Optimizing wellness throughout Life

Stay up to date with interesting articles and personal feedback from Regenesis of Erie on the latest wellness information.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Spooky Tales and Gross Ingredients Part 2

Welcome back horror hounds!

Last week you no doubt experienced a jaw dropping, mind altering experience when you discovered what the FDA allows in your food.  Unfortunately it only gets worse.  I apologize if any of you lost your lunch during the process, but once you've open Pandora's box you can never be prepared for what's to come.  In today's post we will discover the vile ingredients that companies actually use to make their product.  This jaw dropping information may cause you to collapse so it is advised that you read this with someone near by, however the last person to read this went insane and took an ax ..well, perhaps we'll leave that story for another time.  Now, let us open the vault of terror once again and see what you may have just eaten.



Ah, the beaver.  Natures lumberjack as they call him.  What is a cute creature such as this doing here?  Surely you don't eat many beavers, or do you?  The next time you eat or drink a raspberry or strawberry flavored product look on the ingredients list and see if castoreum is there.  Chances are you won't find it because the FDA allows companies to label it as "natural flavoring".  The gross thing is castoreum is derived from the beaver's castor sacs.  That's right, internal body parts of this cute beaver are squeezed and used for flavoring.  Not grossed out yet? Well, the castor sacs are used in conjunction with the beaver's urine, to heighten it's scent when marking territories. Yummy!




You might think this little guy fits into the previous post.  This is the Carmine beetle and it just so happens to share the name of a color by the same name, which is a ruby reddish pigment.  Here comes the fun part. You take a whole bunch of these little guys, mash them up and then add them to products such as yogurts and dark red drinks.  Look on the back of ingredients and you'll see carmine listed, because it is deemed a natural coloring, but notice they didn't label the coloring as cochineal, or the entomological name for this bug.  I suppose people may turn a product down if bugs were listed as an ingredient, but in the land of the FDA tomato, tomahto I guess.



This has to be a typo, right?  Yoga mats? Absurd.  Azodicarbonamide is an agent used in foam plastics to form the final product.  It also happens to be used as a flour bleaching agent in breads, bagels and doughnuts.  Generally the lower on the totem pole breads, generally fast food buns, are subject to the use of the product, but it's popping up more and more in breads on the shelves of the grocery store. The next time you go to your yoga class, perhaps you could unroll a mat that has hamburger designs all over it, it would then serve as a multi-tasker.



You are not seeing a mirage.  You are indeed seeing a desert, sand more specifically.  Have you ever been to the beach and gotten sand on your clothes only to never be rid of it?  It always seems to pop up somewhere a week later in your shoes or in the car, but you probably didn't see it in your food.  Silicon Dioxide, sand or quartz as it is known in it's common name, is found naturally in foods in trace amounts and is used in the body but, food companies, specifically fast food chains, are using excess amounts as an anti-caking agent.  Although not as gross as the few above and since we already ingest it in small amount, this one may not seem quite as bad, but the next time you grab a chili from that red haired woman's food joint, just imagine an extra handful of sand tossed into your bowl.



 A duck and human hair.  Interesting combination   We all hate finding a hair in our food and I'm sure finding a feather in your dinner may be an unpleasant experience.  The best way to not to find these in your food is to hide them in plain sight.  L-Cysteine is a non-essential amino acid that is produced in the body naturally and aids is healthy hair formation.  The thing is since hair and feathers contain high amounts of this amino acid and is easily obtained, many companies can grind them up and add them into breads as conditioners to add shelf life.  Since the hair and feathers are water soluble, they break down in the body in their natural form of the L-cysteine.  You hate finding hair in your food?  Well, chances are you've willing eaten your fair share of them and the kicker is, it was an ingredient.


