Last week I stopped at the discussion about fast food. Since the subject of fast foods and their harmful effects does not seem to end, because their health-damaging side effects are surfacing lately more and more through recent research, I will take the liberty to expound on them.

Recent research at the Massachusetts Medical Society Committee on Nutrition found a relationship between fast food and elevated body mass index (BMI) and weight gain due to the high content of unhealthy simple sugars, refined chewy white bread, saturated, trans fats, and large portions, which raise the risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and fatality.

An earlier study showed that trans fats (hydrogenated and overheated vegetable fats) increased belly fat in monkeys even more than saturated fats, leading to insulin resistance and raising the risk of diabetes. One meal of “A Big Mac, large fries, and a Coca-Cola came up to 1,430 calories (more than half of the daily allowance).” The study appears to support Morgan Spurlock’s documentary film, which I wrote about last week in Part 10.

What is worrisome is another recent research published in the journal Clinical Pediatrics by scientists at Ohio State University (OSU), which found a link between fast food consumption frequency and lower school grades. The study followed children from fifth to eighth grade, showing “A negative correlation between the frequency of fast food consumption and rate of learning.”

Other studies show a relationship between iron deficiency, high trans fat, and sugar diets (typical junk diet indicator) and “impaired learning, memory, and cognitive development.” This correlation is an eye-opener since most school children even in Saudi Arabia are raised on mass-produced, harmful, empty-nutrient fast foods, made available everywhere.

Certain mothers are under the impression that switching from hamburger to chicken nuggets is safer. Please go back to what I wrote last week and pay attention to what is added to the food your children eat. For such reasons, parents should become proactive and keep their children away from fast food eateries, which serve processed, mass-produced, pre-packaged foods with toxic chemicals.

Homemade meals with fresh and preferably organic ingredients should be prepared for growing young children to prevent health decline, sinking grades, and impaired learning abilities and ensure healthy growth, free of deficiencies and defects. By the way, what goes in the body goes to the brain, good or bad.

Certain popular fast food eateries bleach the potatoes in order to remove the excess sugar, which changes the flavor and adds a burnt taste to the fries. Moreover, they add sodium pyrophosphate to give the fries a good color after frying. Salt and sugar (dextrose) are freely added to fast food, especially to fries, making it difficult to know the amount of salt or sugar children consume. TBHQ additives are also added to frying vegetable oils in fast food eateries. In large amounts, the chemicals provoked stomach cancer in mice.

Children should also avoid Starbucks drinks and its likes, which add sugar and caramel, making sugar-loaded shakes made with genetically modified organism (GMO) milk. Fortunately, the fast food industry is beginning to feel pressure exercised from aware consumers, who are demanding fresher and healthier meals for their children. This is a good start. It is better late than never! Each and every proactive move makes a difference.

According to Harvard specialist and pediatrician David Ludwig’s published paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association of Pediatrics, crude, full-fat milk has more benefits than commercial low-fat milk. Decreasing fat in milk (low fat) increases its sugar content, turning an otherwise healthy drink into a sweetened drink. Fat is being replaced by sugar in most processed foods to compensate for the missing fat flavor. He says: “The worst possible situation is reduced-fat chocolate milk: you take out the fat, it’s less tasty. So to get kids to drink 3 cups a day [USDA recommendation of milk], you get this sugar sweetened beverage.” Added sugar improves the taste. He suggests other healthy foods (nuts, seeds, leafy greens, sardines, legumes…) that offer more calcium than milk. He added that no significant indication for concluding that dietary saturated fat is related to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

If anything is to blame it would be trans fats and heated polyunsaturated fats coming from corn, soy, and canola and not full-fat free-range milk, coconut oil, and grass-fed dairy animals, which can control diabetes, help nutrient absorption, restrain weight gain, and reduce toxin ingestion (hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, weedkillers…).

Moreover, both the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the American Association of Pediatrics (AAP) agree that overconsumption of sugar can be detrimental to health and wellbeing. Read what sugar does to body and brain cells and immunity in Part 10.

