Photo by Carol VanHook, used with CreativeCommons permission. https://flic.kr/p/iPsgF2 Have you made your New Years resolutions yet? Here are our RawSolutions:
Raw Foods News Magazine resolves the following for 2015:
- Encourage more farmers to switch to organic farming
- Buy only products with pure, healthful ingredients and avoid others. Example: Avoid products that lab tests show contain high levels of the toxic heavy metal cadmium, like sunflower seeds, raw cacao powders and wakame.
- Seek products and ingredients that were not processed in facilities that also process such things as wheat, soy and dairy. Example: Navitas Naturals has the following notice on the label of its Superfood+ Pepitas: "Manufactured in a facility that also handles peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, milk, eggs, and soy."
- Scrutinize labels even for those products we have bought before, because too many companies are changing their products in ways that are not good for our health. Example: The label of KAL Pure Stevia (a sweetener that we used to highly recommend) now says it contains maltodextrin, which is extremely high on the glycemic scale and which totally negates the health benefits of stevia. We are now recommending the brand SweetLeaf Organic Stevia Extract.
- Do due diligence on foods, ingredients and supplements, to avoid bad processes and hidden additives. Examples: GoRaw's quality assurance manager Natalia Hunter wrote to us (see footnote *) that as part of their extensive process to ensure the safety of their products, they x-ray all of their products before sending them to market; gel caps, even veg ones, often contain carrageenan, which is bad for our health, as studies have shown; food cans, such as the ones cooked beans come in, can be lined with a corn resin, even in BPA-free cans, and that would be GMO corn, as the resin would not be from organic corn. We learned this on the Dr. Oz show and it's also mentioned here.
- Before mail-ordering any products -- including exercise equipment -- determine where they were made and whether California's Prop 65 requires a warning. (California is the only U.S. state that so protects consumers.) Example: QVC sold a Pilates Reformer but did not provide crucial information pre-sale, which consumers had to find out in the product manual after the large, heavy product had been delivered, namely a warning that the equipment contained materials that could cause cancer. The made-in-China equipment reeked of a toxic odor as soon as the box was opened.
- Seek out products made with the most health-promoting ingredients, and avoid others. Examples: Avoid products containing Irish moss (which has the same molecular structure as the carrageenan made from it, as scientist/physician Joanne K. Tobacman tells us. See footnote **); avoid products made with maple syrup and agave nectar, which are too high on the glycemic scale and not raw or health-promoting; avoid products made with cacao powder and sunflower seeds, both of which contain cadmium, a toxic heavy metal.
- Scrutinize ingredients of raw restaurant items, as they will often be ones we want to avoid for all of the above reasons.
- Dance and laugh as much as possible.
- Share these 2015 RawSolutions to help everyone to have better health.
It's especially ironic and disturbing when products such as foods, ingredients, and exercise equipment that are marketed as promoting health, turn out to be the opposite, made of ingredients and materials that cause illness. What a betrayal.
Footnotes:
* E-mail from Natalia Hunter, quality assurance manager for Freeland Foods, makers of the GoRaw line:
I would like to let you know a little bit more regarding our quality and production processes and procedures.
1. We have a HACCP plan (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) in place.
2. Our personnel is trained on GMP’s (Good Manufacturing Practices)
3. All our suppliers are carefully selected after they have met all the requirements on our
Supplier’s Approval Program and provided all the appropriate documentation regarding legal and food safety requirements. Regarding our cacao vendor specifically, they do heavy metal testing for cadmium and other heavy metals of concern under California Proposition 65 and provide documentation to show compliance with this proposition guidance and Safe Harbor Levels.
4. All our seeds are optically sorted.
5. All our ingredients come with COA (Certificate of analysis).
6. Sanitation and cleaning procedures are followed according to sanitation standard operational procedures.
7. We have a group of people test tasting random samples of every product that we make.
8. As a final step in the packaging process, all the products go through an X-Ray Machine.
** Joanne Tobacman, M.D. writes us in an e-mail:
When we tested Irish moss in the laboratory, we found that Interleukin-8
secreted by human colonic epithelial cells in culture increased, although
not as much as when exposed to carrageenan. So, yes, I think that it is
good that you did not consume the Irish moss, since the harmful effects of
carrageenan are directly related to its molecular structure.
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