Oreo turns 100 but you won't.

The Oreo Cookie turns 100 today. How many Oreo Cookies do you think you have eaten in your life. I probably haven't had as many as the average because my parents hardly ever bought them and I have only bought them a few times myself. I prefer chocolate chip cookies. But not that that's any better for me. Lately I have been making a homemade healthier chocolate chip cookie that my friends son seems to be totally in love with. He won't eat much but loves those cookies.

So many of us are COOKIE MONSTERS because our mom's gave us cookies when we were kids to make us happy or quiet depending on what was going on. I wonder how many less cookies kids would have eaten if these moms knew what was in those harmless looking little tasty cookies. So I wondered since the Oreo Cookie turns 100 today what is in these things. The Oreo Cookie may be 100 years old but I bet that eating them won't get you to 100 years old.

I looked up the nutritional facts from the Nabisco site and noticed that one of the Ingredients listed was HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP. This is one of the Ingredients that needs to change in baked goods because it causes so much damage to us and is a contributor to obesity in kids and adults.
I also looked up the definition of High Fructose corn syrup on Wikipedia. Have a look at what this stuff is and then decide if you want to chomp down on a package of Oreo Cookies. Be informed and take charge of what you are putting into your body. Kids shouldn't grow up fat they should have the best health they can possibly have to give them the best chances for a happy life.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)—also called glucose-fructose syrup[1][2] in the UK, glucose/fructose[3] in Canada, and high-fructose maize syrup in other countries—comprises any of a group of corn syrups that has undergone enzymatic processing to convert some of its glucose into fructose to produce a desired sweetness. In the United States, consumer foods and products typically use high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener. It has become very common in processed foods and beverages in the U.S., including breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments.[4]
According to the USDA, HFCS consists of 24% water, and the rest sugars. The most widely used varieties of high-fructose corn syrup are: HFCS 55 (mostly used in soft drinks), approximately 55% fructose and 42% glucose; and HFCS 42 (used in beverages, processed foods, cereals and baked goods), approximately 42% fructose and 53% glucose.[5][6] HFCS-90, approximately 90% fructose and 10% glucose, is used in small quantities for specialty applications, but primarily is used to blend with HFCS 42 to make HFCS 55.[7]
In the U.S., HFCS is among the sweeteners that have primarily replaced sucrose (table sugar) in the food industry. Factors for this include governmental production quotas of domestic sugar, subsidies of U.S. corn, and an import tariff on foreign sugar; all of which combine to raise the price of sucrose to levels above those of the rest of the world, making HFCS less costly for many sweetener applications. Critics of the extensive use of HFCS in food sweetening argue that the highly processed substance is more harmful to humans than regular sugar, contributing to weight gain by affecting normal appetite functions[8] , and that in some foods HFCS may be a source of mercury, a known neurotoxin.[9][10] The Corn Refiners Association disputes these claims and maintains that HFCS is comparable to table sugar.[11] Studies by the American Medical Association suggest "it appears unlikely that HFCS contributes more to obesity or other conditions than sucrose", but welcome further independent research on the subject.[12] Further reviews in the clinical literature have disputed the links between HFCS and obesity,[13] diabetes,[14] and metabolic syndrome,[13] and concluded that HFCS is no different from any other sugar in relationship to these diseases.[dubious – discuss] HFCS has been classified generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1976.[15]
However, consumers in the United States no longer have access to accurate ingredient labels that establish the presence of High Fructose Corn Syrup in food products. Manufacturers are permitted to label High Fructose Corn Syrup, as "Corn Syrup" in the ingredient listing of the product packaging. [16]

Dr. Oz comes to town

While I am generally not a big fan of a lot of doctors or hospitals after working in a hospital for 14 years and seeing my parents either die in a hospital or die because of a hospital but when I heard Dr. Oz was coming to Toronto to give a talk I got excited. Dr. Oz I believe is the exception to a lot of medical doctors because he treats the whole patient with healing practices not only found in western medicine but from practices that have worked around the world for centuries.

Dr. Oz knows how to talk to people... as in YOU and focuses on getting information to the heart of the matter since he is a heart surgeon he understands the fact that the head and the heart are connected when it comes to health.

He talked about how important it was to manage your blood pressure and to manage not just your weight but the circumference of your waist and it was important to feed your body less white stuff.. white rice, white flour, dairy, sugar etc. All things some of us know but he connects it to the why and what happens on the body... Basically it turns to fat stores which is where the problem comes in.

The big factors on health are obvious but we don't always do what we know we should do as I have said before myself, I know what I should eat but carb cravings take over and override it all. You know you have to give up smoking and avoid toxins in the environment including processed food and all the additives in things like pop and saturated fats etc. We know we need more sleep and better sleep and we also know that we need to reduce stress and exercise. But every once in a while you need Dr. OZ to show you some graphic pictures as to what will happen if you don't do these things. He is the great motivator to kick start a whole lot of people to think about her health.

