Grocery Store Health Deception - Understanding the Truth about Food Labels

Nutrition & Weight Loss Tips that Start with Your Food Shopping

by Mike Geary, Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist

I was at the grocery store the other day picking up some ingredients for a black bean & brown rice with seasoned venison strips dish I was planning to make, when an interesting thing happened.
I had gone straight to the grocery store after training a couple clients at the gym. Well, as I was grabbing some frozen veggies, a friendly lady (who must have seen that I was a fitness coach from my shirt), asked me my advice on a couple frozen prepared box meals she was picking out which had "healthy" claims on the labels (by the way, those prepared frozen meals are usually highly processed crap loaded with sodium and other chemicals).
Now I will say that this woman was VERY overweight, and she mentioned that she has "tried everything" to lose the excess weight and has always failed.
Keep in mind I hear about 50 people a day tell me they've "tried everything" to lose weight and get in shape. The problem that they don't realize is that they're trying all of the wrong things... they're trying all of the gimmicks and fat loss fads that are out there instead of just adopting a TRUE healthy active lifestyle that will make them lean and healthy for life.
Back to the woman in the store...
So we started chatting about her struggles with losing weight and getting in shape, and I began scanning her grocery cart. If I can remember, these were some of the contents she thought were healthy:

• Slim fast shakes (far from healthy...they're actually loaded with high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and a bunch of other chemicals)
• Fat Free Rice Cakes (ok...despite so many people believing these pieces of crap are healthy...they really are nothing but pure refined starch with zero fiber, which basically breaks down immediately into sugar in your body, spiking insulin and promoting fat storage...doesn't sound so good anymore, huh)
• Protein bars "Scientifically Slim Body Engineered" or some BS statement like that (I took a gander at the ingredient list of these so called "healthy" protein bars and sure enough... hydrogenated oils, high fructose corn syrup, and enough sugar alcohols to give you diarrhea for a week!)
• Canned fruit in syrup (I guess she could do worse here...but still, why not just eat fresh whole fruit which still contains the skins, fiber, active enzymes, etc, instead of resorting to processed, canned fruit that's been cooked and loaded with syrup)
• Reduced Sugar Dessert Cakes (ok, so these are loaded with nasty artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohols, preservatives, and a chemical ingredient list about 15 lines long)

Do you see what's going on here? This is the same scenario that I see all the time.
Most people are fooled by what the FRONT OF THE BOX says, leading them to believe what they are buying is healthy. On all of these items, the FRONT of the packages had all kinds of great sounding things like "fat free", "reduced sugar", "high protein", "low cholesterol", "low carb", etc.
However, the TRUTH is on the BACK OF THE BOX! Ah yes, the ingredient list and nutrition info is where the real truth is. However, I've realized that most of the general public doesn't know how to fully understand the ingredient list and nutrition info, so they rely on the advertising claims on the front of the package to guide them.
BIG MISTAKE!
If you notice, this woman thought she was doing great with her grocery shopping and buying all kinds of healthy stuff for her and her family.
In reality, EVERYTHING she was buying was highly processed and full of chemicals and industrially refined ingredients. No wonder "nothing has worked" for her to get in shape and lose the excess body fat... she actually hasn't been doing anything right. She's been mislead by all of the confusing marketing and labeling and conflicting nutrition info in the mass media.
If you want to discover the TRUTH about what it really takes to eat a truly healthy diet that maximizes your metabolism, brings your hormonal balance back to normal, reduces cravings, and strips off body fat faster than you'd believe is possible... it's all found in my Truth about Six Pack Abs program.
Here's what some of my readers from all over the globe are saying about their experiences with this fat loss program:
Truth about Six Pack Abs Reviews
Have fun and choose wisely on your next grocery store trip!
Feel free to copy/paste this link (or share below) on to any friends, family, or coworkers you think might enjoy this article.

