Foods to Avoid
Real Food vs. Fake Food
The easiest way to separate junk food from real food is to avoid foods containing artificial additives. Foods to avoid include anything with the following ingredients:
- High fructose corn syrup
- Hydrogenated oils
- Numbers (e.g., Red #40)
- Monosodium glutamate
- Aspartame
If you avoid foods containing these foolish five, you’re already about 90% pure. Not only are these additives harmful to your family’s health, they are guilty by association. As a general rule, if a packaged food contains any of these chemicals, the rest of the ingredients are nutritionally suspect.
Kids like label games. Play “I Spy” and look for the bad words on the label. Keep junk foods with these bad words out of your house. Out of sight is out of mind – and tummy!
As a mother of three boys, I feel like I fight a daily war against junk food. I have found my daily battles are much easier if I keep junk food out of my home. It’s much more difficult to have a temper tantrum over something that is not there to begin with.
When bad words on food labels bother you, you are ready to prepare your family.
Real Foods
- Fill without being fattening. Real foods have a built-in perk called a high satiety factor, which means they fill you up with fewer calories. Portion control is built in. You don’t have to be the food police. Within reason, you can let your children eat as much as they want and as often as they want.
- Satisfy hunger more. Because of the built-in satiety factor, real foods keep the child satisfied longer.
- Balance blood sugar. The brain behaves best when the blood sugar is steady.
- Keep you healthy. They phytonutrients in real foods boost the immune system and help your growing child muster up his own internal medicine.
- Make you smart. Green Light Foods help the brain grow and function optimally. Real foods are smart foods.
- Cost less. Healthier children get sick less often, meaning fewer doctor bills.
- Help you live longer and healthier. Your grandchildren will thank you!
Fake Foods
- Fatten without being filling. Fake foods have a low satiety factor, which means you need to overeat to feel satisfied. Fake foods require you to preach portion control, which takes the fun out of eating and invites rebellion.
- Satisfy hunger less. Children get hungrier sooner, especially when eating high-carb foods.
- Put blood sugar out of balance. Remember, the brain behaves worse when the blood sugar is erratic.
- Make you sick. Fake foods weaken the immune system.
- Make you less smart. Fake foods can keep the developing brain from reaching its fullest potential. Fake foods are dumb foods.
- Cost more. Sicker children means you spend more on doctors.
- Cause more diseases and an earlier death. Your grandchildren will miss you.