Carbs

[SunnyExpat]

Yes there are chemicals in jelly, and there are chemicals in all foods, and our bodies are made of chemicals. When someone shows me compelling scientific evidence of chemicals in harmful doses in my food, then I'll pay attention.

I take the other view normally, if someone shows me compelling evidence I need chemicals in my food, I'll eat it.
If they cant I try to avoid them where I can.
I do see sugar free jelly is popular though with some though.

 

[ButtterflyLady]

I take the other view normally, if someone shows me compelling evidence I need chemicals in my food, I'll eat it.
If they cant I try to avoid them where I can.
I do see sugar free jelly is popular though with some though.

There are already chemicals in your food.

 

[donnellysdogs]

Yes there's chemicals and antibiotics fed to all farm animals etc....

I am extremely concerned around aspartame chemical and the E numbers being added to foods.

I am certainly one person that has had 20 years of pain and numerous tests and time spent in NHS hospitals due to not being aware of how aspartame and artificial products have been the cause of my horrendous pains at times.

I think that despite there being unnatural products in all food nowadays there are certain chemicals that should be withdrawn from foods and drinks.

 

[Celeriac]

My GP and I saw results on my first two weeks of organic food because I had BG tests scheduled already. The huge improvement in my retinopathy, eradication of gum disease and minor anaemia also show me that being additive free helps my body.

Sure, food is comprised of chemicals and we are ourselves. But the human body did not need to handle genetically modified food prior to 1994, for example.

In the U.S. GMOs don't need to be labelled so unless you're eating organic you're eating them.

In New Zealand, GM is far more controlled and lamb isn't allowed to be called New Zealand lamb if fed on GM.(Beef for export can be). This is why Waitrose uses NZ lamb for its ready meals.

In the UK Waitrose is committed to non GM and this includes not feeding it to livestock wherever possible and actively looking for alternatives. Waitrose admits that some non-organic pork is fed GM soya.

Morrisons and ASDA were the first to allow GM feed to be fed to non-organic animals destined either to be eaten themselves or produce products to be eaten (e.g. eggs, milk, butter, cheese, cream, yogurt) in 2012. Tesco, Sainsbury's, Co-op and Marks and Spencer followed. None of these products have to be labelled as coming from GM fed animals.

The majority of mainland European consumers don't want GM and the majority of UK consumers too. But because this stuff doesn't have to be labelled, not many people are aware of it. I read The Grocer, the trade mag for supermarket retailing and this has followed the GM issue.

According to the Food Standards Agency there are no standard tests yet to determine whether GM material does routinely transfer to humans.

The University of Newcastle has proved that it can survive digestion and mutate gut flora, however.

You can also Google and find Danish studies that show that pig health can suffer on GM. If you want to get really scared, go look at YouTube vids made by farmers, detailing what happened to their animals when fed on GM feed.

Personally, I'm not eating GM. I'm not a knockout mouse and refuse to be part of an experiment. In the past people thought that lead, arsenic, mercury and asbestos were safe.

 

[Celeriac]

On the antibiotics issue, the EU does not allow routine dosing of antibiotics in livestock and hasn't for many years. In the U.S. it's widespread.

The EU bans the use of bovine growth hormones in cattle, which is why American dairy products are banned.

American food manufacturers also use many many more additives in their products which are banned here.

Ocado sells some American products which are directly imported and does state in the details on the website, if a product may contain GM ingredients. Not all supermarkets and importers do this.

 

[donnellysdogs]

To me its worse when looking a ready meals etc that so many people must eat because the supermarkets are stacked out with them. Same with bread.. Homemade bread does not survive as long as shop bought bread... So there is unnatural shelf life extending additives being added etc...

I cannot see how we can stop bees from travelling and cross fertilising GM and non GM.. I do not trust labelling to be honest either because of the horse meat scandals... If people can make a quick buck or too and think they won't get caught out then there greed is put first.

 

[DeejayR]

Thank you , it is very confusing lol x

Yes it is, and to start with I thought I was being dense (well, I am, but not that dense), but after a while on here I realised what a sticky web we are trapped in by the food industry and, I'm afraid, the weight-loss industry. It has been going on for a long time. Light dawns when you think: it isn't me, it's them.
At that point our responses vary. Some get understandably angry, but I also regard that sort of enlightenment as a gift of freedom to manage my life better. Oo-er, now I've made myself responsible for me ... help!

 

[Celeriac]

My father was diagnosed with high blood pressure and high cholesterol when I was ten or eleven years old, though it didn't run in his family.

My mother switched all of us to the low fat diet and I was brainwashed into believing it was healthier.

It didn't work for my father, it hasn't worked for my mother, it hasn't worked for me and it hasn't worked for my brother. Cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, diabetes (me) and high blood pressure. None of those things occurred in the previous generation. I feel that the late Ancel Keys was a shoddy scientist and an egotist, who got too involved in the politics of food under Nixon and created an experiment on human lives which failed miserably.

Low Carbing was a leap off a cliff. It went against my upbringing and everything I had learned about nutrition but it works for me.

It is so frustrating when, despite studies, the NHS sticks to discredited dietary guidelines and basically condemns many people with diabetes to shorter, unhealthier lives. No-one would advocate that coeliacs should eat bread, yet people with diabetes get told that we should eat the diet which made us sick in the first place !

This dietary advice is old hat, I wasn't even born when it first came out. Yet before oral diabetes meds and the low fat food stuff T2s were put on low carb diets and they worked.

 

[britishpub]

My father too had Angina in his 40's during the late 1970's. He went fully low fat diet, wholemeal etc etc, required a triple heart bye pass when he was 54, and died of a massive heart attack at 56. For some reason I still thought the low fat low GI diet was for me even after it was proven not to work for my Dad and I ended up with high blood pressure and Diabetes.

Yes I know genetics plays a massive part in this, but my improved health since changing my diet shows just how much influence diet has as well.

 

[vintageutopia]

Unfortunately those carbs you're eating are the starchy ones you should be looking to cut down on or avoid - the ones you should be eating instead should be coming mainly from vegetables, etc .... so as a guide:

:Foods you can eat and not worry over carbs ( they contain none, very few, or traces only):
meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, cream, butter, oils and fats in general

Carbs should mainly come from the (low carb) foods on this list (and shouldn't raise your glucose levels too much or at all)
olives, avocados, nuts, most vegetables and salads (but watch root types), and small quantities of fruit - mainly berries.

Avoid foods from this one (they WILL raise your glucose levels):
all sweets and sugary foods (and watch for hidden sugars in packaged/processed food); high starch foods: bread, pastry and other floury items, potatoes, pasta, rice, cereals.

Robbity

Nice list, Robbity.