Stay lean,

Mike Geary
Certified Nutrition Specialist
Certified Personal Trainer
Founder - TruthAboutAbs.com

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The #1 MOST Important Diet Lesson You Will Ever Learn

The BEST Way to Eat a Truly Healthy Diet for a Lean Body and Disease Prevention
by Mike Geary, Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer
Author of best-seller:  The Truth About Six Pack Abs


This article might surpise some people... because most people don't view nutrition in this way that I'm about to explain.  Instead most people get thoroughly confused about nutrition and calories, protein, carbs, fat, diet foods, low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-carb, healthy label claims, vegetarian, raw foods, etc, etc.
However, if you view nutrition in this way that I'll explain below, it solves every single confusion about nutrition that you could ever have.  I will warn you though, this is very BIG PICTURE thinking, and it helps explain a lot about the human body when you think about things this way.
Ok, the #1 MOST important aspect about nutrition involves the study of ARCHAEOLOGY (and anthropology)!
What the heck am I talking about?  Well, let's dig in...
Yes, everything about the human body that is either healthy or bad for us currently, all stems from hundreds of thousands, or even millions of years of evolution and how the human body adapted to everything around us, including food, exercise, our environment (city vs nature), and lots more.
We know from archaeological records that our current human species (homo sapiens) originated approximately 200,000 years ago... however, our close cousins (ancestors prior to homo sapiens), such as homo erectus, date as far back as several million years.
If you study evidence about what our ancestors ate, it gives obvious clues about how the human digestive system evolved and what are the healthiest foods for us to eat in today's world.
This obviously explains why relatively new chemicals and food types (that humans were NEVER meant to ingest) cause so many health problems, such as artificial sweeteners, HFCS and other corn derivatives, white bread and other refined grain products, refined oils such as soybean and unhealthy canola oils, and so on.
Now this discussion could get pretty involved and encompass an entire book, so let me give some important statements to best summarize this:
1.  Despite what you'll hear from extreme vegans, extreme raw foodists, and other believers in "extreme" types of diets that eliminate entire portions of the historical human diet, the human digestive system evolved to eat a mixture of plants and animal foods (yes, we evolved as omnivores), as well as a mixture of raw food AND cooked food.
I know, I know... You'll get heated debate about both of these topics...meat eating vs veganism, and raw foodism... however, it's historical FACT that our current species (and historical ancestors back over a million years ago) in almost every culture around the world, ate at least some % of plant-animal food combination and raw food / cooked food combination (even if it was at different times of the day, or even different times of the year).
Some cultures, such as the Inuit of the arctic and several tribes in Africa, thrived in stellar health on almost an entirely animal-based diet, and other cultures around the world thrived on almost an entirely plant-based diet... But all cultures generally had some mixture of plant and animal foods, even if the amount of animal food was small in some cultures, or the amount of plant food was small in other cultures.
Similarly, virtually every culture around the world has also historically consumed BOTH raw foods and cooked foods in differing amounts of each... but there's no real evidence of societies thriving on 100% raw food diets.
But what about the argument that raw foodists make claiming that all animals in nature eat 100% raw foods, but humans are the only species that eats cooked food...
Well, there's a simple explanation for that... humans were the ONLY species with a well developed enough brain to understand how to control fire and therefore cook our food... And since we've been cooking a portion of our foods for the entire existence of our species (200,000 years) as well as our ancestors back several million years, our digestive systems have adapted to eating a portion of our food cooked.
This also explains why acrylamides are more harmful to animals that eat cooked food compared to humans... since humans have adapted some level of tolerance to acrylamides from eating a partial cooked diet for 100's of thousands of years, but animals have never historically adapted to a cooked food diet, and therefore, are more sensitive to acrylamides.
If you've never heard of acrylamides, they are formed when the outside of foods are burned during cooking (such as the browning on breads or other baked goods, browning on deep fried foods, or the charring of vegetables cooked over a flame, etc) and these compounds are potentially carcinogenic to both humans and animals.  Cooking foods with water, and also using high antioxidant herbs and spices in cooking helps reduce acrylamides and protect you against them.
The bottom line... we were designed through evolution to eat a mixture of both plants and animals as well as cooked and raw foods... But let's clarify an important point in #2 below...

2. Although I say that we were meant through evolution to eat an omnivorous diet of both plants and animals, one thing that we were NEVER meant to eat is factory-farm raised animals, or eggs or milk from factory-farm raised animals.
Factory farming is an entirely new phenomenon that's still only decades old, so essentially, these types of meat products were never meant to be part of the human diet.
Chemically (nutritionally), factory-farm animal products are VASTLY different from animal products that were raised the way they were meant to live and eat. Examples of these differences can be seen glaringly in the nutrition profiles of grass-fed meats vs grain-fed factory farm meat, free range eggs vs factory eggs, wild fish vs farmed fish, and so on.
We're talking about major differences in omega-3's vs omega-6's, differences in vitamins and minerals, differences in other healthy fats such as CLA, and lots more.
So although I don't fully agree with veganism at least from a nutritional standpoint (moral arguments aside), I also don't agree with our current state of affairs of the majority of our food supply of factory farm raised animal products (at least here in the US, where the condition of the factory farm animals and nutritional quality of the food is horrendous).
That's why I try to not support the factory farm industry as much as possible (which is most meats and dairy in your supermarket) and instead, I try to eat almost solely grass-fed meats from free ranging animals, wild game, wild fish, eggs from local farmers from free roaming hens, and dairy only from grass-fed cows that are allowed to graze almost entirely on forage.