I would recommend watching his show and have fun learning a thing or 2 and tips on what YOU can do to better your health. Even if you only make one change in your life that's one more than you did before.

If you ever get a chance to go see him in person DO IT. He will inspire you to do good things.

Eat better foods, take the proper supplements to boost the benefits of your foods and try and put your body into balance so that you can be healthy into your golden years. Think of the Golden Girl herself Betty White. Wouldn't you like to be a whitty old doll like her when you are her age? I am not even there now but wish I was.

Sante - to your health.

What's in your Burger/fries?

Do you love your Happy Meals? Your McD's Burger/Fries? Are you a fast food junkie? Well I admit that when I am lazy or just craving a burger and fries it's really easy for me to walk across the street and grab a burger and fries from your well known fast food chain. I always feel guilty now after having seen Super Size Me and know it's bad for me but sometimes can't resist because it is quick, tasty and relatively cheap. But we all know it's bad for us but this video is shocking at how bad it really is.

Food is meant to decompose as are we. If it doesn't decompose it doesn't leave your body. Think of your body as a garbage bag. If you keep stuffing food and packaging in it and tie it up but keep stuffing it, it will just get bigger and stretch out more but if you poke a hole in the bag it will all come out but think about any liquid in the bag, that will be the first thing to come out of the bag. If your food doesn't decompose it can't liquify which means it's never going to leave your body. When they say "You are what you eat" it really becomes true when you eat a Big Mac because it will be in you forever it seems.

I find it really scary when I think about what I am eating these days because I never really trust any food anymore because the food industry seems to place an importance on profits over health so who knows if your food is GMO'd to death or if it has hormones, preservatives or any other toxic substances added to it.

I recently visited a family that grows all of their food or only buys from local markets and knows the farmers they buy from. They buy only certified organic meats from local vendors. They basically don't have to shop in a typical grocery store anymore. They are lean and fit and energetic and part of the reason's they do it is because of the health of the food that is sold and also the waste of all the packaging.

While they live in a house and the wife only works part time so she puts a lot of effort into cooking and maintaining the garden so this isn't an option for most of us. It's not an option for me since I live by myself and in an apartment so I can't exactly grow an abundance of food on my balcony but I will attempt to grow some herbs and whatever else I can grow on the balcony in the spring.

So what's the answer to this? It keeps coming back to knowing where your food comes from and buying local and if you can buy from people you know so they can be accountable for what they are producing and distributing. You don't know where the food comes from for the fast food outlets or how it was manufactured so you never know what you are really eating.

This stuff is as scary as war. It contributes to the war on obesity that we are battling in the First World.

I suppose the best way to make a change is to learn from this information and make change through consumerism and don't buy products like this but support your local farmer. Either the fast food chains will have to change or they will go out of business. Money talks, and that's the reason they add all the preservatives so they have long shelf lives guaranteeing them no spoilage losses. That's why organic food doesn't last as long. I know I get frustrated when I toss out organic food when it goes bad because I haven't eaten it but I also know that it's a 100% better for me and the environment when I buy it. I just need to buy less and find ways to use it all. It's an adjustment I need to make and one we need to make in the World. I myself know I need to waste less food so that there will be food in the world for everyone for years to come. We shouldn't need things like food banks, we shouldn't need to have so many people on medications because of complications from eating a poor diet. A poor diet.... if you think about it a poor diet is pretty accurate because it's generally the poor who eat a lot of fast foods or convenience foods because they are fast and cheap and they are the ones that need better food the most to sustain themselves. If you look at the poorest people in the western world I bet they are also the fattest. They are not overeating they are just eating things that are killing them. I could go on forever on this subject because there are many layers to the domino affect of the fast food industry.

My suggestion is to watch documentaries like these:

Forks over Knives
Super Size Me
Food Matters
No Impact Man
Food Inc.

Get Smart, Go Local, Think Global.

Change comes in baby steps... start with taking harmful foods out of your regular meals and keep going...you will get to your destination faster than you think.

If you know better why don't you do better?

I know better so why can't I do better? In the case of eating healthy I know I should eat more vegetable based foods and eliminate processed foods....BUT I can't seem to stick to it and don't know how I can override my right and left brains.

