Do You Know What You're Eating?

Yesterday I purchased a box of Kashi granola bars. One of the ingredients listed was evaporated cane juice. How bad is this ingredient? I thought Kashi products were supposed to be pretty good.

That is a great ingredient. It is all natural and while it is sugar, it is not refined white sugar or worse yet, High Fructose Corn Syrup.

That is good to know. This was the first time I had seen this ingredient listed on a product and I did not know about it. Almost did not but them; but I knew someone her would probably know. Thanks for the info.

I am not advocating eating sugary foods, but if you have a sweetener in something it is better for it to be natural than chemical. You have to watch the carbs just the same, so use your carb hat when eating it. I do like Kashi. I am not a fan of cereal, but that one I like.

This is quite enlightening!!! It's amazing how foods that are categorized as healthy are not as healthy as we believe it claims to be. Thank you, Gabby, for this eye opening information.

"Happy Belated Birthday Gabby"…hope you had a wonderful day…thanks for the info…try to eat has much home grown as I can (have my own garden and raise a few chickens and a few roosters)…so we eat as fresh as we can…but we do still have things in the pantry that I will surely check…Thanks again friend"

Well, my birthday is not for a couple of months, but thanks anyway. I grow a lot of our veggies and that helps a lot. We are prepping the beds for fall, so we can have some winter squash and things. We are not allowed to have chickens because we live in the city, but we are thinking of having some covert bunnies instead. We have access to fresh eggs from a near by farm and I just read that they have 1/3 as much cholesterol as a "cage" egg. Wow!!

Happy day Gabby,
Thanks really appreciate this educational time well needed well presented. Be blessed & favored in the name of Jesus.

Working 4 Jesus, & Loving it.
Mama Dee

What about Guava, A natural sugar made from a fruit… I use it and it is delicious. Any comments about it anyone?

Guava is a paste and it is loaded with sugar. I love it. It's great with jack cheese and crackers, but unless you are talking about something else, I am not so sure we should eat too much of it. It also comes as a jelly, but I have never seen it as a sugar.

Gabby: awesome and concise information that helps us narrow down a lot of the bombardment of information out there to which you need a PHD to sort through sometimes. I am also at work in trying to make sense of a lot of the senseless additives, preservatives, chemicals, etc. Perhaps the best question after taking out all of these ingredients is what's left that is safe and nutritious for us (consumers whether diabetic or not) to eat??? Thanks so much for the posting. It's definitely thought provoking information. Thank you!!!

Eat veggeis from the market, fruit from the market, meat from your organic butcher and dairy from your local health food store. Make your own condiments and keep reading those labels on the processed foods.

Sounds easy. Major problem is most major grocery store chains place their fresh fruit and vegetables in the very back of the store. In Minneapolis we have two conveniently located fresh food co-ops which great you with an abundance of healthy, fresh foods to choose from. You don't have walk past
aisle after aisle high simple carbohydrate foods to arrive at the healthy food.

That is unusual. Our healthfood store does that, but everyone else is as you stated. I have been practicing the perimeter shopping and it really does work.

Here in No CAL most of the fruits and veggies are in the front of the store, at one edge or the other, and as I recall most of the groc stores in LVNV area were like that too.

Gabby, that sounds like a job, do you do this yourself? What about when you go out to a restaurant or travelling?

We don't eat out much, as finances kind of prevent that. Growing our own veggies helps, but the market is just down the road and I get most of our produce from there. It lasts much longer than anything I get from a grocery store. As for traveling, we try to choose wise, but we camp a lot and bring a lot of our own foods with us. That helps a lot.
The thing I don't do regularly, also because of cost, is organic or grass fed meat. I need to work that in, but it is going to take some efforts.
I just got some great recipes for mayo and yogurt (thanks to a member here) and I am excited about trying them out.

Gabby, sounds like you and your husband really know what your doing…I wish I can do all that and eat truly only the healthiest food. But I have given up so much already since my diagnosis…I HAVE TO GO TO MY FAVORITE BUFFET RESTAURANTS AT LEAST 1,2 TIMES A WEEK. I do watch what I eat and manage my D well, but that non-GMO, non-GM, organic thing is out of the window, I can't possibly manage that…

You know, it really is not too hard. Eat more foods without labels. What I mean is to eat more whole foods that come from the produce section. Even buying bread from the grocery bakery well have less preservatives in it. Everyone says it, but I have not done it very controlled, but shop the perimeter of the store. You spend less and get pretty much everything you need. I have just started really sticking to that, and it works!

I guess when you look at it as giving up poisons in your food to eat clean food, then it is not such a hard choice. I did that with artificial sweeteners. I did that with hydrogenated oils and now I am doing it with GMO ingredients. It takes time, but it eventually works out.

It is overwhelming and my husband and I are far from knowing what we are doing. But we keep learning. In fact, tonight we had organic spaghetti sauce that was excellent! and with that we have organic noodles made from quionoa and corn flour. The corn flour is probably going to kill me, but I am hoping the fiber in the quionoa will take care of some of that. I test in about a half an hour to find out. We won't get 100% organic in our processed foods overnight. It's far too expensive, but we will make some conscious choices and go from there.

I know when I go to a Buffet, I am in trouble…so I just don't go. I know I should have better will power, but I don't, so I try not to tempt myself unduly. LOL So Kudos to you! I could never do that.

I see you were trying out the quinoa & corn flour noodles. How did the results of that test come out?

Thank you Gabby, very good advice, I will try that…we are running out of room here…see you on another thread..

I'm sorry…I am rather long winded…my name is very fitting. LOL

i didnt know that thanks for sharing

Thanks Gabby for the info. I was shocked. Are you still going to use stevia?

Yep, I am going to use Sweet Leaf Stevia and end up dumping the Truvia and Purvia and the Stevia in the Raw. If I need to bake something, I will just use good old fashioned cane sugar. I use raw or brown sugars most for those things.

I have the sweet leaf stevia so I will use that instead of truvia. Thanks.

I am disappointed because yet again, we are put out for needing a more diabetic friendly option. I just bought a huge box of it, and we will use that up and then I will just go back to buying my Sweet Leaf. I really, really want to grow my own. I have to get on that this fall.

I recommend everyone watch Food, INC. sometime.

Here is an interesting link on GMO labeling … http://www.naturalnews.com/028716_GMOs_food_l...

Be careful of Natural News, though. They have also been known to distort information in order to inflate or sensationalize. Just use your head and don't believe everything you read, okay?

In what way do they do that? I know I use Mercola also and he is to be watched with a careful eye. But sometimes I think we believe too much of the main stream media. I tend to think outside the box. Even if it is a "fruit loop" box. LOL

As main stream media twist the truth, so do non-main stream media! Moral of this story is don't believe anyone!!!LOL

LOL, that is true. That is why I like "experience" sharing here. I know you guys are living it, and that helps me deal with things too.

I had started the download to Food, Inc on Netflix but didn't get far into it. I will fire it up again (love netflix). Thanks for the kick in the pants.

Thanks Betty. I signed up for the newsletter.

It came out in theaters, but I was not able to watch it. I saw a lot of the trailers for it…scary stuff! Is it online anywhere to order that you know of?

Oh, and I love that web site you posted. I signed up for the newsletter. Thanks so much

Netflix has it on the watch online list.