Deciphering the Labels - Finding out what we're really eating!

I cleaned out my pantry and refrigerator today. As I was going through everything, deciding what to keep and what to purge, I pulled couple of items out of my pantry and am going to learn what the ingredients really mean that are in these items. They are all sitting to the left of my keyboard waiting to be dissected. Item #1 Bread Crumbs - regular Giant Brand Bread Crumbs that we use a lot to make meatballs, chicken parm, breaded fish...it has enriched flour - Which is not good for you at all - it is white flour that has lost all the essential nutrients because they are destroyed through the flour making process - so the nutrients are then added back in - but not even a gram's worth, the FDA requires the nutrients like niacin, folic acid, riboflavin, thiamin (all the good stuff) to be added back it - but not enough - Why are we buying this product that is ripped of all it's nutrients for a longer shelf life? The bran and the germ (the parts of the wheat that contain the essential vitamin and minerals) are destroyed. The flour is made to be fine and is absorbed fast , flooding the blood stream with sugar that your body can't digest it so your body will store the excess as fat. It will cause spikes and drops in your blood-sugar level and can cause obesity and type two diabetes. There is enriched flour in almost everything you will pull out of your pantry! Without the bran and germ you are basically left with starch which is bad for us but great for a long shelf life. Even bugs cannot survive in it - they will die if they only eat refined flour. Why am I feeding this to my kids? Wonder why they are overweight at 9 and 11!

We need to look for items that say "whole grain" and only "whole grains" not a list after it that says "wheat flour, enriched flour, multi-grain flour, semolina flour, durum flour, unbleached flour, bleached flour - those are all refined flours. Look for 100% whole grain.

Products that contain cereal grains such as maranth, barley, buckwheat, bulgur, corn (including pop corn), millet, quinoa, rice, rye, oates, sorghum, teff, tritiale, wheat and wild rice are considered whole grain. Whole grains contain the whole or entire grain kernel, including the bran, germ and endosperm.

Wow, that was only the first ingredient in the bread crumbs that I randomly pulled out of my pantry, but also the first ingredient in the Cheez-its, Boboli shells, Potato rolls, even my Wegman's Honey Apple Oat bread and the Barilla Plus Angel Hair Pasta that is labeled Multi-grain Pasta - it listed durum flour, and then listed the added niacin, iron, thiamine and folic acid - it didn't say "enriched" but it is!

I will write later - didn't realize how much information would come out of 1 ingredient!!

promise will get to the eggs and milk...