Diet Food = Crap Food

Crazy thought right?  Why the hell would diet food possibly be bad?  Well, lets go back to reading the ingredients.  We all look at food and think if there is less fat in our food its gotta be good for us.  WRONG!!!  Our bodies crave natural fatty foods.  When you take that fat out you have to add stuff to it to make it something again.  They bring in a chemist and add other stuff to make it taste almost like what it once was.  Most if not all of the stuff they add is worse for you than the actual fat was to begin with.

If you were to look at Hidden Valley Ranch dressing:

Ingredients :

Vegetable Oil (corn)

Water

Egg Yoke

Sugar

Salt

Cultured nonfat Buttermilk

Natural Flavors

Less than 1% of:

Spices
Dried Garlic
Dried Onion
Vinegar
Phosphoric Acid
Xanthan Gum
Modified Food Starch
Monosodium Glutamate
Artificial Flavors
Disodium Phosphate
Sorbic Acid
Calcium Disodium
Disodium Inosinate
Disodium Guanylate

Ingredients:
Water
Vegetable Oil (corn)
Maltodextrin
Buttermilk
Sugar
Salt
Less than 2% of:
Spices
Dried Garlic
Dried Onion
Natural Flavors
Egg Yoke
Modified Food Starch
Phosphoric Acid
Vinegar
Artificial Flavor
Disodium Phosphate
Xanthan Gum
Monosodium Glutimate
Artificial Color
Disodium Inosinate
Disodium Guanylate
Sorbic Acid
Calcium Disodium

These two Bottles might look like they contain the same ingredients, none of which are good for you.  But click the links to see what exactly they are.  I used Livestrong.com to look up different ingredients.  Look up other ingredients around your house and get a full understanding of what you put into your body every day.

So what do you do?

I do my best to stay away from chemicals added to different foods.  The best way to do that is to make your own meals and plan ahead.  I'll probably never been 100% whole real foods because its so expensive.  But to get as close as you can makes a big difference.  Here is a good rule of thumb for a whole real food diet.

1. 5 ingredients or less

2. You are able to read all of them and associate them to a food item.

These rules are fairly easy to live by, and you can fudge it a little as far as ingredients.  Meaning if you make a smoothie that has more than 5 fruits or ingredients in it then its ok.  Just know what you are adding.  But rule #2 is a must!

If Ranch is a must, you might want to look into buying that organic or possibly making it at home.

Find different things to substitute something you really want.  When I want spaghetti and meat sauce, I get zucchini and my julienne pealer.  Look up different ways to cook zucchini as spaghetti.  Then add your meat sauce.

I've cut out protein shakes and diet pills.  Lets face the facts, they don't work.  I also don't drink soda, coffee, tea, or other processed juices.  I crave water and drink as much water as I can.  I know not everyone is like me and can do that, but look at whats in your food or drink before you put it into your body.  When you decided to take the processed foods out of your life and eat a real whole foods without corn, you will find that these meals fill you up with less food and it stays on your stomach longer.  Your body takes longer to digest these foods and you aren't starving 2 hours later.  I eat 3 square meals each day and took it back to the basics.