CHAPTER 6 WEEK 3—FEATS OF A REAL FOOD BABE

FIRST OF ALL, CONGRATULATIONS on completing Week 2. I’m proud of you—and you should certainly be proud of yourself. I’m sure you’re feeling lighter and more energetic, and I bet the scales show a nice drop in pounds. You’re probably thinking more clearly and feeling more creative, too. Booting chemicals from your body protects your brain and mental functioning. Eating more organic foods, having less meat and dairy, and forming all the Week 2 habits are changing your health for the better.

In Week 3, I’m going to make a real Food Babe (or Food Guy) out of you. You’ve formed some amazing habits already; now you’re ready to graduate to what I call Food Babe Feats. These are lifestyle habits that will complete your transformation.

Let’s go!

Day 15—Know Thy GMOs!

WHEN I FOUND OUT that more than 70 percent of processed foods contained either corn or soy, I couldn’t believe it. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand that eating too much of one type of food, to the exclusion of others, is not exactly healthy.

This trend in processed foods led me into a disturbing series of investigations. I began to read about a biotech company named Monsanto, notorious for developing Agent Orange and other controversial chemicals.

In 1996, Monsanto obtained a patent for a type of corn seed that is injected with genes drawn from bacteria to create a pesticide called Bt toxin within the corn. When insects eat this corn, their stomachs explode and they die.

When I found out about this, I was horrified. What was this type of genetically modified corn doing to us? Was it truly safe? Had anyone tested this new technology on humans yet?

The government has allowed the introduction of GMOs into the food supply without any required safety assessments. According to Consumer Reports, the “FDA, which regulates food safety, does not require any safety assessment of the GE crops, but invites companies to provide data for a voluntary safety review. This is in contrast to other major economies such as the European Union, Australia, Japan, and China, which all require that a premarket mandatory safety assessment of GE crops is conducted.” Monsanto and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) both say GMOs are safe. They swear that Bt toxin hurts insects only and that it is neutralized in the human digestive system.

Research has proved otherwise. In one study, published in the journal Reproductive Toxicology in 2011, researchers at Sherbrooke University Hospital in Quebec found Bt toxin in the blood of pregnant women, and their fetuses, as well as in nonpregnant women. Another study, by the University of Caen, France, published in 2013 in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, found that Bt toxin showed toxic effects on human kidney cells.

Bottom line: It looks like Bt toxin can indeed be absorbed by humans, and that it may cause serious side effects.

Today, let’s get serious about this whole GMO issue. Learn to identify GMO foods and get them out of your diet for good.

OMG: WHAT ARE GMOs?

A genetically modified organism (GMO) is a plant or an animal that has had DNA genes from another organism artificially forced into its own DNA. These foreign genes are extracted from bacteria, viruses, insects, and animals.

This kind of genetic modification does not use traditional crossbreeding techniques like hybridization. Hybrids are developed in the field using natural, low-tech methods. Genetically engineered crops are created in a laboratory using highly complex technology, such as gene splicing. These high-tech genetically engineered crops can include genes from several species—a phenomenon that almost never occurs in nature. The goal of mixing genes of different species is to create greater crop yields and increase pest resistance. With little understanding of how these alterations might adversely affect our health or the environment, the Big Ag industry has plowed ahead quickly in introducing these foods to the public. Today, 70 percent of all processed foods contain at least one GMO ingredient.

GMOs AND YOUR HEALTH

To date, there have been no long-term independent studies on the safety of GMO exposure to humans. “Long-term” and “independent” are the operative words here. Most GMO safety research has been funded by the very biotech companies that create GMOs. Independently funded studies are nearly impossible to conduct because researchers can’t get their hands on proprietary GMO seeds, which companies claim are patent-protected. Scientific reviews have compared funding sources to study results, and they’ve found that when an industry funds its own research, it is sure to be positive.

We’ve learned quite a bit from this research, however. Studies in which animals were fed genetically modified corn have shown that GMOs cause a slew of liver disorders (for example, atrophied livers and altered liver cells) and several reproductive problems (infant mortality, altered sperm cells, infertility).

Clearly, we need more thorough research. Due to the careless injection of GMOs into the US food supply, the real test is being conducted on the millions of Americans who are consuming GMOs on a daily basis. As put by Gary Hirshberg, chairman of Just Label It: “An unprecedented agricultural experiment is being conducted at America’s dinner tables.”

A GMO BY ANY OTHER NAME…

You may hear GMOs referred to as genetically modified organisms or genetically engineered (GE) foods, and these terms mean essentially the same thing. The technology used to create GMOs may be called biotechnology, gene technology, or recombinant DNA technology.

Although we may not know enough about the long-term health effects of GMOs, we do know something about the toxicity of pesticides sprayed on GMO crops. For years, Monsanto has sold its flagship product, a weed killer known as Roundup, to farmers and consumers around the world. Roundup is used to selectively kill weeds while allowing genetically modified versions of sugarcane, corn, soy, and wheat crops to thrive.

The dominant ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate, which I mentioned in Chapter 2. Glyphosate is one scary chemical if it finds its way into the body. According to an article published in the May 2014 issue of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, scientists have linked exposure to glyphosate to gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, and cancer.

Glyphosate is an endocrine disruptor. Endocrine disruptors mimic or block the action of natural hormones and wreak havoc with the body’s endocrine system, a network of glands that includes the pituitary gland, adrenal glands, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, ovaries, and testes. These glands release hormones into our bloodstream to regulate many of our body’s most important functions, including growth and development, reproduction, maintenance of healthy weight, maintenance of mood, and organ performance. When you ingest chemical endocrine disruptors, you are in essence altering your body’s chemistry.

One of the most damaging effects of glyphosate is that it stimulates overproduction of estrogen. This in turn can fuel the growth of estrogen-dependent breast cancer—a fact uncovered by a groundbreaking study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology in 2013. These researchers found that the risk of breast cancer was even greater in those exposed to glyphosate who supplemented their diet with soybeans (also known to stimulate estrogen).

Careless use of Roundup has caused a major health crisis in Argentina, where GMOs are big business. People in nearby farming communities have cancer rates up to four times higher than the national average. Monsanto, the manufacturer, blames the way the pesticides are being used: “If pesticides are being misused in Argentina, then it is in everyone’s best interests—the public, the government, farmers, industry, and Monsanto—that the misuse be stopped.”

A 2014 study led by scientists from the Arctic University of Norway detected “extreme levels” of Roundup in GMO soy. The study, published in Food Chemistry, analyzed thirty-one different soybean plants grown on Iowa farms and compared the accumulation of pesticides and herbicides on plants in three categories: (1) genetically engineered “Roundup Ready” soy, (2) conventionally produced (not GE) soy, and (3) soy cultivated using organic practices. The scientists found high levels of Roundup on 70 percent of genetically engineered soy plants.

One of the problems contributing to these extreme levels is that superweeds that are resistant to Roundup have evolved. In response, farmers spray even more Roundup on crops to try to kill these defiant weeds, and so more chemicals are infiltrating our food supply. So every time you eat GMO soy, you’re probably taking a dose of Roundup with it.

Farmers are using other poisons, too, such as 2,4-D, which the US military used in Agent Orange to defoliate jungles during the Vietnam War. Dow Chemical Company has just received USDA approval for new 2,4-D-resistant GMO corn and soybean seeds, which compounds the problem.

Farming communities are coming to grips with these devastating problems. Many farmers are returning to planting non-GMO crops, yet they are continuing to spray with higher-risk herbicides to combat the superweeds. This means more chemical herbicide residues are ending up in the food you eat and poisoning our environment.

Big Ag wants us to believe that there is no difference between GMO and conventional crops, but that’s BS. John Roulac, cochair of GMO Inside and founder and CEO of Nutiva, said, “One way [some] pesticide makers deceive regulators is by doing toxicity tests with just one ingredient found in their toxic concoctions. Yet in real life Americans and people across the world are subjected to hundreds of pesticides and synthetic chemicals which together increase the toxic load by a factor of ten times or more in one’s immune system. How much Roundup do you want in your drinking water or in your blood? Or in expectant mothers’ breast milk? Every time you buy food you choose to answer both vital questions.”

THE HIDDEN TRUTH

What we sorely need are laws requiring clear labeling of foods with GMO ingredients. Currently, sixty-four countries regulate their GMO food, but the United States does not. Why?

Recent polling shows that Americans overwhelmingly support a labeling law, with upward of 90 percent demanding labels. Although two states have enacted GMO labeling laws, they have a trigger clause that prevents them from going into effect until four neighboring states enact similar laws.

GMO industry lobbyists have been caught red-handed using deceptive scare tactics to pressure states into not enacting labeling laws, calling such laws unconstitutional. The Organic Consumers Association obtained a leaked document written by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) that explicitly threatens to sue the first state that enacts a labeling law. And this is exactly what happened in Vermont, after the citizens passed a GMO labeling law. Big Food backed by the GMA is currently suing the state.

Meanwhile, the Washington, DC, law firm Emord & Associates has concluded that such a law is constitutional and is well within our rights. Labeling initiatives in California and Washington were narrowly defeated, after the food industry and biotech companies (which develop GMOs and pesticides) spent almost $70 million on antilabeling propaganda. To add insult to injury, the GMA is currently attempting to push through a bill that will prevent other states from enacting GMO labeling laws. This is clearly not what Americans want.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

Until some serious long-term research is conducted, I recommend going as GMO-free as possible, and I’m here to show you how.

LOOK OUT FOR HIGH-RISK INGREDIENTS AND FOODS

A quick scan of the ingredient label will tell you if a product contains any high-risk ingredients.

GMO crops currently being developed are soy, corn, cotton, canola, sugar beets, zucchini, yellow squash, Hawaiian papaya, and alfalfa. So, for instance, look for corn syrup, soybean oil, and canola oil on the label.

Become familiar with some of the names of ingredients and additives that are not so obvious, such as glucose derived from corn. Here is a list of common ingredients to use as a reference.

Food Babe Alert: List of Possible GMO Ingredients

Aspartame

Baking powder

Canola oil

Caramel color

Cellulose

Citric acid

Cobalamin (vitamin B12)

Colorose

Condensed milk

Confectioners’ sugar

Corn flour

Corn masa

Cornmeal

Corn oil

Cornstarch

Corn sugar

Cottonseed oil

Cyclodextrin

Dextrin

Dextrose

Diacetyl

Diglyceride

Equal

Erythritol

Food starch

Fructose

Glucose

Glutamate

Glutamic acid

Glycerides

Glycerin

Glycerol

Glycerol monooleate

Glycine

Hemicellulose

High-fructose corn syrup

Hydrogenated starch

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein

Inositol

Inverse syrup

Inversol

Invert sugar

Isoflavones

Lactic acid

Lecithin

Leucine

Lysine

Malitol

Malt

Malt extract

Maltodextrin

Maltose

Malt syrup

Mannitol

Methylcellulose

Milk powder

Milo starch

Modified food starch

Modified starch

Mono- and diglycerides

MSG

NutraSweet

Oleic acid

Phenylalanine

Phytic acid

Protein isolate

Shoyu

Sorbitol

Soy flour

Soy isolates

Soy lecithin

Soy milk

Soy oli

Soy protein

Soy protein isolate

Soy sauce

Starch

Stearic acid

Sugar (unless

specified as cane

sugar)

Tamari

Tempeh

Teriyaki marinade

Textured vegetable protein

Threonine

Tocopherols (vitamin E)

Tofu

Trehalose

Triglyceride

Vegetable fat

Vegetable oil

Vitamin B12

Vitamin E

Whey

Whey powder

Xanthan gum

BUY USDA-CERTIFIED ORGANIC FOOD

Any food presented as certified organic, with the USDA organic label on it, is not allowed to have GMOs in any of its ingredients. So avoid all nonorganic foods or anything you might suspect has been sprayed with Roundup. Always read the ingredient lists just to be sure.

