5 Fake Foods Your Family Should Avoid

Kid’s meals, junk food, candies, cookies, chips, lollipops, burgers, pizza…food that is destroying our children’s health. Food that lacks nutrients. Children are overeating a diet filled with the “fake food”, food filled with sugar, additives, artificial colors and foods packed with chemicals.

Today there are an estimated 10,000 chemicals we commonly use in our food, where in 1958 there were around 800 chemicals. Children’s brains and bodies are made from food. Our children are at a critical phase in neurodevelopment, with lots of hormones, structural, behaviors, molecular connections, so children, specifically adolescents are vulnerable to stressors that lead to behavioral changes. When our children’s bodies and their brains are not getting the nutrients, they need from real food to function, how do we expect them to work properly? When we put junk food in our children, we are only going to get out junk behaviors, junk bodies and junk brains. Our children are eating the wrong food, not eating enough of the right foods and overeating.

What is the difference between a child with a chronic condition and a child without a chronic condition? The environment. The biggest connection between our children’s insides and their outsides is their gut/digestive tract. Science shows that the gut encompasses our total health. The majority of our children’s immune system (70-80%) and 100 trillion microbes (that dictate their health, their decisions and even effect their genes) are in their gut.

In the first part of the 20th century, chemically altered food substances replaced real food with fake food. Our children’s diets lack diversity and lacks real food. The overconsumption of fake food, and not eating enough of the real foods has led to an epidemic of hormonal abnormalities, gut disturbances, immune and metabolic dysregulation, leading to kids that are overfed and undernourished.

A poll conducted by the C. S Mott Children’s Hospital Michigan Medicine, in 2016, 97% of parents reported that eating habits during childhood have a lifelong impact on their child’s health, but only 17% rated their own children’s diet as very healthy. At least 1000 of these current food additives have never been reviewed for the safety of the FDA. It’s not just what our kids are eating, it’s also what they aren’t eating. The CDC reported that 9/10 children didn’t eat enough vegetables in 2007-2010.

Junk food damages the gut flora, intestinal inflammation, leaky gut, obesity and chronic illnesses. These artificial ingredients we feed our children can actually contribute to allergies, motor skill issues, hyperactivity, and even cancer. Junk food shapes adolescent’s brains in ways they impair their ability to think, learn, remember, perform lower on memory tests, even control impulsive behaviors, increasing risk of teenage depression and anxiety.

A study published in the Lancet, estimated there was 11 million children between the ages of 5-19 with obesity and the number increased to 124 million in 2016! Our junk food, over processed, industrialized, westernized global diet is responsible for taking the lives of eleven million people every year, and an estimated 2.1 billion adults are overweight, while 820 million people are globally undernourished.

Bad and fake foods, destroys the balance of our gut microbiome, leads to inflammation, imbalances our hormones and threaten our children’s prefrontal cortex and hamper their ability to function optimally, creating bad behavior and impairing intellectual development.

Remember, food is the single most powerful tool that impacts our brains, bodies and our children’s behaviors.

Five Fake Foods Your Family Should Avoid  

• Food Additives:
  Additives are everywhere, and put into foods to extend shelf life. The Food and Drug Administration defines a food additive legally, refers to “any substance the intended use of which results or may reasonably be expected to result — directly or indirectly — in its becoming a component or otherwise affecting the characteristics of any food.” They cause uncontrollable hunger, binge eating and extends the shelf life. Calcium propionate, found in all commercial bread, produces a neurotoxin, affects the microbiome that causes autism and ADHD and sleep disturbances in children. Emulsifiers like polysorbate-80 or lecithin are commonly found in vitamins, chewing gum, and ice cream are all linked to autoimmunity295. Potassium bromate is linked to various cancers, and not allowed in the UK, Canada or the EU. Propyl gallate is used in food with animal fats, believed to be an endocrine disruptor, maybe carcinogenic. Carrageenan causes leaky gut, inflammation and possible human carcinogen. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a common food additive with a long list of potential side effects including being a neurotoxin to kill brain cells, causes headaches, allergies and damages their gut. MSG Increases food cravings and food irresistibility. Other names of MSG are yeast extract, glutamate, caseinate, natural flavour, autolyzed protein, hydrolysed yeast, disodium 5-inosinate and disodium 5-guanylate. There are over 10,000 food additives that the FDA has approved!
• Food Preservatives:
  Food preservatives are a variety of compounds, natural or synthetic, that can help to slow or prevent bacterial growth. Examples include butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) that affect the signalling from our gut to our brain that tells us to stop eating and has caused cancer in animal tests. Butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) listed by California as a carcinogen. Nitrates and nitrites are preservatives in processed meats and has been labelled as a “probable” carcinogenic according to the WHO. Sodium phosphate is a preservative that accumulates and leads to increase risks of heart disease, accelerated aging and kidney disease and mortality.   Propylparaben (E216) or Methylparaben are synthetic preservatives that are linked to breast cancer and reproductive problems.  Sodium benzoate (E211) or potassium benzoate (E212) are synthetic preservatives when combined with vitamin C, produce benzene a known carcinogen. Tert-butylhydroquinone (TBHQ) is a synthetic preservative linked to behavior problems, stomach cancer, liver enlargement, vision issues and negatively effects T cells promoting allergies. Other preservatives are sulphites, parabens and formaldehyde.
• Artificial Sweeteners.
  Artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose are synthetic chemicals, causing hunger (leading to leptin resistance, which prevents you from knowing when you’re full), gas, bloating and have detrimental effects on gut bacteria. They act as an excitotoxin, which damages neurons in the brain, leading neurological effects like headaches and migraines, alter frontal lobe activity, lower the amount of serotonin, increasing anxiety, sleep issues, can contribute to CVD, and Type-2 DM, causes allergic reactions, altering the gut microbiome, insulin resistance, inflammation, cancer, decreasing nutrient absorption, weight gain, worsening the obesity epidemic.
• Artificial Colors.
  Artificial colorings are associated with everything from cancer to hyperactivity in children. Blue #1-worst artificial color, linked to hyperactivity and risk of kidney tumors, some research suggests it is a potential neurotoxin, red #3 is an animal carcinogen, Red #1 can lead to liver cancer, red #40 can lead to hyperactivity in children and is accelerated the appearance of tumors. Yellow #5 and yellow #6- hyperactivity in children, found to be contaminated by carcinogens like benzidine . Yellow dyes are xenoestrogens which disrupt children’s hormones, carmel color, found in everything from supplements to soda is a brown food coloring linked to cancer. Green #1 can lead to liver cancer. Orange #1 and 2 can lead to organ damage. Isn’t that crazy!!! So a lollipop is basically cancer on a stick…and then we wonder why our children are getting sick.
• High Fructose Corn Syrup.
  High Fructose Corn Syrup, a heavily processed sweetener derived from GMO cornstarch.
  This has been shown to be associated with insulin resistance, hypertension, and impaired glucose tolerance. A diet full of processed sugar leads to inflammation and is responsible for the obesity, cancer, fatty liver, high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, and dementia epidemic, leading to premature death.

Get the picture? Isn’t this crazy! This is what we are giving kids for treats, for snacks, for breakfast, lunch and dinner…and then we wonder why we are getting sick! We need to avoid anything that says artificial, flavors, spices or even natural (it may be extracted from chemicals that aren’t listed). These food companies are no longer food companies, they are actually chemical companies, who engineer foods in their labs with engineered substances in the chemistry lab, with unpronounceable names. Food companies are adding in addictive and toxic substances, calling them food, getting our families hooked and enslaved. Time to get back control of your family’s health and money, but saying NO to these five fake foods!

Follow my family and I on social media and listen to The Holistic Kids’ Show Podcast to learn more!

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