I just watched the Documentary "Forks over Knives" that is all about the benefits of switching to a Whole Food Plant Based Diet to reverse diseases. It makes perfect sense so why aren't we all doing it? That's the question I keep asking myself. Why can't I do it? I worked in a hospital for 14 years of my life while not directly as a medical practitioner but as an observer and saw that the medical profession had it's limitations and that Doctors weren't interested in alternative medicines or other approaches to heal their patients. My father died at 65 of Cancer and had a history of Heart Disease. He didn't know better and loved meat and dairy and smoked cigarettes while having minimal exercise. But when you are in your 60's it's hard to reverse everything you have ever done in your life. The doctors told him to quit smoking and I am sure told him to exercise and eat healthier foods even though at the time I don't think all of the advice that doctors were giving were 100% helpful. My father didn't eat at McDonald's but liked meat pies and corned beef and bacon and eggs and so I suppose his diet and life stress levels caught up with him. My mother passed away this past year and she also had heart disease in her late 60's and was told to exercise and change her diet. The one thing that probably helped her the most was that she quit smoking after my mother died and didn't eat any fast foods but she had a preference for sweets and would bake occasionally. The also preferred a dinner consisting of meat and some sort of starch be it potatoes or pasta and sometimes other vegetables. She was raised in Belgium so she had a wide range of vegetables that she liked but not all were prepared healthily. One of my favourite vegetables that she made was Cauliflower au Gratin. I still love it but realize that the Au Gratin part kills all the health properties of the Cauliflower but it makes it taste so good that I can't resist.

Is that it? We can't resist foods that taste so good that we can't eat less high fat, high sugar, high sodium substitutes? FAT and SUGAR together make a kind of Golden Feeling in the Brain that nothing comes close to except drugs. Have we all become drug addicts to food?

I spent a year and a half on Weight Watcher's in the 90's and lost 40 pounds only to gain it all back when I stopped the diet plan. Why is it so hard to stick to things we know are good for us?

What I have been thinking lately since I am not working in an office full time is that we are influenced by what we see, smell and remember. Interestingly enough when I worked in the Hospital patients would bring in all sorts of sweets as gifts for the doctors in the hospital which they would share with their staff. During the holidays the office became a smorgasbord of all sorts of high fat and calorie sweets that called our names while we tried to focus on getting our work done.

With the consistent bombardment of television advertising, billboard adds, radio commercials and even in store food demonstrations enticing us to "Try this great new product" it will change you life or you will love it if you try it. So myself and many others are curious or lack will power and try the things we are pushing. Is it all our fault or is it the marketers that are preying on us? Or is it the government subsidizing meat and dairy farmers and trying to build consumer loyalty to these products? All I know is that when I smell bread or something sweet I have to have some. Once again I know better but can't seem to stay away for too long.

This brings me to New Year's resolutions to lose weight. I make them every year as do a majority of people that pack on the pounds over the holidays after everyone we see encourages us to eat a whole lot more of the things that aren't good for us. We feel tired and fat and bad about ourselves as the media machine starts to ramp up the weight loss programs and fitness centres to convince us that they will fix our problem. Studies show that mid way through January people start easing off going to the gym and start to give up on that so called miracle diet. Why do we keep repeating this cycle every year? Why can't we stay consistent and change the things we want to change? MARKETING...could go a long way.... what if we saw adds for Kale that looked like FOOD Porn. Would we run out and buy Kale? Why don't we see those kind of ADS? Kale is one of the healthiest foods you can eat but it's not sexy so people don't want it. It doesn't melt in your mouth and make you drool over it. You can make Kale chips which are tasty but still don't have the immediate satisfaction of eating potato chips. That's unfortunate because if all we did was substitute oven baked Kale chips for potato chips for a year I bet that would have a huge health benefit.

Why don't we have vending machines in school that sell Kale chips in a bag instead of Potato Chips? Why don't we have Vegan products in schools if that's the healthiest food for us to eat? Don't we want our kids to be healthy and have the best chance in life?

My mother didn't know anything about nutrition and would just say "Eat your Meat" or "Eat your Vegetables". She didn't know about food pyramids and Vegan or Whole Food or Organic diets. She just went to the store and bought some meat, bread and vegetables and tried to prepare them in different ways.

Is it because we are too busy or can't be bothered? I admit that when I am starving and have things to do the last thing I want to do is wait a couple of hours to prep and cook something and this is when I break down and turn to the convenient have it in 5 minutes fast food.

I have always thought that a smart person would find a way to make healthy fast food and would make a fortune if it tasted good too. Drive up at a drive thru and order a side of Kale Chips with you Quinoa burger. Why not? Why hasn't anyone done this yet?

I would do it but for 1. I don't have the money to start it up. 2. I know that the marketing of a concept like this would cost more than the start up costs.

So this is my message to all the Rich people out there that are looking for something good to do with their money. Invest in FOOD.. Invest in healthier food for kids in schools. Invest in businesses that focus on delivering healthy food to busy parents and busy executives. If we had a healthy drive thru for every McDonald's drive thru imagine what the choice could do to change the Obesity rates in North America. I am sure people would get sick of burgers everyday and if they had an option of getting a Whole Food plant based meal that tasted good and was quick and affordable I bet they would choose that at least once a week if not more.

If I won the lottery tomorrow I would do this. If there is a smart entrepreneur with lots of cash out there this is what you can do to change the world.

But in the meantime I would suggest you watch documentaries like "Forks over Knives" or "Food Matters" or "Food Inc" to educate yourself on the power of food.

I am still a work in progress. I know better and am working on doing better. I hope you can too.

for more info on "Forks over Knives" check out their website: http://www.forksoverknives.com