For those who brought t-shirts from us, remember to wash the t-shirts in as permanent not heavy wash and to dry as well. Also, don't iron the intestines but around them.

"What is in your tummy," shouted Kyle as people pass back and forth in the Mason Hall. By selling most of our fifty t-shirts, we were driven to motivate people to start questioning the consumption of their food. The FDA forces the food companies to list their ingredient for a reason. For example, food companies are being forced to label "trans fat" in their ingredient contents even if their products do not contain any since its consumption may cause chronic diseases(Unnevehr 497). Now, the consumers are more informed about which products contain trans fat. In addition to that, food companies are now pressured to not produce such food with it. Now, if we consumers become more aware of the ingredients, we may prevent much ingestion of harmful substances. This blog was created for such awareness. Now, become more informed by "what is in your tummy" by doing a quick research whether you ask your doctor or pedestrian or research online.

Unnevehr, Laurian, and Evelina Jagmanaite. "Getting rid of trans fatsnext term in The US diet: Policies, incentives and progress." Food Policy 33.6 (2008): 497-503. ScienceDirect. Web. 14 Dec. 2009.

Who Told You Diet Drinks Are Better Than Regular Drinks

Diet Coke Or Regular Coke? You choose Diet Coke. You probably don't choose it for its taste, but you choose it because it claimed to be a healthier alternative to the other drinks. However, diet carbonated drinks may not be that healthy as you think. For example, Diet Coke contains more caffeine than regular Coke itself (Galasko 651). Also, the word "diet" is so ironic since these high caffeine diet beverages cause one to gradually gain in weight due to to the confusion of hunger and thirst within your body from these drinks ("Diet"). Also, in 2006 at a conference in Paris, there was a debate about the substitution of aspartame in place of sucrose. These have been many issues surrounded this artificial sweeteners. It is said to have adverse effects such as risk factors of diabetes and cardiovascular effects. However, it was promoted as to cause "prolonged weight reduction" with the intake of this substance (Renwick 1308). Diet drinks may not be the so called healthier alternative as you think.

"Diet Coke Ingredients: Nutritional Information, Artificial Sweeteners, Health Concerns." Diet Information, FREE Diets: Weight Loss Advice, Obesity Treatments, Nutrition Guidelines. Web. 14 Dec. 2009. http://www.diet-i.com/diet-coke.htm.

Galasko, Furman, and Alberts. "The caffeine contents of non-alcoholic beverages." Food and Chemical Toxicology 27.1 (1989): 49-51. ScienceDirect. Web. 14 Dec. 2009.

Renwick. "First European conference on aspartame: Putting safety and benefits into perspective. Synopsis of presentations and conclusions." Food and Chemical Toxicology 45.7: 1308-313. Illumina. Web. 14 Dec. 2009.

Coke Dissolving A Nail!!!

Environmental Alternative provides basic alternatives to reduce our carbon footprint on Earth. Carbon footprint is the amount of carbon that you produce and emit into the Earth's atmosphere, such as driving your car, heating your home, cooking your favorite meal, etc. Furthermore, what I found more interesting on this site is the section on Coca Cola. This site states the following about Coca Cola and its potent ingredients: ability to dissolve a nail in a Coca Cola can after four days, ability to loosen a bolt, its usage as blood removal off of a highway from a car accident,etc. Believe it or not, this is worth investigating. If some of these are true, we are doing much damage to our body by consuming such products. But check for more environmental alternatives ("Ingredients):
http://www.enviroalternatives.com/index.html

To find out your carbon footprint, here is a website:
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/

"Ingredients." Web. 14 Dec. 2009. http://www.enviroalternatives.com/ingredients.html#Coke.

energy bars

It is common to see students eating energy bars on campus. Especially on north, it seems like those engineers and architects never have any time to do anything except study. Energy bars for them work perfectly as a meal replacement---they are cheap, doesn’t take a lot of time to eat, provide energy and sometimes provide caffeine too.

I used to eat energy bars as breakfast when I had early morning classes. It worked great. A little bar can fill me for the whole morning. It is not that surprising since each bar usually contains 200-400 calories. The main sources of energy in energy bars are sugar, fat and carbohydrate. It is not that different from ingredients in a candy bar. Some may say that energy bars contain more fiber and other nutrition as well. It is true. However compare to a full meal, the amount of nutrition in energy bar is way less. Not to mention energy bars provide much more fat and sugar and fat than we needed. So apparently eating a healthy full meal is better than having an energy bar.

Energy bars are also some people’s favorite late night study break snack. It’s tasty and provides energy. No one doubts whether it provides energy or not. It’s called energy bar; of course it provides energy. But think about this, pretty much everything we eat provides energy. Energy bar is just an advertising word. Various kinds of nutrition in a meal are more likely to keep you awake. Energy bars pretty much do nothing except adding fat and sugar into your body.