Commercial ice-cream is another fast food item that misleads the consumer to believing that it is healthy. After all, the ingredients are natural and healthy! So summer comes, everyone splurges on ice-creams of different flavors and colors. What a beautiful colorful sight, when ice-cream boxes are displayed in rows, reminding you of the color spectrum or a paint palette in an artist’s studio. Flavors range from vanilla, chocolate, fruits, to nuts, not forgetting the bright hues of ice popsicles, colors you never thought they existed. Did you ever ask yourself if these colors and flavors were natural? I will not keep you guessing, because I will tell where they come from.

Certainly not from fruit colors; the artificial colors are “concealed” on labels under “E and numbers.” The same goes for flavors, sweeteners, emulsifiers, and thickening agents. None of these flavors are natural. They are synthetic. Remember these toxic chemicals are not labelled by name, but “hidden” by E and a number. For example, E5 stands for the color red. Even if they are used in trace amounts, cumulatively they become harmful.

Just for your information, follow me through some of the chemicals children relish when you are giving them a treat:

• Amil acetat, a developer for oil colors, gives banana ice-cream its artificial flavor

• Benzil acetat, used as a nitro diluent, gives the ice-cream the yummy taste of strawberry and color comes from an artificial color (E…)

• Etil acetat, used as a cleaning agent for leathers and fabrics, gives the acidic flavor of pineapple. But guess what else it does? It makes chronic damage to the liver, heart, and chest.

• Piperonal kills lice and also gives you the enjoyable vanilla taste.

Now choose the cocktail of toxic additives you would like to give your children to enjoy!

Since it is clearer for you what is “concealed” in your children’s foods and snacks, be smart and start reading labels for synthetic additives; also read the ice-cream box labels and others; and choose foods with certificates of high quality, free from the above health offenders.

I would like to reassure you that once you stop fast foods, simple sugars, trans fats, toxic chemicals, switch to nutritious diet, and lose weight, you could reverse many symptoms and disorders. You will also regain good health, energy, and equilibrium along with bolstered immunity. You will feel like a totally different person. Do it now before permanent damage occurs.

These are only a few of the toxins, which exist in your children’s everyday foods and yours. Now that you know more about these toxic chemicals, you should make better food and snack choices. Destroying the health of children destroys the health of generations-to-come!

References:

• Chemical in Everyday Products and Children’s Health by Philip J. Landrigan, MD

• Planet in Peril by Anderson, Animal Planet’s Jeff Corwin, and Sanjay Gupta for CNN

• Interview with vaccine researcher (refused to be named) by Jon Rappoport (www.nomorefakenews.com)

• Autism Statistics – mindspec.org

• Why the manufactured food supply is designed to keep you addicted, not nourished by Mike Adams

http://m.naturalnews.com/news/045514_food_addictions_chemical_ingredient...

• Four most dangerous toxins to the brain by Derek Henry

http://www.naturalnews.com/045510_brain_toxins_fluoride_heavy_metals.htm...

• Chicken feed contains cancer-causing arsenic: www.naturalcuresnotmedicine.com

• Meat Companies Go Antibiotics-Free as More Consumers Demand It, by David Kesmodel

• http://www.nih.gov/news/health/jul2014/niehs-08.htm

• http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/09/06/red-bull-c...

• Fast Food May Sink Children’s Grades? http://guardianlv.com/2014/12/fast-food-may-sink-childrens-grades/#jqtiX...

• http://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/shocking-ingredients-in-mcdonalds-french...

• http://health.howstuffworks.com/wellness/food-nutrition/facts/the-danger...

• http://www.fluoridefreeprincegeorge.com/prince-george.html.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBnSufQxys8&feature=youtu.be.

• http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3969660/

• www.realfarmacy.com

• http://uniladmag.com/

• http://www.healthyfoodhouse.com/shocking-here-are-the-harmful-ingredient...

N.B.:

Individuals with medical conditions or on medication should consult their physicians when they decide to introduce anything new in their diet even if it is natural.

The previous Health Solutions articles are located at www. arabnews.com

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