Timber! You may yell that when you chop a tree down, but who would have thought it fell right into you next meal?  Cellulose, or wood pulp as it is often derived from in the food industry.  Cellulose is the most common organic compound on earth and when getting it from plants most of us don't think much of it, but when I look into a lumber yard and get the visions of shredded cheese, chocolate milk and salad dressing just to name a few, I feel a little odd.  Cellulose is often used to prevent clumping in products, which may be from plants, but wood pulp is so much easier to get and prepare and thus is the most common these days.  If you see imitation vanilla or vanilla flavoring  there's also a good chance it came from wood pulp as well (not cellulose, but many wood products offer vanilla flavorings, which is used to imitate the real thing)



Strangely enough, I love the smell of fresh black top when the construction guys are laying it down on the road.  I do not like eating it though.  Coal Tar can be turned into the coloring Allura Red AC and is used in red candies, sodas and other sweets.  It is listed as number 1999 on the "United Nation Dangerous Goods" list, but it's still in our food products. (coal tar UN list).  No need for a joke here, this is pretty creepy in itself.



The next time your are going to make a meal, perhaps you should pass the grocery store and head to Petsmart and Lowes for the final ingredients.  As you see our foods are becoming more and more the stuff of horror and sci-fi movies.  If, in the future you begin to turn into a mutated version of yourself, you may have to lay off the coal tar.  It has been my pleasure to bring you these past posts in hope of jolting you out of your skin.  I trust you haven't gone off the deep end like a certain ax wielding mad man, although they have never found his whereabouts. Be sure to have a safe and happy Halloween! As for myself, because of these posts, the authorities have decided to ship me to Texas for a week so I may visit the insane asylum known as my two brothers' house.  Fear not, I will return with a new blog in November. Be seeing you my ghoulish fiends!

"A Hobby Should Pass the Time, Not Fill It" - Norman Bates "Psycho" (1960)

*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only.

Like Regenesis On Faceboook
Regenesis LLC Homepage

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Spooky Tales and Gross Ingredients Part 1

Hello!

As Halloween approaches I thought I would have the next two posts fit into the Halloween spirit.  These next two posts will indeed offer creepy information about foods that you may eat quite regularly and may even shock you beyond your wits.  I, of course speak about FDA food defects regulations.


The FDA has created the "Food Defect Action Levels" with goal of "establishing maximum levels of natural or unavoidable defects in human foods for human use that present no health hazard".  Makes sense right?  Well what falls into the natural or unavoidable defects may terrorize you the next time you sit down for dinner.  The thought of what may lurk in your food may be so frightful, so ghoulish it could send you spiraling into pure hysteria!  Without further ado let us peer into the vault of horrors that the FDA has dared us to dwell. (note that meats are not included here because although they have their own regulations, we already know the dangers of under cooking meats and/or consuming raw meat. It's the other common foods that we overlook I wish to expose)

First let's meet the cast of our ghastly tale:

MITES
APHIDS


LARVAE
FLY EGGS


MOLD
RODENTS
                       

MAGGOTS










FDA Sanitation Link


The FDA allows the following amount of our cast in these common foods. The data is taken right from the link I have provided, which has more information about each food shown below.  The data reflects the maximum amount of each gross material that can be in the food per the serving size they chose, either pre or post harvest/ production.

Pre/post harvest would mean essentially before or after they bring them from their natural growing state.  We know that bugs are on food the grows in the wild, the FDA regulates how many bugs can be on them either while they grow or while they are being prepare to be shipped or packaged.



BERRIES(Includes Blue, Black, Rasp etc.)

Mold:Average mold count is 60% or more

Insects& larvaeAverage of 4 or more larvae per 500 grams
OR
Average of 10 or more whole insects or equivalent per 500 grams (excluding thrips, aphids and mites)


BROCCOLI
          Insects & mites:Average of 60 or more aphids and/or thrips and/or mites per 100 grams (pre-harvest)



POTATO CHIPS
                  Rot:      Average of 6% or more pieces by weight contain rot (Pre and Post Harvest)                                                                                                                                                                       


CHOCOLATE
Insect Filth:  Average is 60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams when 6 100-gram subsamples are examined or Any 1 subsample contains 90 or more insect fragments

Rodent Filth:  
Average is 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams in 6 100-gram subsamples examined or Any 1 subsample contains 3 or more rodent hairs

(All of these are post-harvest or during processing)


PEANUT BUTTER
Insect Filth:  Average of 30 or more insect fragments per 100 grams

Rodent Filth:
 Average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams

                                                                   (All of these are Post-harvest or during processing)                                                                                                                         


POPCORN

Rodent Filth:   1 or more rodent excreta pellets are found in 1 or more subsamples, and 1 or more rodent hairs are found in 2 or more other subsamples

 
2 or more rodent hairs per pound and rodent hair is found in 50% or more of the subsamples

 
20 or more gnawed grains per pound and rodent hair is found in 50% or more  of the subsamples

(All of these are post-harvest or processing)


TOMATOES(Canned)
Drosophila fly:  Average of 10 or more fly eggs per 500 grams or 5 or more fly eggs and 1 or more maggots per 500 grams or 2 or more maggots per 500 grams.

(Pre and post harvest and processing)





















As we can see there may be a few more ingredients in some of your favorite food than you initially thought.  It's impossible to keep these types of bugs, filth and molds off our foods whether it's in the fields or in the giant factory as they are processed.  The FDA has set some standards to try and limit the amount of these products, but it's not perfect.  At one time or another you probably have eaten something with a trace amount of mold on it or with some type of filth within it's contents. As gross as it sounds it really is unavoidable even if you grow your own food, at some point a bug or rodent will have at least waltzed through the crops leaving droppings or hairs.  Cleaning the food will get the filth off, but the fact is it was once there.

If part one of this blog hasn't peeled your eyes open to the hideousness of what may lurk in your food then next week's will surely test your sanity. Perhaps you should not read it alone or at least in the dark, because you never know what's waiting in the shadows HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA !!!!!

"Revelations come when you're in the thick of it, pitting yourself up against something larger than yourself"  -Dracula (1979 film)

*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only.


Like Regenesis on Facebook
Regenesis LLC Homepage

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Nutrition Journey Part 3

Hello!

Well, the time has come.  After two previous posts, not to mention the bonus post this week, we are finally ready to put all the information together we've learned and look at an example of one product that I find is causing more problems for individuals then they may think.  I of course am talking about no calorie butter sprays.  I would like to talk about this for a particular reason.  A while back I had a client who was talking about their weight and how it seemed to stop decreasing, even thought they were sticking to a cleaner, calorie reduced diet.  I asked them what types of flavor enhancers they were using and this type of spray came up, but at the time I was not sure what these products consisted of.  After a little research and discovering that this person was literally pouring the spray out of the bottle like you would with ranch, I was able to help them understand that they were using many more calories then they imagined. They thought that zero calories meant zero calories, so innocently they poured away and thought nothing of the spray. They are the inspiration for these series of posts, because it dawned on me that many others may be falling into the same trap, so over the last few posts and at last here, hopefully we will be able to open your eyes to those loopholes I expressed in the first post.



Let us call this product "I can't believe it's not a real product".  First, Let's look at the ingredients.  Water is first, which mean it weighs the most out of the other ingredients, but may not make up the majority of the products volume, it is calorie free.  Liquid soybean oil and sweet cream buttermilk are next on the list.  We know that oils and buttermilk contain calories, many of which come from fats.  Just with a simple glance we already know there must be calories in the bottle somehow, we just need to determine an estimate of how many there could be.

Now, let's look at the serving sizes.  To make things easy we will use the "topping" size since it is at least a measurement we can grasp, 1 gram. That is about the equivalent of a paperclip, which is pretty light if you ask me.  From knowing this, we can estimate that 5 sprays produces a minuscule amount of this product, which is probably not enough to satisfy an individual for their topping desires, so many of us will probably add more and more sprays not realizing how many we are actually adding.  Also notice that in this 8 oz bottle the are 340 servings for the toppings or 340 grams.  If they are suggesting that there are 340 servings per bottle than you should be able keep this bottle for months before you had to buy a new one, that is unless those sizes are so small that you had to use multiple servings to equal a true portion.

By looking at the ingredients and serving sizes you should have already determined that, by using this product, you will be adding calories to your meal.  If you use just one serving it will be a very small amount of calories for sure, but it would be unlikely that most of us would only use 1 out of a possible 340 servings when you do use this product to enhance flavors.

Next, to get a better understanding of what's going on in this bottle, I did a little math to save time here.   There are 8 ounces in this bottle. According to this website, Butter Spray, there are 25 sprays in 1 teaspoon.
There are 1700 one serving sprays total so, 1700/25 gives us 68 teaspoons in this bottle.

In the same website they claim that 1 teaspoon contains 20 calories and 2g of fat.  68 teaspoons x 20 kcals would equal 1360 calories per bottle and 136 grams of fat.  These numbers are based purely off the information given on this bottle and website, I have heard others on a show with some big losers claim different numbers such as; 900 calories or 1100 calories, but again I'm using what was given to me, but we all can agree there are many calories in the bottle.  It seems there are calories in this no calorie spray after all.

Per serving size on this bottle, we see there are zero calories per serving, but we are now educated on this subject.  We know that companies can round numbers down when they are considered "insignificant".  We know that ingredients such as oils, milks and sugars all have calories, so when they are included into what makes a product, there must be calories somewhere in said product.  Even without the information from the site you we able to come up with that conclusion, but the evidence provided goes to show how big the loopholes are that companies can exploit to sell their products.  This is only one example, there are many brands of butter sprays out there and some may be more calories friendly then the next, but in the end there are calories in plain site.

I would like to end this series with a note that, I in no way am trying to demonize these, or any other products that use the "insignificant" rounding down rule.  I use butter sprays every now and then to add some flavor to my rice, but I understand that I am adding calories to my meal.  I also am not pouring it all over my food, I may use more than one serving, but I still use this in moderation.  There is nothing wrong with using a product such as this spray, if you use it sparingly and understand that the product dose in fact contain calories.  I only wished to use this particular product for the example because of my past experience with it and it's growing popularity.

I hope this series has helped you understand, not only that there may be calories in your calorie free product, but also taught you a few tips on what a serving size/ serving size per container is really trying to tell you.  Ingredients list can be a great way to help us understand what is actually in a product, but can also be a bit misleading as well, but with these posts, you now have the ability to recognize an ingredient and rationalize with the corresponding numbers on the label to determine if rounding down has occurred.  In the near future we will discuss other ingredient secrets and also the ideals behind serving sizes and portions and the use of moderation.

Thank you for being a part of this blog thus far. One person may have been the inspiration for these past posts, but it's people like you that wish to educate themselves and learn new topics that has inspired me to do this blog as a whole.  For that, I want to thank all of you!

"He began, like so many others, with disgust and rebuffs; but he has triumphed, for he has the genius of will"   -Captain Nemo, '20,000 leagues Under the Sea' (one of my favorite quotes of all time from a fantastic book)

*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only and the product is fictitious in nature.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Us On Facebook
Regenesis LLC Homepage

Monday, October 1, 2012

What is an Ingredient List?

Hello!

As I said in my previous post I planned on adding an additional blog this week, which I feel will not only offer some real insight to understanding some basic concepts of ingredient lists, but will further help us understand the concepts in the final post of this series   For today's post I would like to discuss a few pieces of information about the list of ingredients that appear on the container of food you are about to purchase.


I have created a mock ingredients list for a visual aid as we take a look at how to dissect the list.  This is a completely fake product, most of the ingredients I put here are for education purposes only because I don't think this collection of ingredients could be made into something tasty enough to sell as far as I can tell.