This means avoiding anything with added sugar, since a lot of sugar comes from Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beets. Also, steer clear of nonorganic flax, rice, and wheat. These have a moderate risk of being contaminated with GMOs and heavily sprayed with pesticides.

Be careful when choosing animal foods, too, since a majority of livestock in the United States are fed Monsanto grain and/or are treated with the GMO bovine growth hormone rBGH—another Monsanto invention. Do you really want to drink Monsanto Milk or eat Monsanto Butter?

PURCHASE FOOD WITH THE NON-GMO PROJECT VERIFICATION LABEL

The Non-GMO Project (www.nongmoproject.org) is the only organization offering independent verification of testing and GMO controls for products in the United States and Canada. Its verification label indicates that the product undergoes ongoing testing of all at-risk ingredients and the manufacturer complies with rigorous traceability and segregation practices. The Non-GMO Project verification is audited every year to ensure compliance. You can download the Non-GMO Shopping Guide onto your smartphone to help you out while shopping.

CHECK OUT FRUIT AND VEGETABLE LABEL NUMBERS

In the fresh produce section, you’ll notice that every fruit and vegetable has a sticker on it with a PLU (price lookup) number, designated by the Produce Marketing Association. Any five-digit number beginning with an 8 is a GMO, but such labeling is optional and not in wide use. No surprise as most Americans say that they would avoid GMOs. If you see a five-digit number beginning with a 9, the fruit is organic and not GMO. Four-digit numbers indicate that the produce was conventionally grown, nonorganic, and possibly GMO.

EAT LESS PROCESSED FOOD AND COOK YOUR MEALS FROM SCRATCH

If all you did was to stop eating processed food, you’d shield yourself automatically from most GMOs. An overwhelming amount of processed food—70 percent—contains GMOs, so one of the biggest changes you can make is to eliminate these foods. If you don’t enjoy cooking, try it out just one or two nights a week. Before you know it, it will become more of a habit and you’ll begin to enjoy homemade meals more than anything that comes out of a box.

Also, commit to #GMOFreeFridays, on which you encourage your coworkers to bring non-GMO foods to work. This action will help raise awareness of the problem in your workplace. Or, for family, friends, and others who don’t work, ask them to buy non-GMO foods and prepare a non-GMO meal on Fridays. Use the hashtag #GMOFreeFriday on social media to share your food and spread the word.

When you go out to eat, ask your server if the food is non-GMO. He or she might not know, but at least you’ll start educating your favorite restaurants and their workers.

SHOP LOCALLY AT FARMERS’ MARKETS AND CO-OPS

Most GMOs are produced on large industrial farms and shipped out to big food manufacturers. When you buy from your local small farmers, you’re less likely to come across GMOs. Seek out opportunities to ask farmers about GMOs and whether or not they use them. Use the Local Harvest website at www.localharvest.org to find local farmers’ markets, co-ops, and family farms, which are great sources of organic produce, grass-fed beef, fresh herbs, and other non-GMO goodies.

STICK IT TO MONSANTO WHERE IT HURTS

Contact your mutual fund manager and make sure you aren’t blindly investing in Monsanto’s destructive acts. Many Fidelity, Vanguard, and State Street mutual funds own and control enormous volumes of Monsanto stock. You may even wish to contact these companies yourself and tell them why you’re dumping their funds. Stock evaluations are a powerful leverage point for activism against corporations.

Once you put these actions into play, you’ll find that it is entirely possible to live a GMO-free life. And that’s a huge feat for a Food Babe.

ASK YOUR FAVORITE BRANDS TO GO NON-GMO

Call, e-mail, tweet, or post a message on your favorite company’s Facebook page and ask them to go non-GMO. Some of the biggest news in the food industry last year was the General Mills conversion of Cheerios to a non-GMO cereal. This cultural milestone signals not only the swelling consumer exodus from industrial GMO foods, but also the rise in the use of social media by concerned citizens to educate the public and demand non-GMO foods.

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

Day 16—Dine Out the Food Babe Way

I MET MY HUSBAND at work on a Wednesday and by Friday, he was already asking me out. It was love at first sight. Our first date was at the Cheesecake Factory.

At the time, the Cheesecake Factory had just opened at the mall. It was the new hot spot in Charlotte, and people were flocking to it. After waiting more than an hour to get a seat, we headed to our table. The server plopped down a loaf of delectable hot pumpernickel bread. I dove in, thinking I was eating nutritious whole grain. It would not be until much later during my work as the Food Babe that I learned that these delicious-looking dark restaurant breads were made with one of the same ingredients as yoga mats, used as a dough conditioner, as well as other nasty, suspect chemicals.

When you dine out at huge franchises such as the Cheesecake Factory, you need to know that the food is not really fresh; it is trucked in from big food suppliers, where even vegetables are preshredded, losing vital nutrition in the process. They may also have undergone a process called crisping, in which they’re washed with sodium hypochlorite phosphate to release dirt and residues; this substance is commonly used as a disinfectant or bleach and is considered a pesticide. As for something like Parmesan cheese, it’s shredded with wood pulp, aka cellulose, thrown in. Most of the food is treated with preservatives such as sodium benzoate to help it hold up during the trip from its source to the restaurant. Once at these types of chain restaurants, the food is cooked, microwaved, or rewarmed in ways that cause chemicals to leach into it. And it may not be cooked right away; restaurants typically slap stickers on plastic bags of food that show their “cook by” date. All of this is done so that the franchise saves money and makes big profits.

Even seasonings come premade. I was at a Thai restaurant recently and about to order red curry vegetables. I asked the server if the dish contained MSG. He explained that although the restaurant does not add MSG, the curry seasoning it uses contains the ingredient. It’s so difficult to avoid these things, yet it is very important that we do.

BIG CHAINS, BIG FOOD POLLUTION

Some of the most popular chain restaurants in the country are serving up unbelievable concoctions of chemicals (see my alert below), and for this reason, I avoid dining at these establishments. You’ve got to be informed about what you’re being served at these places.

If you want a real insider’s look at how the big restaurant chains operate in this regard, read The American Way of Eating: Undercover at Walmart, Applebee’s, Farm Fields, and the Dinner Table by journalist Tracie McMillan. McMillan goes undercover as a California farm worker, as a Walmart produce handler, and later as a kitchen assistant in an Applebee’s in Brooklyn, New York. At Applebee’s, she chronicles how the food is frozen or prepackaged, and reports that everything on your plate is portioned from plastic bags that the “cooks” in the back do nothing more to than microwaving or boiling them, then assembling the food to make it look appetizing.

FOOD BABE ALERT: A PLATE OF CHEMICALS COMING RIGHT UP

Eat at any of the major restaurant chains at your own nutritional risk. Here’s a look at what you might be eating if you order the following popular dishes.

Applebee’s—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 10 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Spinach Artichoke Dip: Skim milk, spinach, soybean oil, artichoke hearts, water, salt, citric acid, dehydrated onion, modified corn starch, bleached wheat flour, Romano cheese (cow’s milk), pasteurized milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, dehydrated garlic, seasoning, xanthan gum, maltodextrin, flavor, enzyme modified butter fat.

Lemon Parmesan Shrimp (Weight Watchers endorsed menu item): Blackened shrimp sautéed with tomatoes, onions and basil. Served over creamy rice with a decadent lemon and Parmesan cream sauce.

Lemon Parmesan Cream Sauce (aka “Homestyle Sauce”): Water, cream, chicken broth, seasoning, corn starch, xanthan gum, natural flavors, spices, parmesan cheese, pasteurized part skim milk, cheese culture, salt, enzymes, butter roux, onions, roasted chicken base (chicken meat, chicken juices, salt, autolyzed yeast extract, flavors, sugar, potato flour), chicken base (chicken meat including chicken juices, salt, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein).

Weight Watchers nonstick spray: Canola oil, soy lecithin.

Blackened seasoning (used on 41/50 shrimp): Blackened Seasoning: spices, salt, chili peppers, dehydrated onion, dehydrated garlic, dextrose, soybean oil.

Creamy rice: White rice.

Cheesecake Factory—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Wheat bread (complimentary bread): Enriched wheat flour (niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), malted barley flour, water, whole wheat flour, rolled oats, rye meal, yeast, brown sugar, sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, molasses, wheat bran, wheat gluten, vegetable oil shortening (partially hydrogenated soybean oil, cottonseed oil and/or canola oil), salt, caramel color, diglycerides, diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono- and diglycerides, sorbic acid, enzymes, azodicarbonamide, L-cysteine, guar gum, corn syrup, wheat.

Herb Crusted Salmon Salad: Salmon: Salmon, yellow mustard, sage, parsley, rosemary, thyme, green onion (cooked in canola/olive oil blend). Salad: Baby lettuce mix, cucumber, red onion, asparagus, Roma tomato, endive, lemon slices.

Balsamic vinaigrette: Balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, soy sauce, garlic, shallots, sugar, salt, pepper, canola oil, canola oil blend (extra virgin olive oil/canola oil).

Ultimate Red Velvet Cheesecake: Cream cheese (pasteurized cultured milk, salt, stabilizers [xanthan, carob bean, and guar gums]), butter (pasteurized cultured milk, salt, stabilizers [xanthan, carob bean, and guar gums]), sugar, powdered sugar, corn oil (fully refined and dewaxed corn oil), whole egg, sour cream, modified corn starch, sodium tripolyphosphate, guar gum, calcium sulfate, locust bean gum, buttermilk, white chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, skim milk, whey powder, lactose, soy lecithin, natural vanilla), water, invert sugar, red color (maltodextrin, xanthan gum, guar gum, FD&C red 40), dark chocolate powder (100% cocoa beans processed with alkali), baking soda, mascarpone cheese (pasteurized milk, cream, citric acid), salt, vinegar, baking powder, vanilla extract, artificial vanilla flavor.

Crust: Flour (enriched bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid).

Chili’s—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Memphis Ribs: (100% pork ribs, and rib spice made of salt, dehydrated garlic, brown sugar, spices, yeast extract, dehydrated onion, sugar, citric acid, corn starch, natural flavor, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, with not more than 2% silicon dioxide added as an anticaking agent), Memphis Dry Rub (brown sugar, spices, paprika, garlic powder, salt, onion powder, and silicon dioxide [anticaking agent], salad oil (soybean oil with citric acid added as a preservative), classic BBQ sauce (high-fructose corn syrup, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, water, corn syrup, molasses, salt, red wine vinegar, contains less than 2% of spices, modified food starch, sugar, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate as preservatives, onion, paprika, garlic, turmeric, caramel color).

Original Ribs: (100% pork ribs, and rub spice (salt, dehydrated garlic, brown sugar, spices, yeast extract, dehydrated onion, sugar, citric acid, corn starch, natural flavor, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, with not more than 2% silicon dioxide added as an anticaking agent), classic BBQ sauce (high-fructose corn syrup, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, water, corn syrup, molasses, salt, red wine vinegar, contains less than 2% of: spices, modified food starch, sugar, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate as preservatives, onion, paprika, garlic, turmeric, caramel color).

Boneless wings: Chili’s boneless buffalo wings: Enriched wheat flour, spices, dried garlic, dried onions, dried egg whites, bread crumbs, enriched wheat flour, wheat gluten, soy flour, soybean oil, spice extract, yeast, corn syrup, salt, yellow corn flour. (Wings are fried in vegetable oil shortening). Buffalo wing sauce: Cayenne pepper, vinegar, salt, water, vegetable oil, garlic, dextrose, molasses, corn syrup, xanthan gum, caramel color, spices, modified food starch, sugar, tamarind, natural and artificial favor. Blue Cheese dressing: Soybean oil, water, blue cheese (pasteurized milk cheese culture, salt, enzymes), red wine vinegar, egg yolk, sugar, salt, spice, garlic, potassium sorbate, buttermilk solids, natural flavors. BBQ Sauce: High-fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, water, molasses, salt, red wine vinegar, onion, paprika, garlic, turmeric, sugar, potassium sorbate, sodium benzoate.

Olive Garden—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Olive Garden salad dressing: Water, soybean oil, distilled vinegar, high-fructose corn syrup, salt, egg, Romano cheese, dehydrated garlic, sugar, spices, xanthan gum, dextrose, calcium disodium EDTA, annatto color, natural flavors.

Olive Garden breadsticks: Enriched flour, wheat flour, malted barley flour, reduced iron, riboflavin, folic acid, water, high-fructose corn syrup, salt, yeast, soybean oil, sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium stearoyl lactylate, monoglycerides, diglycerides, distilled monoglycerides, calcium peroxide, enzymes, ascorbic acid, calcium sulfate, calcium propionate.

Olive Garden breadsticks topping (varies):

Butter: Margarine (liquid unhydrogenated soybean oil, water, salt, vegetable monodiglycerides, sodium, sodium benzoate, canola oil, citric acid).

Butter: Hydrogenated soybean oil, water, salt, vinegar, sodium benzoate, citric acid, natural and artificial flavor, calcium EDTA, beta carotene, vitamin A palmitate.

Garlic salt: Garlic powder, granulated salt.

Olive Garden marinara: Ground peeled tomatoes, tomato puree, salt, food starch, modified citric acid, mushroom base (mushrooms, water, salt, corn maltodextrin, unsalted butter, sugar, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, yeast extract, hydrolyzed wheat gluten, onion powder, corn oil, hydrogenated soy oil, lactic acid, calcium lactate), onions, marinara base concentrate (onions, yeast extract, salt, soy oil, hydrolyzed soy and corn protein, water, butter, garlic, dehydrated onion, disodium inosinate, disodium guanylate, mushroom juice, onion powder, xanthan gum).

Alfredo sauce: Heavy cream, butter, parmesan, salt, pepper, garlic, milk, base (wheat, nonfat milk solids, parsley, hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oils, salt, sugar, corn starch, onion powder, parmesan cheese, Swiss cheese, buttermilk solids, blue cheese, creamed butterfat, spice).

Meatballs: Beef, water, egg whites, textured soy protein concentrate, Romano cheese, sheep’s milk, bread crumbs (enriched flour, wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, corn syrup, sugar, vegetable shortening [hydrogenated soybean oil, hydrogenated cottonseed oil], salt, yeast, whey, soy flour, dough conditioner [sodium stearoyl lactylate], calcium propionate), dehydrated onions, soy protein concentrate, salt, spices, sodium phosphate, garlic powder, parsley.

Olive Garden Pasta Fagioli: Beef, yellow onions, carrots, celery, oregano, pepper, cayenne pepper, hot water, beef base (beef, water, beef stock, salt, corn, soy, wheat protein, canola oil, hydrolyzed corn gluten, onion powder, caramel color, dextrose, lactic acid), kidney beans. Pasta for the soup is made in the restaurant with flour, eggs, and sugar.

Nonetheless, I love to eat out and will continue to do so. I’m simply careful about the selections I make.

So, eating out and eating healthy: an impossible order? Not if you remember who’s in charge: you. Take control today, using these strategies.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

In a perfect world, we would all know exactly what we were eating while dining out. While at present this is nearly impossible, there are things you can do to make sure you get the healthiest choices. Here are my general tips:

MAKE DINING OUT A SPECIAL OCCASION

Your meal will be memorable and you’ll save money by avoiding food that isn’t good for you.

EAT HALF OF A GRAPEFRUIT

Unless you’re taking certain medications that can be compromised by grapefruit, eating this fruit before a meal can bring some surprising benefits. In 2006, the Journal of Medicinal Food reported that half of a fresh grapefruit eaten before meals triggered significant weight loss in overweight people. The grapefruit blunted a rise in insulin two hours after the meal, and this may have accounted for the weight loss, since spikes in insulin can be fat-forming.

SUPPRESS YOUR APPETITE WITH WATER

Drink a large glass of water about twenty minutes before going out to eat. This will curb your appetite and keep you from overindulging.

ORDER A SALAD AS YOUR FIRST COURSE WITH DRESSING AND/OR CHEESE ON THE SIDE

This will help alkalinize the body and get your digestive enzymes working. If the menu doesn’t indicate what kind of lettuce is used, ask, and then request that your salad be made of mixed greens, arugula, or romaine, not iceberg. Simply dip your fork in the dressing and spear pieces of salad before each bite; you’ll minimize the fat and calories this way but still get the flavor of the dressing.

QUIZ YOUR SERVER

Servers have probably seen or sampled all the dishes and can tell you if your fish or other entrée is swimming in oil or covered in cream sauce.

COMMUNICATE YOUR ALLERGIES OR FOOD SENSITIVITIES

Don’t be shy about telling your server that you don’t want to eat butter, dairy, soy, corn, or other foods. Butter really isn’t bad for you if it’s organic, but restaurants can go overboard and drown dishes in butter. Soy and corn oils are the cheapest oils available, so many restaurants use them, but as I’ve discussed, they will dump an overdose of omega-6 fatty acids into your body. They’re also probably not organic and have been genetically modified. Ask the chef if he or she can use olive oil instead in your dish.

CHECK THE SOUP

Before you order soup at a restaurant, ask if it’s homemade or if it contains additives. One cold, rainy day last year, I was hungry for soup. I live right across the street from a gourmet food shop called Dean & Deluca that serves delicious-looking soups. The restaurant was calling my name. In I went. I asked for a list of the soups’ ingredients, and I was shocked! The shop orders their soups premade from Sysco, a huge manufacturer of processed foods. These soups contain a lot of soy oil, and the hidden version of the obesogen MSG.

ORDER ORGANIC PROTEINS

Don’t order the meat unless you know it’s organic and grass-fed. No such choices? Fish is your next-best bet, as long as it’s not farmed salmon. This type of salmon is often fed a mixture of highly contaminated fish meal and fish oil mixed with corn and soy products because these substances are cheap and help fatten up the fish. As I mentioned, salmon is fed supplements to make the flesh more pink. Farmed salmon is loaded with antibiotics, pesticides, and other toxic chemicals.

If there are no good meat or fish choices on the menu, try a bean and/or veggie dish instead. If available, goat cheese or nuts can be added to your salad as protein. Avocado is a nice addition as well; it’s filling and full of good fats.

MIX AND MATCH

Don’t see anything you like on the menu? Check out the specifics for each dish and ask the waiter to create a custom plate. Once I was stuck in an airport with one food option—Ruby Tuesday. The restaurant had fresh guacamole, served with chips, and a platter on the menu included fish. I asked them kindly to make me a plate of fish and a large scoop of that guac. It was delicious and satisfying, and I made it home without biting off the arm of the passenger seated next to me.

ORDER OFF (NOT FROM) THE MENU

Ask the chef to create something for you. This request can be made easily at a fancier or more established restaurant where chefs are highly skilled and can experiment for you. I remember once I attended a work dinner at a fancy steakhouse inside a casino. Because I rarely eat steak and nothing else really appealed to me, I asked the chef to create a vegetable plate. He got really creative with veggies and whole grains, tossed with a little olive oil. The dish was so fabulous that one of my bosses looked over and said, “Wow—I wish I had ordered that.”

BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH A FAVORITE RESTAURANT

When I’m too busy to cook but still want to eat healthy, I head to my favorite standby. I’ve gotten to know the staff, and they make everything perfect for me every time. For example, the sushi chef prepares a special roll with all veggies and no white rice or fatty sauces. He calls it the Food Babe Roll. He also knows that I like my ponzu sauce on the side of my sashimi, not poured on top. I always start with a big bowl of romaine with extra cucumbers and the ginger dressing on the side, and they serve great hot green tea. My meals there are fail-proof, and I never have to stress about what I’m eating.

EAT ETHNIC

Ethnic dining is wildly popular, but be vigilant about:

MSG. This ingredient, commonly found in Chinese, Thai, Malaysian, and processed foods, is a flavor enhancer that is recognized as a safe additive by the FDA. But the pesky ingredient is known to cause numerous adverse symptoms, including obesity, headaches, facial pressure, chest pain, nausea, and more. Even if you aren’t sensitive to this additive, it is used to make food more tasty and addictive, which isn’t a good thing since portion sizes in a lot of these restaurants are enormous.

Sauces: Ethnic dishes usually come with seriously tasty sauces. Although they’re not additives per se, it’s difficult to know what’s in them. Sauce is something you may want to skip unless you’re familiar with the ingredients.

Here are my tips for wise, healthy dining at various types of ethnic restaurants.

Tips for Eating Chinese Food

Avoid tofu unless it’s organic.

Opt for steamed vegetables and rice instead of stir-fry dishes, which could use oils containing GMOs.

If you must have stir-fry, ask if they can make it with coconut oil. If not, rice-bran, sunflower, or sesame oil can be used (100 percent with no other vegetable oils added).

Make sure meat is organic, and if not, choose vegetarian dishes, as long as they aren’t drowning in sauce.

Avoid dishes with GMO crops such as corn, soy, canola, sugar beets, cotton, zucchini, squash, and papaya.

Make sure food is MSG-free.

Tips for Eating Thai Food

Instead of opting for pad thai, which is cooked with vegetable oil, choose a vegetable dish without sauce or with a sauce you can have on the side, so you can control the amount you consume. The fewer toxins, the better! You can also ask for your dish to be steamed rather than stir-fried, which is always a healthier option.

Make sure meat and tofu are organic.

Tips for Eating Mexican Food

Stay away from GMO-laden corn chips; consider asking for veggies to dip in salsa or guacamole.

Opt for vegetarian and bean dishes unless organic meat and cheese options are available.

A taco salad with vegetables, avocado, and salsa is your best bet.

Tips for Eating Indian Food

Opt for vegetable dishes without sauce unless the meat and dairy are organic.

A few great choices at an Indian restaurant:

Daal: A protein-rich dish made of lentils, peas, or beans that is typically eaten with rice and vegetables.

Channa masala: Chickpeas cooked in an exotic blend of north Indian spices.

Navratan korma: Mixed vegetables cooked in a gravy made from cashew nuts.

Mushroom mutter: Fresh sliced mushrooms cooked with green peas, tomatoes, and spices.

Whole wheat paratha or chapati: Handmade flatbread. Some restaurants will gladly make the switch to whole grain if you ask.

Tips for Eating Japanese Food

Order only organic edamame. Nonorganic varieties are full of pesticides and have been genetically modified. Forget fish roe (tobiko). These tiny little fish eggs are cultivated and then dyed beautiful colors to seem more appealing. Look, but don’t touch!

Eliminate imitation crab. This is the typical “fish” found in the California roll and many other rolls. A stick of processed crap, it is really composed of minced fish left over in some factory somewhere, combined with egg whites, gluten, artificial colors, sorbitol, and a bunch of other ingredients like hydrolyzed soy protein and disodium inosinate—forms of MSG.

Freak out about farmed salmon. I would say the majority of sushi restaurants serve farmed salmon. This stuff is dreadful, filled with chemical pesticides. Farmed salmon also has about fifty more calories per three-ounce serving than wild salmon does and half as much omega-3 fatty acid. Choose other types of fish—and make sure they’re wild-caught.