3.  Although I point out that many historical cultures around the world thrived on vastly different percentages of animal products vs plant products in their diet, here is another type of food that we were NEVER meant to eat:
PROCESSED FOOD
Yes, I know it hurts to hear it, but cakes, cookies, crackers, microwaved meals, chips, sodas, granola bars, sugary sports drinks or energy drinks, and 1000's of other products that line our supermarket shelves were never meant to be part of the human diet, so it's obvious why it causes so many health problems for us.
This gets back to what I always say about trying to include as many "1-ingredient" foods as you can in your diet if you want to eat like we were meant to eat.
"1-ingredient" foods means healthy meats, eggs, nuts, seeds, beans, tubers, fruits, and veggies.  It's really that simple.

4.  Ok, this one starts to get a little controversial... but, remember that agriculture is also a relatively new phenomenon in the big picture of the human diet when you expand far back in history a couple of million years.  And when I'm talking about agriculture, I'm mostly talking about the massive influx of grain-based foods into the human diet that occurred with the invention of agriculture.
The mass production of grains through agriculture is only a few thousand years old... Compare that to our ancestors historical existence as hunter-gatherers as far back as a couple of million years, and our current species (homo sapiens) 200,000-year history as hunter-gatherers.
If you think about it, as hunter-gatherers, we would have had very limited access to grains, and they would have encompassed a very small % of our historical calorie intake, since they weren't mass produced and processed. Instead, we thrived on mostly game meats (including the organ meats, where most of the micro-nutrients are found), wild fish and seafood, eggs, nuts, seeds, beans, tubers, fruits, and veggies.
From this perspective, grains probably never accounted for more than 1-3% of our historical calorie intake... and as you know from one of my recent articles, currently our modern processed diet that the average person eats consists of 67% of total calories from grains such as corn, soy, and wheat and their derivatives... now THAT'S a shocking revelation in why our entire food supply is backwards, and how that affects your waistline!
It also makes you think about how ridiculously wrong our "food pyramid" really is, which promotes the bulk of our food to be eaten from grains.
I could go on with more examples, but I think you're seeing the major points here... the most important aspect to eating a healthy diet that promotes a lean, healthy body is to acknowledge what our ancestors ate throughout the millions of years of evolution.
And that certainly wasn't processed "diet foods" with fancy label claims deceiving you into thinking they're healthy... instead, it was the 1-ingredient foods I listed above, eaten in a combination of raw food and cooked food.
A couple final thoughts on how to fit these suggestions into your healthy eating plan:
1.  Try to become a "locavore" as much as possible... if you can get local farm-fresh produce, that is the most environmentally and socially responsible, as well as healthy way to get your produce.  Research if you have farmers markets and farm stands that might be in your area, or deliver to your area.
2.  Try to choose organic foods as much as possible... but local food will many times trump organic food that had to travel thousands of miles to make it to you.
3. When choosing meat and eggs, try to choose grass-fed meats as much as possible, free range chicken, turkey, and pork raised in a humane manner, and eggs from hens that truly roam free outside instead of being confined to "chicken factories".  Many times, this means making the effort to seek out local farms or co-ops that deliver to urban areas.  This site is a great source of meats that were raised in the healthiest manner, and they deliver right to your doorstep:  http://healthygrassfed.2ya.com
Remember that eating healthy and responsibly doesn't mean eating bland boring food... there are tons of ways to eat in a healthy and socially/environmentally responsible manner, and we describe in depth how to do this in our Click Here Fat Burning Kitchen Program.
Please share this article to help your family and friends eat healthier and to help us all collectively choose our food from more responsible sources than factory farms.  Please email this webpage link to all of your friends and family and share this page on your blogs, forums, as well as Facebook and Twitter pages.

