Experts Choices to Healthiest Kids' meals may be endangering their health.

Photo: Stock.Xchng

Childhood obesity is an epidemic in the United States and this has led to the grouping of experts and researches to collaborate on how to free children of the epidemic. Most researches, doctors and dietitians focus on the nutrient label of the product; sodium intake, fat content and caloric intake; but what about the ingredients? Just because it falls within the recommended daily allowance does not deem the food healthy. We need to go beyond the recommended daily allowances and start understanding what is really in our children’s food. 

Let's focus on what researches at Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity deemed better choices for fast food. Researchers reviewed the nutritional information on more than 3,000 kids' meal combinations at eight fast food chains and evaluated whether the meals had healthful foods and did not exceed the recommended limits of caloric intake and sodium consumption.

According to Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity the healthier kids' meal combinations at fast food restaurants that have 300-500 calories are Subway, Burger King, KFC and McDonalds.

For the purposes of this article, let's choose Subway. After all, when it comes down to it, Subway should be the healthiest choice as there is nothing deep fried and there are no French fries to contend with right?
Please keep in mind, this article is not proving whether Subway is healthier than the recommended fast food choices, it was chosen to show that on the outside it may appear healthy, but what is on the inside is open for discussion. And after reading this article it will encourage you to investigate all fast food ingredients and not rely on what the experts conclude.

According to RUDD, turkey breast, roast beef or veggie delight sandwich on wheat bread; apple slice or yogurt; low fat milk, or juice fell within the recommend caloric intake.

For benefit of doubt, we'll upgrade the whole wheat bread choice to the 9-Grain Wheat bread and examine the turkey breast. After all Turkey breast and 9 grain bread should be a healthy choice right?
On the outside, it looks healthy; after all it is just turkey and bread. And this is how most parents determine healthy foods by looking at the product, and deeming it healthy without ever looking any further. Some may investigate the food label decide on its health factor in relation to calorie sodium and fat content.
The 9-Grain Wheat bread lists at least 29 ingredients, give or take a few, due to some ingredients actually containing many ingredients within it and they do not have to be listed.

By law food manufacturers are required to list all ingredients on the food label, however if an ingredient is actually made up of other ingredients, those ingredients do not have to be listed. On a product label, the ingredients are listed in order of predominance, with the ingredients used in the greatest amount first and followed in descending order by those in smaller amounts.
First ingredient is enriched wheat flour containing wheat flour, barley malt, niacin, iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin and folic acid in brackets. The reason they are in brackets as they were added back after the refinement process.

Wheat flour or enriched wheat flour ingredients are technically no different than white flour. Manufacturers take whole-grain wheat which contains vitamin B1, B2, B3, E, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron, and fiber and strips out 11 naturally occurring vitamins and minerals, then adds synthetic chemicals that represent only four vitamins and one mineral that the FDA has deemed most important for health. For instance,
Whole grain kernel contains:  B1, B2, B3, E, folic acid, calcium, phosphorus, zinc, copper, iron, and fiber
Enriched Flour contains: niacin (Vitamin B3), iron, thiamine (B1), mononitrate, riboflavin(B2), folic acid

Is this healthy or not? When you first look at the bread, you automatically think it is whole grain bread; after all it has 9 grains right? Yes and no. There are actually 9 grains, but not only are they not whole grains, they make up 2% OR LESS of the ingredient list. In fact, there is more processed refined wheat flour, than there are whole grains.

More troubling is the fact there is high fructose corn syrup as the 4th ingredient, which means there is more HFCS than there are whole grains. Fructose is a major contributor to:

• Insulin resistance and obesity
• Elevated triglycerides and elevated LDL cholesterol
• Depletion of vital vitamins and minerals that play a role in prevention of illness related to obesity

Your body's liver metabolizes fructose in a different way than glucose.  Fructose from whole foods that have not been tampered by manufacturers is naturally designed to be assimilated and converted into energy. High fructose corn syrup and other sugars are not.

Trending problem is high fructose sugar, along with other sugars and sweeteners are in everything our children are eating. Experts say "a little is ok" is an understatement. How many parents are actually reading the ingredients of the foods their children are consuming? And what exactly is a little?

When is the last time you made bread from scratch? Did it contain dough conditioners? DATEM; (Diacetyl tartaric esters of mono‐ and diglycerides) are used as emulsifiers to strengthen bread dough and delay staling of bread. Here's what you really need to understand about DATEM. The biochemical and metabolic makeup of this ingredient needed testing in science labs using rats and animal studies to render whether it is safe for human consumption. My question to you is, if your food ingredients need to be tested in a laboratory, why would you want to eat it?

There are 5 sweeteners in this science project; high fructose corn syrup, refinery syrup, honey, maltodextrin and Sucralose. Why when we are dealing with an epidemic of childhood obesity do we need 5 different sweeteners in 6 inches of bread? Why do we need a neurotoxin such as Sucralose in our children’s bread? And why are researchers at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity not recognizing that sugar intake is a contributing factor to obesiety?

Subway’s turkey breast is at least turkey breast; that's a relief. However the turkey broth, contains 2% or less of: carrageenan, dextrose, modified food starch (derived from corn), salt, seasoned salt (salt, sodium diacetate, flavoring), sodium lactate, sodium phosphate. Browned in soybean oil. May contain: seasonings (modified corn starch, dextrose, salt, carrageenan, sodium diacetate, flavorings), potassium lactate.

I ask you this, do you know and understand what these ingredients are? Why do we need sugar in broth?  Can you count the number of sodium properties? The last ingredients are a bit of a Russian roulette, are they in there or not? What exactly does "May contain" mean? Is it left up to how the manufacturer feels that day?  These ingredients are merely to make the turkey taste better. When you make gravy at home are these ingredients you use?

Yogurt is another nightmare. Most are loaded with sugar, thickeners and some actually contain artificial sweeteners that are known neurotoxins such as aspartame or Sucralose.

Apple slices are of course healthier, however you need to read the ingredient list, some manufactures will add honey or another sweetener and some add sulphites for preservation and discoloration. Sulphites can cause headaches, migraines, allergic reactions such as hives, and rashes, heart palpitations, joint pains, and behavioral problems in children. Sulphites can also be found in cornstarch, modified corn starch and corn syrup, which are also in the turkey broth.

Take what the researchers and experts say with a grain of real-good-for-you sea salt and do your homework. Just because it is deemed healthy, take a look at what the contributing factors are to what they consider healthy.

Childhood Obesity is preventable. It takes a little work, but our children are our future and they are worth the extra time to investigate what they are eating. We need to change our attitudes and put our children’s health above everything else. If we do not change our attitude toward health, it will become accepted to be overweight and unhealthy. In fact researchers have now determined that Obesity is contagious among friends. Research shows that the more obese friends one has, the greater chance everyone in the group will be obese. They found having four obese friends doubled people's chance of becoming obese compared to people with no obese friends," says Alison Hill, the study's lead author and a Harvard researcher.  

Forget reading food nutrient labels, the real truth lies in the ingredient list. Understand what you are giving your child to eat. Look for ingredients you understand, and stick to whole foods. Rule of thumb, if you do not understand what the ingredients are, question whether it is really healthy. And more importantly, do you really want to put ingredients in your body that you cannot pronounce?

Karen Langston Chief Body reorganizer.
You can find Karen flipping to the real side of food.
KarenLangston.com