Limit your dip. One tablespoon of soy sauce has roughly 500 milligrams of sodium. Given that you might eat up to three tablespoons of soy sauce, this is a ridiculous amount of sodium to be consuming at one meal. Wonder why your skin is puffy or your stomach bloated after a meal of sushi? I personally don’t even use soy sauce anymore; I ask the chef for ponzu sauce instead. It’s a little sweeter than soy sauce because it contains some mirin (Japanese cooking wine) but has less sodium overall.

Certain foods don’t belong in Japanese cuisine, such as cream cheese or mayo (often found in spicy tuna). These foods probably contain nonorganic dairy and other ingredients not found in the typical Japanese diet.

What’s up with the fake wasabi? Real Japanese horseradish is amazing for you. It can help detoxify your body and prevent many forms of cancer. It is also antimicrobial and helps protect you from bacteria that might be present in raw fish. But most sushi restaurants are using a cheap alternative they can get in the form of powder. This powder contains harmful additives like artificial food coloring (yellow and blue make green!). High-quality restaurants will have the real deal, but you have to ask for it.

Recognize your rice. Sushi rice is typically short-grain rice that is polished white, cooked, and then mixed with rice wine vinegar. When you add vinegar to rice, you decrease its glycemic index, or GI. GI is a measurement of how quickly a food is converted to sugar in your body. By lowering the GI of rice, vinegar prevents the rapid surge in blood sugar you would normally get if you ate rice alone. Aha! This is how the Japanese get away with eating white rice without worrying about blood sugar spikes, but does that mean you go crazy with the rice? No. Because I prefer to consume my lower-quality carbs as dessert, I order my vegetable roll sans rice and add asparagus. Brown or black rice are better options too.

Don’t be tempted by tempura. Think twice about ordering any roll or other menu item that is fried or has the word “tempura” in its description. What kind of oil are they using to fry? Do they fry it in trans fat? Opt for sashimi, which is simply raw fish served on a platter with sliced pickled ginger.

Do not order the seaweed salad, unless you know it doesn’t contain food coloring. Artificial food coloring is what gives the salad that bright green color. Yellow #5 can cause severe allergic reactions, and Blue #1 has caused brain cancer in lab animals.

Tips for Eating French Food

Before ordering a cheese plate, ask if the cheese is imported from France. A cheese from France means you are safe from rBGH—genetically engineered growth hormone—and genetically modified ingredients, as France has banned GMOs altogether.

A goat cheese salad is a good option. So are tuna Niçoise salads or vegetable crepes.

Use your judgment when it comes to choosing meat. Ask how the restaurant sources their meat. If it is organic, you should feel at ease when ordering meat dishes.

Tips for Eating Vietnamese Food

Order vegetarian pho, and make sure to ask for a vegetarian broth. Pho usually comes with beef or chicken broth. Make sure the restaurant doesn’t use MSG.

Order a vegetable curry with steamed rice.

Order a wooden steamer basket with veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, Napa cabbage, snow peas, asparagus, and bean sprouts, among others, with steamed rice.

Tips for Eating Ethiopian Food

You should be fine ordering almost anything at an Ethiopian restaurant. This cuisine is one of the healthiest ethnic options because dishes contain a lot of lentils and vegetables. Be sure to ask about the oils used in the preparation of each dish.

Tips for Eating Italian Food

Ask for plain pasta drizzled with olive oil, salt, and pepper and topped with steamed vegetables. Other good choices include buffalo mozzarella salad, fish, and steamed vegetables. If the Parmesan is imported from Italy, it won’t contain growth hormone, because it is illegal to treat cows with hormones in Italy.

Tips for Eating Pizza

If your pizza restaurant does not offer organic cheese, ask for a cheese-free pizza loaded with vegetables.

Most pizza places have a salad option; choose a garden salad without meat or cheese.

EATING AWAY FROM HOME: DINNER PARTIES AND HOLIDAY GATHERINGS

I have to be honest: During the holidays, it’s hard for me not to give in to nostalgic cravings and indulge in foods I typically avoid the rest of the year. It’s the holidays, for goodness’ sake, and I want to celebrate like everyone else.

But every January, I’d find my skinny jeans tighter and my waistline generally uncomfortable when I sat down. And let’s not even talk about how I felt mentally—tired all the time and not self-confident at all. I hate those feelings!

After I started learning about what was really in my food, I made a conscious decision to avoid eating processed food regardless the time of year because I knew the toxic chemicals were responsible for making me gain weight. If there was something I really wanted to eat that I knew was filled with additives, artificial ingredients, or other questionable substances, I would make it at home with my own organic ingredients so I could indulge.

Because we live in an overly processed world, it’s important to learn how to navigate holiday parties, whether during a conventional family meal or at the annual cocktail party your neighbor generously hosts. Whatever the occasion, here’s what to do:

1. Eat before you arrive. Before you get to the party, have a good organic meal at home. Fill up on one of my green smoothies or dig into a salad loaded with lots of veggies so that you don’t arrive at the party feeling ravenous.

2. Don’t sample everything. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean you have to eat it. When choosing what to put on your plate, stick to familiar foods and avoid foods you normally wouldn’t eat outside of a holiday party. Load up your plate with plant foods, and keep it simple. Sampling the entire buffet is dangerous. According to Susan Roberts, professor of nutrition and psychiatry at Tufts University, studies have shown that “the higher the variety of items you are confronted with, the more people consume without even realizing it.”

3. Watch out for nuts. I used to think grabbing a handful of nuts was a good idea at parties, until I learned that most party nut mixes are doused with GMO oils, MSG, and other nasty additives. No thanks!

4. Bring your own dish. There’s a rule in etiquette that says “never show up at a party empty-handed.” Use this rule to your advantage and bring along your favorite healthy dish. That way, you have the option of eating at least one healthy item while you’re at the party. You’ll also have the opportunity to share a healthy dish with friends and family and teach them that good food can be good for you.

5. Socialize more and snack less. To keep your mind off all the dangerous goodies and temptations, move away from the buffet table and socialize elsewhere. Keeping your mind focused on something other than food will help prevent you from overindulging. I love spending parties socializing rather than eating. If I’m still hungry afterward, I know I can always get a clean meal at my go-to restaurant or at home later. Besides, sometimes it’s fun to grab a group of people for a late-night meal or after-party.

6. Keep track of your drinks. Remember, your liver is your main fat-burning organ. If you’re trying to lose weight or even maintain your ideal weight, alcohol is one of your worst enemies—so slow down and keep your alcohol intake on the low end, especially if you have multiple gatherings per week. A sparkling water with lime looks like a vodka tonic. No one will know you choose not to drink alcohol. Personally, I love to bring wine to a party so I know I have organic red wine available to drink and share. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t mind the occasional tequila on the rocks with lime; it’s one of the cleanest liquors.

7. When all else fails, eat when you get home. I promise you won’t starve to death waiting a couple of hours to eat. And if you have special needs (say, you are diabetic or hypoglycemic), you already know what you need to do to make sure you stay steady. Simply not eating has been my saving grace in many situations—not just at parties, but in airports, too. Later on, I always thank myself for putting my health first.

8. Lead by example. Most important, while attending a party, go in with the understanding that not all of the guests will share your sentiments regarding your real-food lifestyle. Friends and family members who follow a conventional diet may not understand why you make the choices you do. If you’re questioned about your diet, try to give your friends and family an honest and informative answer about your decisions without berating them about their own decisions.

As Mahatma Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

Day 17—Do a Kitchen Cleanout

HERE’S A HABIT THAT will turn you into a Food Babe (or Guy) in no time at all: regular kitchen cleanouts. I don’t mean a simple cleaning where you throw out a few items. I mean the kind where it’s more like surgery. You’re going to surgically remove some of the junk that has fossilized deep in the back of your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer. And as with surgery, you don’t just rush into this. You have to be methodical.

Honestly, before I developed this habit, I wasn’t really sure what I would find in my kitchen. There have been enough layers in my pantry and refrigerator that geologists would have a field day. I’ve found an ominous collection of chemical-filled junk, stuff that lasts so long that even bugs don’t eat it; a box of baking powder with added aluminum dating back to the Bush years; and an art project made out of jelly beans, relics of my candy-eating days.

Even after I started eating organic foods, there was still a lone container of Crisco perched on a shelf near my stove. My friends were aghast: “What are you doing with that evil fat?” they asked. Fortunately, it had not been opened. Any unopened foodstuff like my errant Crisco container can be returned to the supermarket, depending on the purchase date and whether you have the receipt. I was able to return the Crisco, but not before explaining to the store manager why. If more people admonished their grocery stores for carrying poisons, there’d be less of this stuff on their shelves. Some grocery stores carry organic products you might never have seen where you live. Costco in Northern California convinced Frito-Lay to go organic and offer their customers organic “Ruffles,” and even offer a “Doritos” without MSG. Grocery stores are our friends—if we communicate our needs to them, they will start to listen to us and ask manufacturers to develop safer and healthier products. This is exactly why Walmart is going to start offering a wide array of organic products under the Wild Oats brand.

If you’re looking to change your diet for good, this is a great habit to develop. Here’s how I did it.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

CLEAR OUT

Take everything out of your pantry and refrigerator, shelf by shelf. Clearing the shelves is the only way you can inventory what you have on hand—and what you want to toss. Then sort through the toxic debris by checking the ingredient list and cross-referencing it with the Sickening 15 here. Toss out items that are full of chemical additives. Again, if they have a “satisfaction guarantee” on them, you might be able to get a full refund or store credit. It’s worth asking your local grocery store about this—especially if you are finding a lot of toxic foods in your cabinets.

RESTOCK

Restock the shelves with what you’ve kept, if anything, and place the things you use most within the easiest reach. Keep all of the items in the same place all the time. Follow my pantry essentials below and organize items according to drinks; breakfast cereals and grains; bread, pasta, and whole grains; beans; dried fruits, nuts, and seeds; snacks; desserts and sweets; freezer items; and condiments and other staples.

Here’s a look at what I consider “pantry essentials” (All items should be certified organic unless otherwise noted):

Drinks:

Suja juices (the green varieties like Twelve Essentials)

Harmless Harvest coconut water

Kombucha

Sparkling water

Almond milk (homemade or without carrageenan)

Coconut milk (homemade or without carrageenan)

Larry’s Beans coffee

Numi tea

Traditional Medicinals tea

Yogi tea

Breakfast cereals and grains:

Food For Life Ezekiel English muffins—cinnamon raisin

Oat groats

Buckwheat

Steel-cut oats

Gluten-free rolled oats

Nature’s Path Qi’a cereal

Food For Life Ezekiel cereal

Kaia Foods raw buckwheat granola dark

Purely Elizabeth granola

2 Moms in the Raw cereal

Bread, pasta, and whole grains:

Food For Life Ezekiel bread—sesame

100% buckwheat noodles

Tolerant Foods lentil pasta

Food For Life Ezekiel penne pasta

Food For Life Ezekiel linguine

TruRoots sprouted quinoa

Quinoa flakes

Farro

Brown rice

Red Himalayan rice

Black Forbidden rice

Almond flour

Coconut flour

Oat flour

Whole wheat stone-ground flour

Mary’s Gone bread crumbs

Spelt flour

Beans:

Dry or canned chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans (in BPA-free cans)

Dry or canned red kidney beans (in BPA-free cans)

Dry or canned black beans (in BPA-free cans)

Dry or canned cannellini beans (in BPA-free cans)

TruRoots sprouted lentils

Green lentils

Yellow lentils

Dried fruits, nuts, and seeds:

Goji berries

Golden berries

Currants

Dried figs

Dried plums

Dates

Dried mango

Walnuts

Almonds

Pistachios

Brazil nuts

Pecans

Cashews

Chia seeds

Flaxseeds

Hempseeds

Sesame seeds

Sunflower seeds

Pumpkin seeds

Tahini

Almond butter

Sunflower butter

Snacks:

