poisons Lepidoteran (moths and butterflies) pests.
[2] There are also several events which are resistant to various herbicide. Present in high fructose corn syrup and glucose/fructose which is prevalent in a wide variety of foods in America.
Rapeseed/Canola - Gene added/transferred to make crop more resistant to herbicide.
Sugar beets - Gene added/transferred to make crop more resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide.
Cotton - engineered to produce Bt toxin. The seeds are pressed into cottonseed oil, which is a common ingredient in vegetable oil and margarine.
Dairy - Cows injected with GE hormone rBGH/rBST; possibly fed GM grains and hay.
Sugar. In 2012 the FDA approved GMO Beet Sugars to be allowed to be sold on the market under the name.... "SUGAR" So now, when we go to buy "All Natural" Breyer's Ice Cream, we can't even know for sure that we are actually eating regular natural cane sugar. If you see "CANE SUGAR" there's a good chance it's not GMO. This is one of the biggest frustrations with labeling, as sugar is in so many things, and we might be avoiding food that POSSIBLY has GMO sugar, but really does not.
Papayas.
Zucchini.
There's possible more out there, but this is the main list effected.

2) Stay away from boxed/ packaged / canned foods if you can

I know it's hard, and if you have to, then do it, but read the label and see if it says Non-GMO or GMO Free or Certified Organic.

3) Find the list of companies that are GMO Free. This website has a pretty good list of brands/companies verified being Non-GMO.



4) Get involved with Facebook Non-GMO information. They post the latest information about Non-GMO foods and which companies are loaded with them.

Sometimes closing our eyes and just doing what we used to do seems like the easiest choice, but ask yourself, is it worth it for yourself or your family down the road? Who knows what problems can come of this...it's just a little preparation that can make the big difference and change the way the world DECIDES to give us what it does. We are in charge of our health. Not the media. Not commercials. Not glamorous food companies. Not your neighbor or your friend. You.

What is Soybean Oil exactly?

Soybeans. What an amazing food created by nature. So many different things have been made available to us from this adaptable bean. 



I had not thought twice about soy since I've been using it as a source of protein and substitutes for foods like meat and cheese. And, the news hardly ever says anything bad about it. 

But, the other day I bought a brand of margarine that contained soybean oil. It made me wonder if this bean actually can have a trace of oil in it or not? So I researched and found this information quite interesting. The process of making soybean oil is as follows (based on this website: (http://www.soya.be/soybean-oil-production.php):

1) Cleaning of soybeans
The soybeans are first cleaned, dried and dehulled prior to oil extraction. The soybean hulls needs to be removed because they absorb oil and give a lower yield. This de-hulling is done by cracking the soybeans and a mechanical separation of the hulls and cracked soybeans. Magnets are used to separate any iron from the soybeans.  
The soybeans are also heated to about 75°C to coagulate the soy proteins to make the oil extraction easier.

2) Extraction of soybean oil
The soybeans are cut in flakes which are put in a percolation extractors and immerged with a solvent, normally hexane (Hexanes are significant constituents of gasoline. They are all colorless liquids at room temperature, with boiling points between 50 and 70 °C, with gasoline-like odor. They are widely used as cheap, relatively safe, largely nonreactive, and easily evaporated non-polar solvents). Counter flow is used as extraction system because it gives the highest yield. After removing the hexane, the extracted flakes only contain about 1% of soybean oil and is used as livestock meal or to produce food products such as soy protein. The hexane is separated from the soybean oil in evaporators. The evaporated hexane is recovered and returned to the extraction process. The hexane free crude soybean oil is then further purified.


3) Purification of soybean oil
The crude soybean oil still contains many oil-insoluble and oil-soluble impurities that needs to be removed. The oil-insoluble material are removed with filtration and the soluble materials is removed with different processes including degumming (removing of phosphatides), alkali refining (washing with alkaline solution to remove free fatty acids, colorants, insoluble matter and gums) and bleaching (with activated earth or activated carbon to remove color and other impurities.

4) Hydrogenation of soybean oil (optional)
This process will increase the stability of the soybean oil and will make it less liquid. However, this process will create more saturated fats and will reduce the favorable unsaturated fats. In addition, trans-fats are produced. Hydrogenated soybean oil is used in foods that require more solid fat such as margarine.

So basically the margarine which I had was hydrogenated. Soybean oil doesn't really seem to be much of any nutritional value whatsoever by all the processing that it goes through and the amount of chemicals used to get it to the actual "oil" we can consume.

Bottom line is, avoid it altogether. 