Bibliography

1.Walker, Rob. Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are (p149). New York: Random House, 2008. Print.

The Beloved Pizza Rolls

Tortino's Pizza Rolls: a popular college student snack and meal. It goes without saying that they are a processed food made up of processed parts, but what exactly is in them? Here are just a few brow-raisers that are listed right on the back of the packaging of any pepperoni pizza rolls box or bag:

Titanium Dioxide
Zinc Oxide
Magnesium Oxide
Sodium Aluminum Phosphate
Potassium Chloride
Methylcellulose

I challenge you to type in any one of these ingredients in a search engine and just browse through what comes up. Simply, food shouldn't have ingredients in them that can also be used for make-up pigment (Titanium Dioxide).

Microwavable Foods

When I was younger my mother on occasion would tell me not to stand to close to the microwave oven while it was in use. I thought little of it, but I wondered what could be harmful about it. Now as college student I often use the microwave oven for quick meals, but how safe are the meals and the microwave that cooks them. If you look around any grocery store chances are you will find in the frozen food sections thousands of boxed meals such as Lean Cuisine or Hungry Man. It is convenient to buy frozen meals and cook them in the microwave, but how healthy is it? After researching microwaves I found out that little is still known, but there are still split sides on the subject. The FDA has regulated the manufacture of microwave ovens since 1971. They believe that microwave ovens that meet the standards for their agency and are used according to the proper instructions are safe. Microwaves use a type of energy called electromagnetic radiation. “Electromagnetic radiation ranges from the energetic x-rays to the less energetic radio frequency waves used in broadcasting. Follow the link below to the FDA’s website to find out more information.

FDA's Information On Microwave Ovens

Little research has been done to show the affects of the low-levels of microwaves on the human body. This is why the FDA does enforce radiation protection requirements. The National Research Council also found no link to harmful affects such as affects leading to cancer. The NRC says microwave radiation is non-ionizing radiation. It causes electrons to vibrate, thereby generating heat, but it does not have sufficient energy to cause physical harm by removing electrons from atoms. The type of radiation that actually has sufficient energy to remove electrons from atoms is called ionizing radiation. Much of the scares around microwaves have surfaced around the research of Hans Hertel a Swiss food chemist and William Kopp a U.S. researcher who claimed “People who ingested microwaved foods showed a statistically higher incidence of stomach and intestinal cancers, plus a general degeneration of peripheral cellular tissues and a gradual breakdown of the function of the digestive and excretory systems.” Jim Felton who is associate director for cancer control at the Cancer Center University of California, Davis, says there is nothing solid in their claims. Both Hertel and Kopp are unreachable for questions and Hertel’s research was never published. Still the hysteria around microwaves is built from their information. So is it safe to eat frozen microwavable foods? It is probably not the worst thing for you, but one should look to other sources of food as well.

Cancerous Chips??!

Ever wonder what the consequences were for eating those potato chips were beside getting more calories into your system? Well take a guess.

In 2006 Frito Lay was sued by a consumer for deceptive labeling on their "light" potato chips. The chips were to have contain olestra, "a fat substitute that causes stomach cramps, diarrhea and other digestive problems." [1]

In 2008, The state of California filed a lawsuit against Frito Lay and two other companies for having high level of Acrylamide, a chemical that can form in some foods during high-temperature cooking processes, such as frying, roasting, and baking.[2][3] Frito Lay chips were to contain 1% of Acrylamide, which rather high compare to other potato chip brands.

Frito Lay have change and use less Acrylamide to help us stay as healthy as we can. For more information concerning more ingredients involved in the making, got to their website to learn more. Another warning for the faithful vegetarians and vegans, although not dangerous, please be aware of that their chips do have animal enzymes to give the chips a unique taste. [4]



[1] "Frito-Lay changes labels to avoid olestra lawsuit." Food Ingredients - Yeast, Sweeteners, Food fibers, Flavors. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. .
[2] "California Settles with Frito-Lay and Others Over Acrylamide -." Associated Content - associatedcontent.com. Web. 08 Dec. 2009. .
[3] Chemistry and Safety of Acrylamide in Food (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology) (Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology). New York: Springer, 2005. Print.
[4] "Seasoned Products Made Without Porcine Enzymes." Frito-Lay. Web. 08Dec. 2009. .

About This Blog

This blog isn't here to stop you from eating certain food. It is here just to inform you guys about the ingredients in everyday foods that we consume. Although they are not dangerous in the given form of the food, it can be dangerous in another form. For example, titanium dioxide. Titanium dioxide is used for in the food industry for coloring. When it is in dust form and is inhale, it can cause cancer.

But do not worry, your food is not highly dangerous. It is just amazing that the stuff we can find in our lotion can be found on our food. It can be safe in one form, but dangerous in another.