Brad’s Raw Foods chips and crackers

Unique Splits sprouted wheat pretzels

Mary’s Gone Crackers

Mary’s Gone Crackers sticks and twig pretzels

Late July tortilla chips

Suzie’s Thin Cakes—flax and spelt

479° popcorn

Desserts and sweets:

Gnosis Chocolate

NibMor chocolate

JJ’s Sweets Cocomels—coconut milk–based chocolates

Alter Eco quinoa chocolate

Dark chocolate chips

Righteously Raw bars

Three Twins vanilla ice cream

Luna & Larry’s Organic Coconut Bliss Ice Cream

Go Raw coconut cookies

Kur organic bite-size bars

Erewhon brown rice cereal

Freezer items:

Food For Life Ezekiel whole wheat sprouted tortillas

Food For Life Ezekiel corn tortillas

Hilary’s Eat Well burgers

Wild-caught salmon

Frozen mango

Frozen strawberries

Frozen blueberries

Frozen mixed berries

Frozen acai

Frozen pineapple

Frozen artichokes

Condiments and other staples:

Organic ketchup

Yellow mustard

Stone-ground mustard

Apple cider vinegar

Cold-pressed olive oil

Nutiva hemp oil

Nutiva hemp protein

Nutiva extra virgin coconut oil

Tamari

Ponzu sauce

Mirin

Balsamic vinegar

Organic rice wine vinegar

Maple syrup

Raw local honey

Pickles

Olives

Himalayan sea salt

Dry nonirradiated spices (Simply Organic or Frontier Co-op)

Low-sodium vegetable broth

Low-sodium chicken broth

Yellow Barn Organics spaghetti sauce

Nutiva coconut manna

Coconut palm sugar

Date sugar

Stevia extract

Raw cacao powder

Unsweetened coconut flakes

Aluminum-free baking powder

POST A CHECKLIST

Last but not least, post a checklist on the inside of your pantry door, using my list as a reference. Cross off items as you deplete them. Not only will the checklist remind you of your inventory, it will alert you to what you don’t have and help you plan your weekly shopping trip. You can find a printable version of this checklist here: foodbabe.com/pantry-list/.

A clean pantry, fridge, and freezer are easily attainable. You can do it!

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

I cleaned out my kitchen—and will keep it that way.

Day 18—Change Your Little Grocery Shop of Horrors

THE SURROUNDINGS WERE UNFAMILIAR. It was like someone had dropped me from a helicopter into a strange land, and I was lost. Only this wasn’t a strange land; this was a grocery store called Earth Fare. It was my first-ever visit to a natural food store.

I was accustomed to shopping at regular, mainstream supermarkets, and I was surprised by what I saw at Earth Fare. There was a natural meat counter. The chicken, beef, and lamb had been allowed to roam and graze naturally. Most of the meat had been given organic feed. The animals had not been given antibiotics or hormones. The eggs were fresher than those I bought elsewhere. The fruits and vegetables, unsprayed, were fresh and colorful. I carted my way through the bulk food section, seeing bin after bin of staples and grains, many of which I’d never heard of.

But where was the regular stuff? Coca-Cola? Rice Krispies? Doritos? I was totally confused. All I found were products I didn’t recognize, so I roamed the aisles forever, reading labels and inspecting ingredient lists. I discovered real granola bars for the first time; I tossed a box of them into my shopping cart.

This maiden trip turned into many trips. From that day on, I began to shop exclusively at stores where I could find organic, additive-free foods. I realized that where you shopped could affect how you looked and felt.

When you’re trying to eat nutritiously, grocery shopping can be a little bit like searching for buried treasure. With nearly 50,000 product choices in the average grocery store and around 17,000 new items introduced each year, you wonder if it’s even possible to find anything healthy and organic. I’m here to tell you that it is.

Today’s new habit will make grocery shopping a cinch: Change your supermarket to a grocery store that specializes in natural, organic, chemical-free foods.

WHAT WHOLE FOODS DOES THAT WALMART DOESN’T!

Consumer reporter Ben Blatt, writing for the online magazine Slate, did an exposé, comparing foods at Walmart with foods at Whole Foods. Whole Foods bans foods that contain certain ingredients—around seventy-eight blacklisted ingredients to date, all of which frequently show up in processed foods and many of the Sickening 15. Here are some examples:

Artificial colors

Artificial flavors

Aspartame

Azodicarbonamide

Benzoyl peroxide

Dimethylpolysiloxane

High-fructose corn syrup

Hydrogenated fats

Monosodium glutamate (MSG)

Nitrates/nitrites

Sodium benzoate

TBHQ (tertiary butylhydroquinone)

Because Walmart doesn’t ban any of the ingredients on the Whole Foods list, Blatt calculated some scary statistics for consumers who shop at the giant retailer:

Approximately 14 percent of food products sold at Walmart would be banned from the shelves at Whole Foods, on the sole basis that they contain high-fructose corn syrup.

About 54 percent of food items sold at Walmart would be vetoed by Whole Foods, if all seventy-eight ingredients were taken into account. Let me give you a visual here: If someone did a sweep of Walmart’s grocery section to remove all foods containing those banned ingredients, more than half the shelves would be empty. The soft drink aisle in Walmart would be virtually bare, since 97 percent of Walmart’s soft drinks are laced with ingredients Whole Foods deems unacceptable.

Not a soda drinker (good!)? More than 36 percent of the waters at Walmart contain ingredients that would prohibit them from being sold at Whole Foods.

In all fairness, I understand that some big-name conventional grocery stores are making an effort to include more organic produce and convenience foods. That’s a good thing. In these cases, take some time to read labels and decipher the names of ingredients. What looks like a wholesome food might turn out to be a disaster. Take breads labeled “100% whole wheat,” for example. Often they contain artificial sweetener, dough conditioners, colorings, preservatives, and other chemicals. Even cereal isn’t safe. Many packaged cereals, advertised as being good sources of whole grains and fiber, contain a highly processed sugar called maltodextrin and other preservatives. Thankfully, many conventional grocery stores, like Walmart, are starting to carry organic brands under their own private label. Choosing these brands over conventional brands will save you from a lot of toxic chemicals. Check for Wild Oats at Walmart, Simply Balanced at Target, GreenWise Market at Publix, and HT Naturals at Harris Teeter, for example.

It’s easier and safer to shop at a store or market that has high-quality, organic foods. Change your grocery store, and you’ll change your health for the better. For more tips on specific grocery stores, visit foodbabe.com.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

SHOP WELL

Shop where you can get the best-quality groceries and produce available. Stores like these have been around forever, but in the recent past they’ve become more mainstream, allowing anyone who wants a healthier lifestyle to make the transition.

I recommend the following grocery stores because they’re committed to banning certain ingredients from their shelves:

Whole Foods Market

Earth Fare

Sprouts Farmers Market

Trader Joe’s (with caveats; see below)

Wild Oats Marketplace

Mother’s Market & Kitchen

Healthy Home Market

Erewhon

BE A STRATEGIC SHOPPER

Once you get to your store of choice, shop strategically. Buy mainly whole foods, like fruits, vegetables, beans, sustainable meats, and grains. Most grocery stores stock these foods in the outside aisles. Your purchases should come from these aisles.

Check out the Clean 15 and Dirty Dozen lists available on the Environmental Working Group’s website at ewg.org to help you learn which fruits and vegetables have the least pesticides. The Dirty Dozen lists the twelve most chemical-laden produce, whereas the Clean 15 identifies those with the lowest chemical residue. I use cucumbers in one of my favorite smoothies, and because they are on the Dirty Dozen list, I buy organic. It’s important to buy organic versions of anything on the Dirty Dozen list. These lists change from time to time, so always consult the EWG website.

Here’s my version of the foods you must absolutely buy organic if you can:

1. Dairy (milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream, etc.)

2. Meat (look for 100 percent grass-fed, antibiotic-free, and growth hormone–free, fed an organic and non-GMO diet)

3. Corn, soybeans, zucchini, yellow squash, canola, sugar beets, papaya, and cottonseed oil. All of these are high-risk GMO crops. Remember to check the ingredient list on all packaged goods for these foods.

4. The following fruits and vegetables:

All leafy greens (kale, arugula, collards, spinach, cilantro, parsley, dandelion, chard, etc.)

All berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries)

Sweet bell peppers

Apples

Celery

Cherry tomatoes

Cucumbers

Potatoes

Grapes

Hot peppers

Nectarines

Peaches

5. Eggs (stick to pasture eggs and chickens fed an organic diet)

6. Tea and coffee

7. Dried herbs and spices (nonorganic herbs and spices are irradiated, reducing medicinal quality)

8. Chocolate

Choose meats and dairy wisely: You want to purchase foods that are labeled “organic,” “grass-fed,” “free of hormones,” “not produced with antibiotics” “wild,” and so forth.

Fats or no fats: Fat is an essential part of your diet, and it will help keep you slim—especially around your tummy. But you’ve got to consume fats and oils that come from unrefined vegetable sources or oily fish such as salmon. Avoid trans fats at all costs. And stay away from oils like soy, corn, canola, and cottonseed in any product.

Don’t buy genetically modified foods, ever, if you can help it. Look for “organic” or “non-genetically modified” on the label.

By all means, avoid ingredients you can’t pronounce or that you’ve never heard of. Put that product back!

HAVE THE GOODS DELIVERED

Most of the time, I prefer comparing prices and selecting my groceries in the store, but you might feel differently and want to shop online. It’s a great option if you’re short on time, sick in bed with a cold, or running all over town with your kids. With a few mouse clicks, you can order organic food without fueling up your car or getting dressed. Here are some of my recommendations:

Buy direct from your favorite brands. If there are staples you routinely buy, get them sent to your house.

Instacart. Use this service for the ultimate convenience. Pick out the items you want online, and a personal shopper will go to your selected supermarket, do your shopping, and deliver it to your door. Right now the service is available in fifteen cities at supermarkets including Whole Foods, Costco, and Kroger.

Abe’s Market. This is an online retailer specializing in organic and natural goods. You can find everything here, from packaged foods to green household items.

Vitacost. This is a great low-cost website that has a wide variety of organic and healthy foods, plus vitamins and other supplements.

Herbspro. Here’s another money-saving site, with low prices on all sorts of organic foods and products.

Green PolkaDot Box and Thrive Market. These services deliver organic and non-GMO food directly to your doorstep. It’s a membership club like Costco and Sam’s Club, with some of the lowest prices available for organic staples, meat, dairy, and other goods, but you don’t have to leave your house. Even for someone like me, who lives in close proximity to several natural food stores, the convenience of having an organic food delivery service is exciting. The time saving is one thing, but the money saving makes it a slam dunk.

Organic produce delivery (Door to Door Organics, Absolute Organics, FreshDirect, or Simply Fresh). Every Tuesday I receive a delivery of organic produce right to my door. Not only does this keep my kitchen stocked with plant-based goodness, it also keeps things interesting: I get seasonal produce that I might not choose on my own, and this gives me reasons to come up with new recipes. If you aren’t that daring, you can certainly request what you like from these services. But I suggest you let them surprise you every week; it makes opening that big box that much more rewarding and fun.

BUY LOCAL: FARMERS’ MARKETS AND CSAS

Purchasing food from local sources in your own community is the best way to obtain seasonally fresh food. Local food can be significantly cheaper than food shipped from miles away. Find a farmers’ market near you through localharvest.org or the USDA; get to know your local farmers, develop a personal relationship with them, and negotiate prices.

Ask your local farmers about their farming practices. Do they spray their crops with pesticides? Do they grow organic produce and raise organic livestock? What sustainable farming practices do they follow?

