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It may seem strange to tell you to watch out for  organic food labels in a post on a health food blog.  But there’s a reason for this madness.  It’s all about those misleading labels.  Don’t believe the myth that just because something has an organic food label on it, the food is automatically healthy, good-for-you eating.

You see, the food industry watches the trends in buying, and they’re in business to make money, obviously.  So when they notice that foods that have organic food labels on them are becoming more popular, they want to slap that label on as many things as possible.

That’s not just in the regular grocery stores either.  There are a lot of foods in health food stores with that organic food label that are really nothing more than organic junk food.

Organic white flour is one example.  So the flour was grown organically, then all the nutrients stripped out of it in the process of making it white flour.  Presto!  Organic junk food.

Organic donuts and waffles?  Just because they have organic sugar and organic white flour, do you really believe they are healthy food?  Nope, organic junk food.  The best you can say is they’re a tad better than the non-organic variety, but that’s stretching it.

Look at the labels.  You want to buy whole foods.  Foods with as little processing as possible.  If the food is full of sugar and / or fat, or otherwise highly processed, chances are it’s just organic junk food.

And junk food isn’t healthy food, whether it’s organic or not.

Post from: Health Food Made Easy

Organic Junk Food

Not necessarily. Unfortunately, misleading labels and fraud seem to abound in the grocery store and honey isn’t a sweet exemption. Like everything else, ‘Caveat emptor’ applies.

Health Food News On Honey

Just recently, three men were arrested, being accused of faking the origin of imported Chinese honey to avoid paying millions of dollars in antidumping tariffs. The case is the second within a year involving charges of false labelling of Chinese honey. That makes you wonder who’s got away with it, and how can you know where your honey came from?

The bigger problem, however, is making sure you’re buying pure honey. It seems with the high price of honey caused by the limited supply, some beekeepers and food processors have decided to stretch the honey by adding inexpensive sweeteners like corn syrup, inverted syrups and high fructose corn syrup.

This is not a new problem, but honey mixed with high fructose corn syrup is almost indistinguishable, physically and chemically, from the real thing. There can be 80% to 90% corn syrup in honey without being detected.

Great! So you’re buying honey to avoid the problems associated with some of these other sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup, and what happens? You’re unknowingly paying high prices to consume it under the guise of honey.

Testing For Pure Honey

Some French researchers are working on ways to test honey to make sure it’s the real deal. Pure, unalderated honey. They use a special type of chromatography to separate and identify complex sugars or polysaccharides according to their characteristic chemical fingerprints. The test is so sensitive it can detect a 1% addition of corn syrup.

There are other tests available, however, and in use in the United States for checking impurities in honey.

Easy Health Food Tips

If you’re concerned about the quality of the honey you’re buying, there are a couple of things you can do.

• Find a local beekeeper you trust and buy honey from them.
• Look for honey with “organic” on the label.
• Check the label to see if the honey has been certified pure.

Certified honey has been tested for various impurities. Honey that has been labelled organic has to meet even stricter standards, in accordance with USDA regulations on organic products and certified by a USDA certified agency or organization.

Look for the real deal. Buy pure honey.

Post from: Health Food Made Easy

Honey Fraud in Health Food News

It would seem, well, natural to think so. But the only trouble is, the beef ain’t necessarily natural.

Is Natural Beef Really An All Natural Food?

At one time, the USDA defined natural beef as:

Food used is always hormone and stimulant free. NO artificial or synthetic ingredients. Only minimally processed. USDA does not permit preservatives in this product.

That seems a good and reasonable definition for “natural beef” or any other natural meats.

The USDA Does Another About Face

Unfortunately, the USDA did consumers a grave disservice, bowing to pressure from the regular beef industry. They actually downgraded the definition of “natural” to mean:

Meat that is minimally processed and free of additives such as preservatives, artificial flavors, or colors.

Big deal! That means the only meat that doesn’t qualify for the natural label is marinated meat, or those with some other added solution.

In other words, “Natural” on the label doesn’t mean much these days. It’s just a sneaky way of getting you to spend more money on something you think is better than the regular beef, but most likely isn’t that different.

At best, you may at least be getting meat free of coloring or preservatives, and while that’s good, it doesn’t address the problem of how the beef was raised.

Natural Food Starts With Natural Raising

How can you give an animal hormones and antibiotics, then call the food produced natural? The USDA has separated how food is raised from how it’s processed.  You’d think anyone with an ounce of common sense could see the difference.  The food has to be natural before it’s plunked in a package!

Going Beyond The Natural Label To Find REAL Natural Foods

There are companies out there producing beef and other meat that is truly natural. They do not administer antibiotics or give the animals any hormones, and do not use feed with any animal by-products.

Costco, Kroger’s, Publix, and Whole Foods are some of the grocery stores that carry truly natural meats, such as those produced by Coleman Natural brands.

Other producers offer natural meats for sale online, shipping them with dry ice to the customer.

If you are fortunate, you might also find a local producer.

Watch For Those Misleading Food Labels

If all the package label says is “natural”, that doesn’t mean much. Meats that are truly natural food will have labeling proclaiming the animals were raised without hormones, etc.

So remember, just because the label says natural, doesn’t mean it really is.

Post from: Health Food Made Easy

“Natural” Is Another Misleading Food Label