First, the government states that the ingredients list must be labeled in descending order, by weight.  Basically, whichever ingredient weighs the most in a product is going to be the first one listed and everything thing after, weighs less as the list trickles down.  Water is listed first on this list, which means it weighs the most out of all the other ingredients, however that dose not always mean it makes up the most volume of this product.  The next two ingredients may only weigh 1 gram less then the ingredient ahead of them, but could ultimately have more volume then the ingredient that has more weight.  Remember, weight and volume are not the same measurements as we discover in science class during the density lesson so it stands within reason that just because the first ingredient listed may weigh the most, dose not mean it makes up the most volume of the product.  I will say that for the most part, the first two or three ingredients listed generally make up the majority of a product, but I just wanted to point out that it may not always be the case.

Let's move down the list a little, knowing that if we are following a descending order concept, each ingredient following will weigh less and less. Third on the list is sugar, so we know it weighs less then it's two lead ingredients, but look further down the list. High fructose corn syrup or in other words, sugar.  Maltodextrin and dextrose also known as sugar. And guess what? Cane extract and corn syrup, yup you guessed it, sugar.  So what's the deal here?  Since the government makes companies list the ingredients by weight, many companies will fabricate the amount of a product, like sugar, by using very similar products to increase the total amount, but since they are separate ingredients, they each have their own measurements and now sugar can be spread across the list into smaller chunks, but if you add them together there may be more sugar than you think.  If I were a betting man I would say that with six of the ingredients being sugar based, that this product contains more sugar than any other ingredient, even though water is listed first because it is only used once and weighs the most, but we can see that it may not make up the majority of the product.

Whats with the "contains 2% or less" section?  This is a common question I see and it really has a lot of similarities as the last post on rounding down numbers. Basically, anything that makes up 2% or less of that product gets tossed into this category, which by the way is the only section of the list not regulated by the descending order principle, because it's very similar to the "insignificant amount" concept with those macro nutrients we discussed before.  Generally speaking, most of the products listed here are usually very small amounts as their title suggests, but by law they could be as high as 2% each, so with nine items in this group legally 18% of this product could be made up with these insignificant ingredients.  Again, I tend to find many of these products that get labeled here to be very small amounts, but I have seen products with as many as 25 ingredients in this category, which in my professional opinion is nothing more than filler for a company to pad their product's size or weight. Then again, should five different artificial sweeteners find their way onto the "2%" list, then you might be ingesting more sugar than you thought. This section generally contains;  preservatives, flavoring, conditioners and minimal seasonings, but again many companies can pad their product by adding in 1% of an ingredient  20 times over, thus making a 3 ounce product turn into a 4 ounce product with no real addition nutritional gain.

In conclusion, we now understand that the order of the ingredients list is based on weight, not volume of a product.  So the next time you read an ingredient list, know that the first product may generally be the majority of what makes up said product, but it may not always be the case.  We also know that there is more than meets the eye when it comes to how much of an ingredient is actually in something, like sugar, based on the loophole of multiple ingredient listings. I will be posting another bonus blog shortly after the finale of this series that will discuss other ingredients such as; preservatives  aliases for a product (like we saw with sugars) names and descriptions of ingredients that are actually something totally different than you may think  and other interesting information such as contaminants or when a product is not actually what is claims to be (ever had fruit snacks that contain no actual fruit?).

I generally tell people to pay attention to the first 3 maybe 4 ingredients on a list, which is a good starting point when analyzing an ingredients list, because it will most likely be what that product is mostly comprised of. Eventually you will know some of the other names for ingredients and begin to thoroughly inspect the amount of "additional" ingredients and formulate a conclusion that one product may be a better choice than the next, but for starters the first three is a great starting point added with the other information we've picked up in the previous and forth coming blogs.  Below are two links describing in detail the rules and regulations of ingredient listing.  If you scroll through them you will see there are many many rules and generally, the more regulations, the more potential loopholes can exist.

FDA Ingredient Listing
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations

Stay tuned for more!

"Excellence dose not require perfection"- Henry James
*I am not a registered nutritionist or dietitian. The information presented is for education purposes only and the product is fictitious in nature.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like Regenesis on Facebook
Regenesis LLC Homepage