Be the last person to leave the farmers’ market, too. Farmers will likely cut their prices at the end of the day so they don’t have to take their produce back to the farm.

Or buy a share in a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. The CSA farmer provides you with a basket of seasonal vegetables that you pick up or have delivered to your home each week. With CSA-provided food, you know it’s not transported from many miles away.

GROW YOUR OWN

You might think this is a crazy suggestion, but hear me out: Growing your own food isn’t as hard as you might think. My mother has always had a large vegetable garden. She takes great joy in cultivating her vegetables and preparing meals with them. She always encouraged me to have my own garden, too.

Here’s how to get started:

Plant an herb pot in your kitchen or somewhere convenient so you can always have fresh herbs on hand. Organic herbs are one of the most overpriced items at the grocery store.

Refer to the Organic Consumers Association for tips on how to grow organic food inside your home year-round.

Remember to buy non-GMO seeds; check out Sow True Seed for lots of options.

If you have a garden, learn how to can or otherwise preserve the produce you grow so that you don’t waste excess.

SAVE A WAD OF CASH

The biggest concern I hear about living an organic lifestyle is the cost. It’s likely the only immediate downside, because everything else about living organically is pretty magical. You know by now that nonorganic food often contains cancer-causing hormones, immunity-destroying antibiotics, and dangerous pesticides. Buying high-quality organic food and eating the most nutritious foods on the planet will save you big bucks down the road in prescription drugs, doctor visits, and other medical costs.

Here are my top strategies to mitigate the money pains of buying organic. Let the savings begin!

LOOK FOR HEALTHY DEALS

If you find a good sale, stock up on key organic, nonperishable, and frozen items.

Take advantage of any special where you can “buy one, get one free” or buy one and get the other for a discounted price. (This trick only works if you really love the product and it is a staple in your home—otherwise it could lead to wasted food.)

Check out the store brands to save money. They’re significantly cheaper than national brands.

Always use your rewards cards. Most convenience stores, grocery stores, and drugstores offer rewards or savings cards that help you save money on certain items at the checkout counter. Swiping your rewards card may save you an extra $.50 on most items.

Check the websites of your favorite companies for coupons and special promotions. Almost all of them have some. You can also find coupon deals on companies’ social media pages.

Check out various coupon sites for organic products. Some of my favorites are Mambo Sprouts, Saving Naturally, Organic Deals, Organic Food Coupons, Healthsavers, Organic Deals and Steals, and Simply Organic.

Before you check out at an online store, visit www.retailmenot.com for online promotional codes and discounts for all your favorite online stores and sources.

START AT HOME AND IN YOUR KITCHEN

Stay organized. Plan your meals for the week according to what’s on sale or what you have coupons for.

Write out a weekly and monthly budget to help keep track of your spending.

Make your own organic granola bars, kale chips, smoothies, juices, etc., to replace store-bought.

Invest in at least a two-stage water filter, which is installed directly under your sink, to avoid having to buy bottled water. Check the Environmental Working Group’s guide on choosing the right water filter for you.

Finally, check out the book Wildly Affordable Organic by Linda Watson for menu planning on $5 a day or less.

USE YOUR FREEZER

Organic frozen produce is usually cheaper than fresh, especially for out-of-season fruits and vegetables.

Freeze the following:

Local in-season produce

All leftovers (doubling recipes is a good idea), using inexpensive mason jars or silicone ice molds for smaller portions

Homemade cookie dough and treats like my Almond Chocolate Freezer Fudge (recipe here)

Kitchen staples like butter, cheese, and bread scraps for bread crumbs or homemade croutons

MAKE MONEY-SAVING CHOICES

Reduce meat and dairy consumption if you cannot afford to go 100 percent organic. One way to do this is to be vegan before 6 p.m., as Mark Bittman suggests in his book VB6. For example, have a green smoothie for breakfast with Ezekiel toast, eat a large salad with lentils at lunch or a wrap made with hummus, and for dinner choose high-quality meat in small portions.

Cut back on the amount of organic meat used in a recipe by replacing half with organic beans.

Buy a whole organic chicken rather than breasts, legs, or wings for a lower cost per pound. You can use the carcass to make your own chicken broth.

Do not buy prewashed and ready-to-eat fruits and veggies, as they can cost twice as much.

Buy organic coffee and tea such as Larry’s Beans organic coffee and Numi tea, rather than going to expensive coffee shops. You’ll save time in the morning, too.

Eat out only twice a week—eating organic at home is significantly less expensive than eating at organic restaurants.

BUY IN BULK

Because the manufacturer doesn’t have to pay for the cost of designing the label and making packaging materials, bulk foods are often cheaper. I save a ton of cash by buying everything—from oat groats, to nuts, to dried fruit and lentils—in bulk.

Bring measuring cups with you to the grocery store if you are buying from bulk containers. That way you can get exactly the amount you need for a specific recipe and you won’t pay for extra.

Buy the whole animal from a local farmer and freeze the portions you don’t use. Consider splitting the cost with some friends.

To satisfy your sweet tooth, skip the full-size packages of organic candy and chocolate. Buy a few pieces in the bulk section; for example, go for a few pieces of organic dried fruit or ten organic chocolate-covered almonds.

Find out what fruits and vegetables are in season and buy those in bulk, since they are significantly cheaper. Freeze or can whatever is left over.

Join a buying club with your neighbors, friends, or family and buy large quantities at a discount. For example, United Buying Clubs (unitedbuyingclubs.com) serves more than 3,000 clubs in 34 states.

SELECT ORGANIC BRANDS THAT SAVE YOU BUCKS

Choose less expensive grocery store brands like Trader Joe’s, Earth Fare, 365 Everyday Value, ShopRite, Wegmans, Kroger, Publix, and Harris Teeter. Regardless of the brand, these are all required to follow the same guidelines set forth by the USDA organic certification program if they bear the USDA organic seal, and chances are that you won’t be able to tell the difference between a brand name and a store brand.

Remember that if you are not satisfied with your organic product, most grocery stores and organic food companies offer you a money-back guarantee.

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

I cleaned out my kitchen—and will keep it that way.

I changed my shopping habits.

Day 19—Cook Outside the Box

WHEN I WAS A little girl, the kitchen was off-limits. My dad wouldn’t let me near a stove, for fear I would burn my little fingers off. I despised helping my mom set the table. Going to the farmers’ market was torture. Indian food was scary. Burger King and McDonald’s were so much more enticing.

After I went away to college, contemplating dinner involved not opening up the refrigerator or turning on the stove but picking up a phone and dialing for takeout. I knew this couldn’t be good for me. I really needed to master some culinary basics, so in my midtwenties, after my wake-up call, I decided to tie on an apron and learn.

At first, I was intimidated. I didn’t think I could boil an egg without burning it. But my overachieving nature took over. I saw learning to cook as a challenge. I relied on cookbooks, the Food Network, online information, and guidance from friends. I made a lot of mistakes, burned a lot of dishes, and totally botched what looked like easy recipes.

Practice makes perfect. Through trial and error, I learned how to cook and even to create my own recipes. I love collecting recipes from my travels and meeting people from around the world who share their cooking styles. These experiences have made me an adventuresome cook.

Most days I cook on the stove, and I don’t always burn myself. My favorite chore is setting the table. I can spend countless hours at the farmers’ market. I love Indian food. I think food from Burger King and McDonald’s is evil. How things have changed.

Cooking at home is exceedingly healthy for you, because you have total control over the ingredients you use. Regardless of income, the best predictor of a healthy diet is how much food is cooked at home. You don’t adulterate your food with preservatives, colorings, or MSG. You control the kind and the amount of fat, sugar, and salt used. You don’t risk leaching plastic into meals. If you are buying organic ingredients, you don’t cook with pesticides. You know exactly what you’re eating.

Contrary to what you might have been led to believe, cooking at home also saves you time and money. You can make many dishes in less time than it takes to jump in the car and go to a fast-food restaurant. You can cook in bulk and reheat dishes when you’re ready for a meal. By planning what you’ll make and having the ingredients on hand, you’ll save money. And you can be creative with leftovers, either recycling them into new dishes or packing them in containers and sending them off as lunch the next day—an option I fully explore in my household. If you have a well-stocked pantry, it’s easier and cheaper to reach into the cupboard and cook than it is to shop for additional ingredients.

Quick fact: Americans waste an estimated 1,400 calories of food per person every single day. Don’t be among them. Here are my suggestions:

Keep raw nuts and flours in your refrigerator to prevent them from going rancid.

Line your refrigerator’s crisper drawer with paper towels to absorb excess moisture. This will help keep produce fresh.

To repel bugs, place a bay leaf in containers of rice, flour, and pastas.

Buy and keep bananas separated from one another; they won’t spoil as fast.

Do not throw away nut meal from homemade nut milk. Use it for smoothies or baked goods like biscotti for extra nutrition and flavor. Or make nut flour by spreading the pulp out on a baking sheet and drying it in a 250°F oven or dehydrator.

Use vegetable pulp from juicing to add fiber to soups or smoothies, or to make crackers or bread.

Place limp celery, carrots, and radishes in water with a slice of potato to make them crunchy again.

Keep all organic citrus fruits in the fridge—they will last one to two weeks longer.

Do not wash organic dark leafy greens or berries until you are ready to eat them.

Store herbs, spring onions, and asparagus upright in a large glass filled with an inch of water.

Use “aging” food wisely. For example, use stale bread in panzanella and overripe bananas in banana bread. You can also freeze overripe bananas and later blend them into smoothies.

Choose to eat less; use a smaller plate to help you control the amount of food you eat.

Compost all food waste to put nutrients back into your garden (and save money on fertilizer).

When my husband and I go out for a nice dinner, our restaurant bill is around $50 or $60, easily. That’s just for two meals! How many meals do you think I could make at home with $50? Plenty. I can buy raw organic cheese, organic beans, salsa, romaine, and sprouted tortillas for a taco dinner for $15 or less, and have plenty of leftovers for lunch or dinner the next day or more. Cooking at home—and saving money in the process—is a no-brainer.

Once you get used to preparing foods in a healthy way, you’re hooked for life.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

START SLOWLY AND KEEP COOKING SIMPLE

My advice to anyone learning to cook is not to be overly ambitious. If you’ve just started climbing mountains, you don’t attempt Mount Everest, so don’t try to serve something like crepes suzette.

As a novice cook, I relied on websites such as cooks.com or allrecipes.com. Choose a few recipes from cooking sites that you think you can handle, and follow the steps to the letter. These sites stay on top of cooking trends and cater to time-crunched home cooks, so they’re good places to turn to. (Please note: you might need to modify the ingredients based on what you’ve learned in this book so far!)

Cruise your local bookstores for interesting cookbooks and stock up. I have a library full of them to inspire me to cook with new ingredients or make dishes in an innovative way. My favorites are in Appendix B at the back of this book.

Watch television cooking shows, but don’t make cooking a spectator sport. In his book Cooked, Michael Pollan revealed that Americans spend more time watching people cook on popular shows than actually cooking.

A trick for beginners is to keep it simple. Find recipes that use only a few ingredients—for example, a veggie omelet. You can knock this out in minutes and cook it in one pan to save dishwashing time.

Once you get four or five recipes under your belt, consider yourself a graduate of Cooking 101. The recipes in this book are perfect for beginner and intermediate cooks. They don’t take long—because I don’t have a lot of patience—so you can whip them up in no time.

You don’t have to cook every single meal at home. I suggest that you cook at least fifteen meals a week and feel free to eat out the rest of the time. My 21-Day Food Babe Way Eating Plan is designed around this concept; it will help you plan your cooking and your restaurant eating.

COOK FRESH CUISINE

Whenever possible, cook outside the box. By that I mean cook fresh, using foods as close to nature as possible. Once a food goes into a box or bag, it loses some or much of its nutritional value.

