Do you really know what is in your food?

The big thing I started doing as I have made my switch to eating more real food is reading food and product labels. As consumers, we can be fooled too easily by the big text on the front of products promising us things. Words like 'natural' and 'healthy' a lot of the time don't mean anything. When I see advertisements for products I am more interested in WHAT they are using to create their product. I don't care if companies are selling a product that gives your washing a new prettier scent or makes the bread you eat softer. If they are using toxic, synthetic, cheap chemicals to achieve this I'm not interested. There are always better, healthier options if you are willing to ask the right questions and have a bit of fun searching.

The easiest way when cooking to avoid all the additives, food like substances and unpronounceable ingredients in processed food is to not buy them in the first place. I've been googling and researching most common ingredients in processed foods and products for a while now so I know what things should be avoided. However, I know it can be quite hard to decipher long lists of ingredients and numbers on the back of packages which you have never heard of. When we buy food from normal super markets we try to buy only one ingredient products. Carrots. Sweet potatoes. Basil. These are all fresh ingredients and can be used to make foods from scratch. That way you will know exactly what is in your food. I recommend cooking by the way. It is lots of fun, doesn't need to be time consuming and your food will taste so much better when you prepared it yourself!

When buying products think basics. If my great grandma was to make this 100 years ago, what would she have needed? A lot of things in the store have unnecessary processed ingredients in them. Things like yoghurt should only have milk and culture in it. That's what it is like if you were to make your own yoghurt. Anything like a thickener ingredient or milk powder don't need to be there. (Milk powder is added to make the product cheaper, which is basically trying to cheat you from the real thing.) And you don't need sugar or artificial sweeteners, you can add your own fruits and honey into your yoghurt at home. And how about coconut milk? Look out for that one. All it should have is coconut milk. But the food companies forget that sometimes...

Don't let body products become too complicated either. For example, look at the moisturiser you are using now and see what the main active ingredient is. Shea butter? Go buy 100% shea butter and give your body the best it deserves. There are many good natural brands out there but still I recommend you always first flip the product over and read the label on the back. Usually less is better. It's also good to find out about the company that makes the products. This will help you know whether the company actually cares about your health and knows how to make a product with high quality and unprocessed ingredients.

So to sum it all up, make sure you take hold of your health and be informed of what is in the products you are buying. Don't be fooled, always read your labels :)