Your Ingredient Journal

In Wednesday’s daily nutrition email (You are getting it, right? – if not check your Spam folder and then email me if you still can’t find it) we talked about increasing awareness with an ingredient journal (I’ve included an excerpt below).

But lets get down to brass tacks.

Are you willing to actually do it?

Liz started one, and here’s what she wrote me:

“Hey Dean,

I liked the idea of listing the ingredients until I started doing it– 3 pages later…. it’s gross to see what is in food…Xanthum Gum, Palmitate and Sulfites…

and I think I eat pretty well compared to others.

Thanks for the idea, see you in the AM,
Liz”

I applaud Liz for taking action and discovering for herself what is in her food. By the way Liz does eat a lot better than most people. How do I know? Because as part of the FLAG she journal her food every day.

Making change is hard, that’s just the way it is. Keeping a food log and writing down ingredients is not easy. It DOES get easier, but you have to be willing to DO hard for a while. What steps are you taking today to move from difficult to easier?

Coach Dean

Here’s that article, as promised:

Your Ingredient Journal

You’ve probably heard the importance of keeping a food journal for increasing eating awareness and weight loss.  But what about keeping one of all the ingredients you eat.

What you ask?  Why would you do that?

To increase awareness of what you’re actually putting in your body.  If you eat an apple and natural (unroasted or salted) almonds for a snack, you’d simply write:

1. Apple
2. Almonds

A total of  2 ingredients

On the other hand, if you eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut, you’d write (better make sure your pencil is extra sharp):

1. Enriched white flour contains 2. bleached white flour, 3. Niacin, 4. Reduced Iron, 5. Thiamine Mononitrate, 6. Riboflavin, 7. Folic Acid, 8. Dextrose, 9.Vegetable Shortening (Partially Hydrogenated Soybean and/or Cottonseed Oil)10. Water, 11. Sugar, 12. Soy 13. Flour, 14. Egg Yolks,15. Vital Wheat Gluten, 16. Yeast, 17. Nonfat Milk, 18. Yeast Nutrients, 19. Calcium Sulfate, 20. Ammonium Sulfate, 21. Dough Conditioners, 22. Calcium Dioxide, 23. Monocalcium Phosphate, 24. Dicalcium Phosphate, 25. Diammonium Phosphate, 26. Sodium Stearoyl-2-Lactylate, 27. Whey, 28. Starch, 29. Ascorbic Acid, 30. Sodium Bicarbonate, 31. Calcium Carbonate 32. Salt, 33. Monoglycerides 34.  Diglycerides, 35. Lecithin, 36. Calcium Propionate (Preservative) 37. Cellulose Gum, 38. Malted Barley Flour 39. Natural Flavors 40. Artificial Flavrs 41. Enzymes, 42. Sodium, 43. Caseinate, 44. Corn Maltodextrin, 45. Corn Syrup Solids and 46. BHT (to Help Protect Flavor).  Glaze Contains: 47. Sugar, 48. Water, 49. Corn Starch, 50. Calcium Carbonate, 51. Calcium Sulfate, 52. Agar, 53. Dextrose, 54.Locust Bean Gum, 55. Disodium Phosphate, 56. Sorbitan 57. Monostearate, 58. Mono- and 59. Diglycerides, 60. Artificial Flavor and 61 Salt.

A total of 61 ingredients.  Which do you think is better for you?

Makes you think twice about the Krispy Kreme doughnut, huh?

Of course few people eat JUST a doughnut, so you’d have to then add in everything else you eat/drink during that meal too.

Aim to eat foods with 5 or less ingredients.

While we don’t know what most additives do to us in the long run at this time, the less junk we can put in our body, especially of ingredients we can’t pronounce, the better.

What if you went to the MD for surgery and they said “well, I don’t really know if this is going to work in the long run, but heck, why not give it a whirl…”

Kind of the same idea.  We don’t really know if this is going to have an effect on your body in the long run…
So give it a try.

Take a look at all you’re eating and drinking and write it down daily!  If your hand starts to cramp from too much writing by lunchtime, maybe it’s time to switch up your foods!