PREP AHEAD OF TIME

Do as much prep work as you can the night before or first thing in the morning. Wash and cut carrot sticks and other veggies and make organic pudding or desserts. Make a whole casserole or pot of soup so all you have to do is pop it into the oven or heat it up on the stove.

GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF COOKING

Finally, enjoy the aromas as you cook or bake. Notice how the whole atmosphere of your home changes as people you love start to gather. Your meal doesn’t have to be perfect, but because you put your heart into it, the experience will be truly perfect in the end.

FOOD BABE ALERT: TWO REASONS TO TOSS OUT YOUR MICROWAVE

It pops corn perfectly. Zaps a cup of cold coffee. Nukes the kids’ oatmeal. But guess what? That hunk of electronics hogging counter space in 80 to 90 percent of America’s kitchens is not good for us. Here’s why:

Microwaves create carcinogenic compounds in your food. Heating meat, dairy products, plastics, and paper has been shown to create carcinogens. The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) reported leakage of chemicals such as BPA, polyethylene terepthalate (PET), benzene, toluene, and xylene from the packaging of common microwavable foods, including pizzas, chips, and popcorn. The term “microwave safe” is not regulated by the government. The safest course of action is not to use any plastic containers or plastic film in microwave ovens.

Microwaves have been associated with the increase in obesity. The microwave has made it extremely easy and convenient to eat processed foods while destroying their nutritional content and exposing you to unnecessary toxins. The more toxic, dead food people eat, the more calories they consume trying to get the nutrition their bodies so desperately need. The result: weight gain.

Michael Pollan, in his book Cooked, sums up the microwave problem best: “The microwave oven, which stands at the precise opposite end of the culinary (and imaginative) spectrum from the cook fire, exerts a kind of antigravity, its flameless, smokeless, anti-sensory cold heat giving us a mild case of the willies. The microwave is as antisocial as the cook fire is communal.”

Spices have incredible medicinal properties. They curb hunger (cayenne), boost metabolism (paprika), kill cancer cells (turmeric), and fight inflammation (cinnamon). But these benefits are more likely to be realized if the spices are pure. Before I started investigating what was in my food, I had no idea there were several harmful ingredients lurking in my spice cabinet.

Conventional spices are treated with chemicals and contain GMOs. What’s more, virtually all conventional spices sold in the United States are fumigated (sterilized) with hazardous chemicals that are banned in Europe.

Conventional spices are also irradiated. Radiation is used to kill bacteria and other contaminants, but the finished product has decreased levels of vitamins and natural enzymes. Irradiation also changes the chemical composition of a spice, potentially creating carcinogenic by-products and increasing our exposure to free radicals, which cause aging and disease.

With that said, it’s extremely important to fill our pantries with spices that promote health. Below are strategies for buying spices:

Always buy organic spices. Organic spices are not irradiated and are free from pesticides, GMOs, artificial colors, preservatives, and synthetic anticaking agents. (Try Simply Organic, Frontier Co-op, and other organic brands.)

Check the expiration date. Spices, unlike wine, do not get better with age. They lose their powerful benefits. Make sure you clean out your pantry often to avoid using expired spices. Buy smaller organic spice packets or jars; spices lose their flavor and medicinal qualities quickly. Earth Fare, for example, has little preportioned plastic bags of herbs and spices available at a fraction of the cost of whole jars.

Replace conventional spices as soon as possible. If your spice cabinet is full of conventional spices, start to buy organic spices for each new recipe you make. Eventually you’ll have a whole new assortment of organic spices to choose from.

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

I cleaned out my kitchen—and will keep it that way.

I changed my shopping habits.

I committed to cooking more meals at home.

Day 20—Fast Every Day

SO HERE WE ARE on Day 20. Now what?

How about this: Fast every day. What? Fast every day? I know what you’re thinking: That’s insanity! But it’s not. Here’s what I mean: Do not eat anything for at least twelve hours, from the time you eat dinner until the time you break the fast with breakfast. This may not seem like a big deal, or a real fast, but basically, I’m recommending that you eat no late-night snacks or indulgences after dinner—just twelve straight hours of no food.

Why?

From practicing this habit, I learned that my body needs a break from eating to restore itself and reenergize. This habit has allowed me to eat at regular intervals, too, and I sleep better at night. When I don’t practice this habit, I feel lethargic, heavier, and bloated.

Fasting every day has magical benefits, trust me. For one thing, it heals your digestive system—one of the most important parts of your body. If anything goes wrong with your digestive system, the rest of your body will suffer—your mood, behavior, skin, energy, detoxification, and more.

It takes roughly eight hours for your body to completely digest your last meal of the day. During the next four hours or longer, your body goes into detoxification mode, giving your body more time to clear out dead and dying cells as well as regenerate new cells. This process is the true fountain of youth, since aging occurs when more cells die than are being produced. If you intermittently fast for twelve hours overnight, you’ll grow younger as you sleep.

Another benefit of overnight fasting is fat burning. When you fast for twelve hours, your body has to use up stored glucose for fuel, burning excess fat from your body.

A third benefit is heart health. Intermittent fasts lower body temperature, blood pressure, and heart rate and increase levels of good cholesterol.

What’s good for the heart is good for the brain. Intermittent fasts help you sleep better, so that your brain can process stress hormones such as cortisol. These fasts also help you focus and improve memory and sensory perception. Short fasts also promote the production of beta-hydroxybutyrate, a protective brain chemical that can make you less sensitive to excitotoxins like MSG.

One of the most amazing things I noticed right after I adopted this habit was that I woke up with more energy and was better rested. If you’ve ever gone to bed with a full stomach, you know what I mean.

Adopting this habit can be so rewarding. It helps restore your health, slow aging, and renew your energy.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

Intermittent or overnight fasting has been extremely easy for me and can be easy for you, too. Some guidelines:

HAVE A SCHEDULE

Keep a regular, established dinnertime. I try to have dinner between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. every day. Do not eat anything after dinner is over.

Go to sleep around the same time each night. For me that’s usually around 10 p.m. Regular sleep times improve sleep quality and help prevent insomnia.

DON’T FORGET DAY 1’S HABIT

Upon waking, drink your lemon water (see Day 1). Then it’s time to break your fast. Have breakfast no earlier than twelve hours after the last morsel passed your lips. I usually have breakfast between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.

BREAK YOUR FAST

Don’t skip breakfast. Here’s your chance to power your body with nutrition—and keep hunger and overeating at bay for the rest of your day.

Finding the right time frames might be different for you based on your schedule, but once you find your flow, this habit is easily sustainable for life. So here’s to fasting every day and waking up feeling lighter, more rested, and reenergized.

FOOD BABE ALERT: THE DANGERS OF EATING AFTER DARK

From a health perspective, there are a number of reasons to stop nighttime nibbling:

Heart problems: According to an American Heart Association study published in Circulation in 2013, men who reported that they ate late at night (after going to bed) had a 55 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease than those who were not late-night noshers.

Acid reflux: Technically called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), acid reflux occurs when a valve between the esophagus and the stomach doesn’t close properly. Acid from your stomach then flows upward into your esophagus but is not squeezed back into the stomach. Acid reflux is potentially dangerous, leading to esophageal problems and possibly cancer. One way to reduce your risk of acid reflux is to avoid eating late at night.

Digestive consequences: Digestion slows down after dinner and while you’re sleeping. If your system is overfed late in the evening, digestion and absorption of nutrients may be delayed and impaired. The consequences could be indigestion and a decrease in nourishment.

Night eating syndrome (NES): This is a peculiar eating disorder, in which sufferers have irrepressible urges to eat several times during the night when they should be sleeping. NES begins innocently enough, with night eating as a response to stress and emotional problems. But it can progress to a full-fledged psychological disorder that needs to be treated with therapy.

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

I cleaned out my kitchen—and will keep it that way.

I changed my shopping habits.

I committed to cooking more meals at home.

I “fasted.”

Day 21—Travel Organically

PICTURE THIS: You’re on one of the most beautiful and remote islands in the world, with the best scuba diving, the richest biodiversity of marine life, the most crystal-clear water, and the nicest people—basically heaven on earth.

Then you find out that most of the food offered at the island resort is highly processed and tainted with MSG, artificial colors, flavors, preservatives, and other additives.

This happened to me when my husband and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary at a resort on Mabul Island, off the east coast of Borneo in Malaysia. The island was formed by a spectacular coral reef atop an extinct volcano and is home to more than 3,000 species of fish. It took two days of traveling, a one-and-a-half-hour car ride, and a one-hour boat ride to get there from Thailand—quite a trek.

Mabul Island is known, too, for its lovely stilt houses rising from the sea. We spent a week in one of these homes, from which we could see an astonishing array of multicolored reef fish swimming in the blue water below. It was idyllic, and we felt like we were honeymooning all over again.

So isolated was the resort that we did not have access to bakeries, farmers’ markets, or restaurants. The only place to purchase food was at the resort store, which sold only highly processed snacks, candy, and soda. The best we could do was buy coconut water and fruit from a nearby village. Fortunately, I had managed to pick up seven lemons in Kuala Lumpur on the way into Borneo, so I would at least be able to have my lemon water with cayenne.

I had packed food for the journey, of course, but the resort was our last stop at the end of a three-and-a-half-week journey. Our organic stash had dwindled. To say I was a bit worried about what I would be eating is an understatement!

For dinner our first night, the hot food looked tasty but suspicious. I asked the manager if she knew whether MSG or other additives were used to prepare the food. She said she was almost positive they weren’t. In my gut, I didn’t believe her. She suggested that after dinner, I speak to the kitchen staff directly, meet the chef, and make sure my questions were answered definitively. After dinner? I thought that was odd, but I rolled with it. After all, I was on vacation and didn’t want to start an argument.

Unless we know the source of meat, my husband and I try to eat vegetarian meals while traveling. At dinner that night, no vegetarian entrees were offered on the buffet, so we asked for a special order. Out came fried tofu, covered in a thick brown sauce, with vegetables and white rice. I tried some but filled up on raw vegetables and fruit instead. After dinner, I went back to the kitchen to meet the chef. He was more than accommodating and showed me the packages of spices and powdered sauce mixes they used on almost all the food. As I read through the ingredients, my head started to spin. The brown sauce used to make my tofu definitely included MSG, along with probably every other harmful ingredient I’ve blogged about.

I made a polite request to have our food prepared with salt and pepper and nothing else. The chef graciously complied, and our worries were over. Rosy, the lead cook, made us incredibly delicious additive-free food from scratch, from special soups to a popular Malaysian dish called roti canai with vegetables that blew us way.

To think that we could have been eating potentially toxic food for a week. But I learned that it’s possible to eat toxin-free, even in a faraway land. You just have to ask for what you want.

Also, I like to be prepared while traveling, so that I don’t have to eat nutritionally dead food on my trips. That’s why I pack many of my own foods.

THE FOOD BABE WAY

Before you leave for the airport or jump into your car for a road trip, take the time to do the following:

CALL AHEAD

Whenever I travel and know my food options might be limited, I call or send an e-mail to the hotel ahead of time, requesting my food selections, letting them know ingredients I avoid, and giving them my preferences for preparation. Upon arrival, I confirm all of this with the kitchen staff.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK

Before you go anywhere, do some research to find restaurants and businesses that use local and/or organic products. Before traveling to Turks and Caicos one year, I discovered a café called Fresh Bakery and Bistro that specialized in organic breads and other goods. Its menu was delightful.