Is there any Preservative Free Bread?

Bread, Bread, glorious Bread....

How do you know which one is best ? Which is healthiest? Which tastes the best AND has no additives/ preservatives?

Well, if you are like me and don't have too much time on your hands, you do most of your shopping at a big grocery store like Super Walmart or Target and also get supplies while you're at it. Otherwise any health food store would suffice since most of them are about "healthy" food anyway. Just read the labels carefully!

I wanted to find a packaged bread that I could get with my weekly grocery shopping so I didn't need to drive to find a health food store just for bread. After spending literally an hour at the bread isle and reading label after label, I came across this brand of bread at Walmart. It's called EarthGrains. And this is what it has on the front:

It has this on the front of it "Natural. No Artificial colors, flavors or preservatives" and it's 100% whole wheat.
It also contains NO high fructose corn syrup and No hydrogenated oils, which is a definite plus.

Here's the side label:

Everything looked great except for 1 ingredient: Calcium Sulfate. What? I thought there were no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives in this bread?  Here is the exact definition on Wikipedia: Calcium sulfate (or calcium sulphate) is a common laboratory and industrial chemical. So is the information on this bread a LIE?
Looking at this in further detail, I found that Calcium Sulfate is really just calcium salt and is used as a white powder in form in foods for spoilage, thus a preservative/additive. Digging deeper, I also found that it "could" have trace amounts of crystalline silica in it which in this article (here) gives details that it is classified as a carcinogen which definitely is not healthy for us. As most carcinogens are linked to Cancer in humans.
So, with all this being said, I will not be buying this bread even though I already mistakenly did because I was fooled by the writing on the bag.

I just can't believe the FDA would consider this safe and they can put it on their bread as one of the ingredients and still say that it is "Natural"! Read the ingredients people! Don't be fooled by the writing on the front of ANY food you buy. Sad, but true.

Regular Yogurt vs Greek Yogurt which is better?

So what's all the hype about Greek Yogurt lately? It's all people are talking about these days. And there's so many types and flavors. Which is the best? Which is the healthiest? What's the difference between regular and greek yogurt?

THE TASTE. I tried a few different brands of regular yogurt: Yoplait, Mountain High, Dannon, and Walmart's Great Value yogurt.

       

I noticed excess liquid on top that needs to be stirred. Texture-wise, some have a clumpy consistency while others are one big clump with liquid all around. Flavor seems to be based on the fat content being where the more the fat the yogurt contains, the richer it tastes. Tartness and sweetness vary in each brand.

Now for Greek yogurts. I tried Yoplait Greek, Chobani & Trader Joes Greek yogurt.

Both Yoplait and Chobani tasted good but were thin in consistency, didn't contain as much liquid as regular yogurt, although Chobani I noticed had a stronger odor. Not sure what exactly it was but it did not smell appealing. The best tasting yogurt I have EVER had is from Trader Joe's - the Trader Joe's Greek Nonfat yogurt plain. I can add fruits and honey and nuts and I feel like I'm in heaven. Thick, tastes great, barely any liquid and low in calories.

HEALTH BENEFITS
Greek Yogurt has most of the liquid whey removed, which makes it more thicker and creamier like sour cream and tolerable for those with lactose issues. It also has less sodium, sugar & carbs and a lot more protein! Stick with the nonfat kind though or else your bound to get a lot of fat with it.

While keeping all the good elements of yogurt such as calcium and live bacterial cultures, this yogurt will become your new favorite yogurt after you give it a try. And the best part is - No chemicals, additives or preservatives!

Getting enough Vitamin D?

Growing up nobody ever told me about getting enough vitamin D. It was always drink your milk and make sure you get enough calcium. But I didn't know that the key vitamin that helped in absorbing calcium was vitamin D. Nowadays Vitamin D is a deficiency so many of us have without even knowing it. If you are deficient in Vitamin D, a whole slew of ailments can follow: Increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease, Cognitive impairment, Asthma and Cancer to name a few. Here are some more symptoms that may suggest you are low in Vitamin D:
Muscle pain
weak bones/fractures
low energy/constant fatigue
low immunity (getting sick often)
depression or mood swings
irregular sleeping patterns

So, the first step is to go to the doctor and find out just how low you are in Vitamin D. Next, you will need to take a suppliment that the doctor prescribes if you are low. If you don't want to go to the doctor, your daily diet should contain at least 200 international units for children and adults up to age 50, 400 IUs for ages 50 to 70, and 600 IUs for those 70 and older.