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My Take on Good Carbs, Bad Carbs, Low Carbs, and all of the Carb BS

by Mike Geary - Certified Nutrition Specialist, Certified Personal Trainer

Author of best-selling program:  The Truth about 6-Pack Abs

With so much talk, confusion, and controversy in recent years about "carbs", I wanted to give you my take on good carbs vs bad carbs, low carb, and all the other "carb confusion" out there.  I'll also show you one of my favorite healthy carbohydrate choices.
First of all, although I'm not a "low carb" extremist, I do believe that one of the main reasons so many people struggle to ever lose any body fat is that they are over consuming processed carbohydrates such as:

• cereals
• pasta
• rice
• bagels
• muffins
• breads (even whole grain varieties are not ideal if you're looking to lose body fat)
• sodas
• juices
• candies
• crackers

It is extremely hard to lose body fat if you're over consuming any of these types of carbohydrates (even if you workout very hard). In addition to causing wild blood sugar swings and insulin surges which can promote body fat deposition, eating too many carbs also increases your appetite and cravings.
Note that I didn't include potatoes in the list of processed carbohydrates. Despite the trash talking they get from many fitness professionals, I think whole potatoes (not fries or chips!) are a nutrient-dense healthy food.
Even carbohydrate sources that most people think are "healthy" really are just excess calories that don't really deliver a whole lot of nutrient density... and many types of breads and cereals pretend to be "whole grain" with clever marketing while in reality the first ingredient in them is refined flour, which is just going to shoot your blood sugar through the roof.
My take on it is that the majority of people struggling to lose body fat would do much better following these types of carb guidelines:
1. Reduce your grain-based carb products in the diet (cereal, pasta, rice, crackers, etc) and focus more of the diet on healthy grass-fed and/or free-range meats and eggs, grass-fed raw dairy, and TONS of vegetables and fruits.  I understand that it's very hard for most people to give up entirely their breads, cereals, and pastas.  But don't worry, just save the grain-based carbs for a 1-day per week "cheat day", and you can still do just fine!
2. Instead of the grains for most of the carbs, try getting most of your carbs from vegetables, sweet potatoes, and a variety of whole fruits and berries (NOT fruit juices, which remove the beneficial fiber as well as other essential parts of the fruit).
3.  If you're going to eat any grains at all, focus on the most nutrient dense and fibrous portions of the grain... the germ and bran... this means that the best parts are getting oat bran instead of oatmeal, and using rice bran to add to your yogurt, cottage cheese, salads, soups, etc.  This way you get all of the most beneficial nutritious parts of grains without all of the excess starches and calories. 
Note on wheat germ --  although wheat germ is a nutrient dense food (compared to the nutrient-poor starch portion of wheat), beware of the gluten in wheat if you have any intolerance.  Many people have wheat/gluten intolerances and don't even realize it.  It could be worth it to get tested to see how your body is handling wheat.
Also, for best results with grains in general, try to stick only to sprouted grain products if you're going to eat any grains at all.  The sprouting of grains helps to eliminate some of the "anti-nutrients" in some grains, and also improves digestion of those grains.
4. To replace the void if you're used to consuming lots of bread, pasta, cereals, and other carb sources... try filling that void with more healthy fats such as nuts, seeds, avocados, nut butters as well as healthy proteins such as raw grass-fed dairy and meats, whole free-range organic eggs, etc. Healthy fats and proteins go a long way to satisfying your appetite, controlling proper hormone and blood sugar levels, and helping you to make real progress on fat loss.
With all of that said, here's one of my favorite carb sources that is high in fiber as well as tons of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants:
Sweet potatoes or yams
I always choose the orange varieties instead of the white varieties of sweet potatoes. One of the problems with sweet potatoes is the time it takes to bake a sweet potato for 1 to 1.5 hrs.
I cook my sweet potatoes in a different way that only takes 5 minutes and they come out delicious... and no, I would NEVER use a microwave (I talk more about why never to use a microwave to cook your foods in this article).
The easiest and quickest way I've found to cook up a sweet potato is to slice it up into thin slivers and put it into a pan that you can cover with a lid.  I add a touch of butter, virgin coconut oil (beneficial medium chain triglycerides), and about 3-4 Tbsp of water and simmer with a covered lid for about 5 minutes. 
When the sweet potatoes are soft, then add a little cinnamon and maybe a touch of the natural sweetener stevia (if you want a little more sweet flavor) and you're all set with a delicious healthy carb side dish to go with any meat dish.  Add a side salad and you've got the perfect lean-body meal plan.
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