PACK YOUR OWN “AIRPLANE FOOD”

My favorite options are smoothies (on the way to the airport), oatmeal or yogurt for morning flights, and hummus sandwiches on sprouted wheat tortillas packed with organic greens for later flights. Yogurt is technically a liquid according to the TSA, but if you premix it with fruit, you won’t be caught when you go through security. Other good packable meals are an assortment of raw veggies (think carrots, celery, peppers, broccoli), whole grain crackers like Mary’s Gone Crackers, or a filling, high-fiber avocado. All of these will keep your hunger in check so that you can avoid the snack cart when it rolls around. Important: Don’t pack your food in aluminum foil. It will set off alarms in the X-ray machine.

PACK SMALL BAGS OF ORGANIC QUICK-COOKING ROLLED OATS, CINNAMON, AND DATES

I place a mixture of ¼ cup instant plain oatmeal and a few sprinkles of organic cinnamon in a Ziploc bag. In another Ziploc bag, I carry one date and a few walnuts. When I’m ready to make my oatmeal, I get a cup of hot water from the hotel, a gas station, a coffee shop, or wherever I happen to be. Then I break or cut up the date into pieces and add it with the oatmeal to the hot water, do a quick stir, and let it sit until it’s warmed through and the oats have soaked up all the water. Before eating my oatmeal, I add the walnuts as a crunchy topping. The cinnamon and the date, which dissolves quite a bit in the oatmeal, bestow amazing natural flavor and sweetness.

This recipe varies depending on what I have access to. Often, I’ll add banana, raisins, goji berries, almond butter, and other nuts. Many toppings travel well.

BUY SMALL PACKS OF DRIED ORGANIC GREEN POWDER

When I can’t get my usual green juice or smoothie, I like to carry powdered green mixes that are loaded with dark leafy greens, which contain chlorophyll and algae to keep you alkaline throughout your travels. Mix the powder into a small carton of coconut water for a quick hydrating treat. This makes a perfect snack when you don’t have access to a lot of green vegetables.

PACK SOME DETOXIFIERS

These include a few organic apples, lemons, and cayenne pepper to detox after a long flight or drive. Mix lemon juice and cayenne in hot water for your morning ritual (see Day 1). The apples provide fiber and keep your hunger at bay until you have your first meal after arrival.

STAY HYDRATED

Pack a water bottle to be filled at the airport, or buy water after you’ve cleared airport security. I like to bring at least 32 ounces of water with me. I can’t tell you how many times the airlines have been stingy about giving me water. Drink at least 16 ounces of water a few hours before your flight, and limit alcohol and caffeine. Drink 8 ounces of water for every hour of flying time.

TRY MY ENERGIZER FOR LONG PLANE RIDES

My secret is fresh ginger tea. It stimulates my circulation and makes me feel terrific after I deplane. Take a thermos, and toss in ¼ cup of freshly chopped gingerroot. After passing through security, head to an airport coffee shop and request a large cup of hot water. Be sure to give the barista a nice tip for serving you free hot water. (Do not wait until you get on the plane to get hot water; water on planes is notoriously dirty.) Pour the hot water into the ginger-filled thermos and let it brew. Once you’re on the plane, sip your ginger tea. You’ll feel so energized when you arrive at your destination.

POP SOME ALMOND BUTTER

For an energy treat, try Artisana organic almond butter, available in single-serve packages. Just open and squeeze into your mouth or spread on celery sticks or a whole wheat cracker.

PURCHASE A TRAVEL BLENDER AND PACK HEMP PROTEIN POWDER

Cuisinart and Vitamix make good travel blenders. Ask the hotel for fresh veggies and fruit, and prepare quick, healthy meals in your hotel room.

TACKLE THE TRAVEL MUNCHIES

Pack Ziploc bags of organic cereal, sprouted wheat pretzels, or homemade trail mix. Try a mixture of organic raw nuts like almonds, cashews, and walnuts; organic seeds like sunflower and pumpkin; and something sweet like organic raisins, golden berries, or dates. Trail mix doesn’t need refrigeration and can last forever in your suitcase. I’ve made several individual servings to last me throughout long travels; you never know when you’ll need them.

CHECK A COOLER

Here’s a great way to enjoy endless possibilities: Pack organic veggies, homemade hummus, and other goodies in a cooler with frozen soups, which double as refrigeration. Hopefully, your destination has a stove or a toaster oven you can use to warm up food. Otherwise, you might have to resort to a microwave—just make sure not to microwave your food in plastic!

When I used to travel every week for work, I’d spend a little time on Sunday preparing my cooler. As soon as I’d get to the office, I’d unpack the cooler in the break room, put the food in the fridge, and have homemade snacks and meals for the next three days. While everyone else was eating Subway or Salsarita’s Fresh Cantina, I was having hot tomato white bean soup and marinated kale salad.

AVOID FACTORY-FARMED MEAT

Don’t eat meats unless the restaurant or grocery store assures you that they’re free of growth hormone and antibiotics. I don’t eat any meat while vacationing unless I know it’s additive-free.

WATCH OUT FOR “FRESH BREAD” IN LOCAL GROCERY STORES

It’s horrendous, with a laundry list of ingredients that your body can’t process. Buy bread from the local bakery or look in the freezer section at the grocery store for higher-quality bread. While vacationing in the Caribbean, I once found Ezekiel cinnamon raisin bread in the freezer section and made great sandwiches for the dive boat. I grabbed a few bananas from the breakfast table every morning and used almond butter from single-serve packets to make the sandwiches. This saved us from eating the dive boat’s free catered selection of white-bread ham sandwiches and the Funyuns, Doritos, and Cheetos they offered.

DO A POST-TRIP DETOX

After a trip, my body is screaming for a detox. (My mind, on the other hand, has a different plan, like planning my next trip… ahhh.) Even though I follow healthy habits on the road, I don’t always watch what I eat, nor do I stick to my usual exercise program—which is why I take some simple steps to get back on track after traveling.

Eat at home. This should be your numero uno priority. While on your trip, you probably took in more fat, calories, sugar, and toxins than you’d normally eat. While that’s not terrible, it’s a good idea to cook your own food again to obtain more nutrition.

Sip dandelion tea. This stuff is dynamite for reducing swelling or bloating from traveling or eating too much salt. I’ve found that eating out almost always guarantees salt bloat, even though I ask servers to reduce the salt in my food. Dandelion flushes out excess salt. It also stimulates the liver, which helps the body clear out toxic invaders you might have been exposed to while traveling. My favorite brand of dandelion tea is Traditional Medicinals.

Have daily wheatgrass shots. A quick method of detoxing is to enjoy a daily shot of this wonderful juice. It’s a surefire way to help speed up your energy and metabolism.

Eat raw vegetables at every meal. Pump up your intake of raw fruits and veggies at most meals, and be sure to drink your daily green juice or smoothie. Raw produce is known for its ability to remove toxins and heal your body fast.

Plan a juice fast. When you get back to your normal routine, say after a week or so, consider a juice fast for one to three days: Drink several types of freshly made juice five or six times a day, but no other food. A fast will also help you lose any weight gained on your trip. Check out more on juice fasting at foodbabe.com.

Hot yoga. For me, hot yoga is an effective physical detox. No other activity gives me more pleasure and peace of mind, because yoga helps improve digestion, circulation, and brain function. With hot yoga, you exercise in a hot room—for two main reasons. First, the heat helps make your muscles more supple so that you can flex more deeply into the poses. Second, the heat helps increase sweat, which then efficiently releases toxins. A lot of naysayers claim that you can’t sweat out toxins, but I don’t believe them. I know that when I haven’t been eating right or have been exposed to some element that is not good for my body, my skin will literally sting after sweating. If I’m practicing clean living, I don’t feel this. I’ve become so in tune with my body, I know exactly what’s going on. Yoga helps me listen to, and tune in to, my body even more. If you haven’t tried hot yoga, or any kind of yoga, I highly recommend it.

CHECKLIST

Today:

I did my morning lemon water ritual.

I enjoyed a green drink.

I stopped drinking fluids with my meals.

I drank, and bathed in, pure, clean, filtered water.

I ate less dairy and made healthier dairy choices.

I stopped drinking all sodas.

I loved my liver by paying attention to alcohol consumption.

I passed on fast food.

I gave up refined sugar.

I ate less meat and I ate it responsibly.

I increased the raw plant foods in my diet.

I chose the best possible grains and carbs.

I balanced my fats.

I supplemented with at least one superfood.

I avoided GMO foods as much as possible.

If dining out, I made healthy, organic choices.

I cleaned out my kitchen—and will keep it that way.

I changed my shopping habits.

I committed to cooking more meals at home.

I “fasted.”

I committed to traveling organically.

OMG: WHAT ARE GMOs?

GMOs AND YOUR HEALTH

A GMO BY ANY OTHER NAME…

THE HIDDEN TRUTH

LOOK OUT FOR HIGH-RISK INGREDIENTS AND FOODS

BUY USDA-CERTIFIED ORGANIC FOOD

PURCHASE FOOD WITH THE NON-GMO PROJECT VERIFICATION LABEL

CHECK OUT FRUIT AND VEGETABLE LABEL NUMBERS

EAT LESS PROCESSED FOOD AND COOK YOUR MEALS FROM SCRATCH

STICK IT TO MONSANTO WHERE IT HURTS

ASK YOUR FAVORITE BRANDS TO GO NON-GMO

CHECKLIST

BIG CHAINS, BIG FOOD POLLUTION

Applebee’s—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 10 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Cheesecake Factory—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Chili’s—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

Olive Garden—Sampling of menu items exposes you to at least 12 of the Sickening 15 ingredients

THE FOOD BABE WAY

MAKE DINING OUT A SPECIAL OCCASION

EAT HALF OF A GRAPEFRUIT

ORDER A SALAD AS YOUR FIRST COURSE WITH DRESSING AND/OR CHEESE ON THE SIDE

QUIZ YOUR SERVER

COMMUNICATE YOUR ALLERGIES OR FOOD SENSITIVITIES

CHECK THE SOUP

ORDER ORGANIC PROTEINS

MIX AND MATCH

ORDER OFF (NOT FROM) THE MENU

BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH A FAVORITE RESTAURANT

EAT ETHNIC

Tips for Eating Chinese Food

Tips for Eating Thai Food

Tips for Eating Mexican Food

Tips for Eating Indian Food

Tips for Eating Japanese Food

Tips for Eating French Food

Tips for Eating Vietnamese Food

Tips for Eating Ethiopian Food

Tips for Eating Italian Food

Tips for Eating Pizza

EATING AWAY FROM HOME: DINNER PARTIES AND HOLIDAY GATHERINGS

CHECKLIST

CLEAR OUT

RESTOCK

Drinks:

Breakfast cereals and grains:

Bread, pasta, and whole grains:

Beans:

Dried fruits, nuts, and seeds:

Desserts and sweets:

Freezer items:

Condiments and other staples:

POST A CHECKLIST

CHECKLIST

THE FOOD BABE WAY

SHOP WELL

BE A STRATEGIC SHOPPER

HAVE THE GOODS DELIVERED

BUY LOCAL: FARMERS’ MARKETS AND CSAS

GROW YOUR OWN

SAVE A WAD OF CASH

START AT HOME AND IN YOUR KITCHEN

USE YOUR FREEZER

MAKE MONEY-SAVING CHOICES

BUY IN BULK

SELECT ORGANIC BRANDS THAT SAVE YOU BUCKS

CHECKLIST

Buy It Cheap, Make It Keep

THE FOOD BABE WAY

START SLOWLY AND KEEP COOKING SIMPLE

COOK FRESH CUISINE

PREP AHEAD OF TIME

GET INTO THE SPIRIT OF COOKING

Spice Up Your Health

THE FOOD BABE WAY

HAVE A SCHEDULE

DON’T FORGET DAY 1’S HABIT

BREAK YOUR FAST

CHECKLIST

THE FOOD BABE WAY

DO YOUR HOMEWORK