By Dr. Mark Wiley

You’re in the food store and get lost in all the claims about what is healthy and not healthy for you. So you make your way to a vitamin shop or Whole Foods and try your luck there. But when you grab a bag of this, or a bar of that and turn it to check out the label… you are just as lost. What IS all that stuff in there?

In this article I’d like to discuss the worst and the best ingredients in the so-called healthy bars and drinks. I hope you will find this information helpful in your healthful shopping adventures for the healthiest foods for you and your family.

MSG: Monosodium Glutamate

These initials mean Monosodium Glutamate. It is the main flavor enhancer in your local Chinese take-out place. Like Mrs. Dash, MSG enhances flavor especially in frozen and processed foods… and causes people who are allergic to it to experience headaches, rashes and muscle pains. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics removed MSG from all products for infants under the age of one after injections into lab animals showed nerve cell damage!

Despite the fact that MSG has been proven a poisonous substance, it is so widely used that you might not even think where it might be. Cans of tuna? You bet! Turkey breast cold cuts? Absolutely, in some brands! And the result: an increase in neurodegerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, a serious rise in cases of asthma, Parkinson’s disease, migraine headaches and heart trouble.

Bottom line: Stay away from MSG. Check the label of everything you buy and avoid the brands that include it. And when ordering food from a restaurant, they are obligated by law to NOT include MSG if you specifically tell them you are allergic. Sounds like a plan.

Maltodextrin

Maltodextrin is essentially a powder derived from potatoes or corn and when combined with other spices and ingredients it becomes a tasty coating for snack foods. This powder food additive is found in items like flavored potato chips, pretzels and crackers.

While the FDA says this chemical is “safe,” it does not label it as being either healthy or unhealthy. That is, the content amount found in food is so low that it barely counts. Yet, in large quantities it is not healthy. So what is “non toxic” in one bag of chips may not be so healthy when one eats several bags of chips, pretzels, crackers in the course of a week, a month or a year.

And while the matodextrin processed in North America is derived from potato and corn, the Asian equivalent is manufactured from wheat and is thus not gluten free. This means that if you are prone to migraine headaches, candida or have Celiac disease… you should stay away from snacks imported from Asia.

Again, check the labels. If an item contains maltodextrin it will say so and if it contains the wheat-based form, this must also be noted on the package. In moderation, the sweet or savory aspect of this additive can be delightful. But over-consumption is unhealthy. Not just because it is a chemical but because the foods it is used to flavor are, themselves, not on the diet plan of any serious wellness program!

High Fructose Corn Syrup

This sweetener has been called the main culprit in the rise in childhood obesity in the United States… but has been given a clean bill by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Talk about bipolar! No wonder we don’t know what is going on with our health. Well, here’s the scoop…

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is corn syrup that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert its glucose into fructose. This fructose has then been mixed with regular corn syrup, which is 100 percent glucose, and the result is a sweet liquid known as HFCS.

This liquid is the sweetener found in just about every cold beverage in your local convenience store, including iced tea, sodas and energy drinks. Not only that, but it is also found in so-called healthy foods like tomato soup and yogurt, and less healthy items such as salad dressings and cookies.

Yes it’s true that the FDA did a 30-year study and found a correlation between HFCS and obesity and that it is worse for your health than plain sugar. Yet the Corn Refiners Association has launched an aggressive advertising campaign to counter these criticisms, claiming that HFCS “is natural” and “has the same natural sweeteners as table sugar.”

Well, if you have any questions, just look to two of the largest-consumed beverages, Pepsi and Snapple. Both have ditched the nasty stuff and gone back to sweetening their drinks with plain old sugar. Stay away from the HFCS, it will make you fatter than sugar!

Related Article: The “Skinny” on High Fructose Corn Syrup

Partially Hydrogenated Oils

Whatever you do, stay clear of hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils. They are unnatural and very unhealthy. You see, the original oil is subjected to hydrogenation, which changes its molecular structure. This allows the oil molecules to harden thus giving it a longer shelf life, which is why manufacturers like it. But the changed oils are actually closer to plastic than to oil, and the hydrogenation process kills the omega-3 and omega-6 essential fatty acids, which are the healthy parts of the original oils.

What this means is that the body does not get the desired antioxidant affect of consuming oils, and the new hydrogenated oils are then treated in the body as fatty foods that the bloodstream can’t process. The result is fat stored in the body. Excess storage of fat in the body and arterial plaque build-up, then, are the big issues with partially hydrogenated oils.

Avoid foods containing partially hydrogenated oils at all costs. Check the labels on spreads, crackers, cookies, cakes and even some so-called fruit snacks.

The Bottom Line

You should eat natural foods and fresh foods and always read the labels. When in doubt, write down the ingredient and do an online search. You just might be surprised at what you find!

The ones listed above are the worst ingredients found in the foods you eat. These are the “foods” that the FDA says are okay to feed Americans! Yet, we are becoming sicker faster than ever before and suffering long, slow deaths from heart disease, obesity and high cholesterol levels.