Raising Baby Green: Avoiding Processed Foods

A stroll down your grocery store's aisles can be a tempting experience. Rows and rows of delicious food all wrapped up in colorful packages, encouraging you to give it a try with catchy names and creative graphics.

Good food, delicious food that's appealing to the eye, and convenient to boot. And right now, the lure of something easy sometimes pulls me me to those isles in the center of the grocery store. Below, please link up your healthy and unprocessed recipies in the comment section.

Processed foods are more convenient - that's what it comes down to. It's so much easier to bake a cake by opening up a box, pouring out a dry mix, and adding an egg and some oil than starting from scratch.

Having Jambalaya in five minutes after pouring hot water into a carton makes your prep time for lunch a breeze.

But convenience isn't the only thing you get when you eat processed foods. There's a whole list of ingredients that manufacturers add to2:

Color - It gives your orange soda that neon glow
Stabilize - So your gravy isn't watery
Emulsify - Who says oil and water can't mix?
Bleach - Let's disinfect and deodorize
Texturize - Nothing's worse than soggy cereal...
Soften - It's as if the ice cream was churned twice
Preserve - What if you want to eat the cupcake six months from now?
Sweeten - Sugar is sweet but saccharin and aspartame is sweeter
Hide Odors - Do you really want to smell the fish paste in your instant Pad Thai?
Flavor - Nothing like having the sweet taste of watermelon all year round

How kind of them!

Here are just a few reasons you might want to think twice before throwing a jar of Vienna Sausages in your shopping cart:

CANCER - Some synthetic chemicals used in the processed foods industry are known to have carcinogenic properties. In fact, a seven-year study conducted by the University of Hawaii of almost 200,000 people found that those who ate the most processed meats (hot dogs, bologna) had a 67 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer than those who ate little or no meat products.7 OBESITY - Heavily processed foods are usually higher in sugar, fat and salt, and lower in nutrients and fiber than the raw foods used to create them, making them the perfect choice if you're interested in unhealthy weight gain and water retention.8According to the World Health Organization, processed foods are to blame for the spike in obesity levels and chronic disease around the world.9 HEART DISEASE - Many processed foods have trans fatty acids (TFA), the dangerous type of fat you don't want in your diet. TFA's give a rise to LDL, the dangerous cholesterol, and squash HDL, the good one. Harvard recently conducted a study which found that women who avoided high-carb processed foods cut their heart disease risk by 30%.

Ok, so you want to avoid processed foods, where do you start? The easiest way is to start making your own food from scratch. Instead of buying a box of cake mix or brownie mix, make your own. It may take a little longer, but it is so much better for you, and in the end, it tastes better because you made it yourself! I have had some issues with this lately because I just haven't been in the mood to cook or eat. Slowly that seems to be going away though. I know when the baby does come, things will get even more hectic so we will want quick homemade meals on hand. To do that, I will be stocking my freezer.

Do you have a healthy unprocessed and/or freezer meal to share? Please link up your recipe in the comment section. I will add all the recipes to the blog at the end of every day!

Some of my blog friends have great from scratch recipes on their sites. Check out:
Alea @ Premeditated Leftovers
Erin @ $5 Dinners
Amy @ Simply Sugar and Gluten Free
Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship