The Top Food Additives to Avoid

Part of leading a healthy and active life style is learning how to buy groceries that do not contain additives. It is best to eat raw, organic and from the farmer’s field whenever possible because additives in foods are very addictive. Furthermore, additives in food can expand your waistline, prevent your body from absorbing minerals and vitamins and encourage a fatty liver and insulin resistance.

Artificial Sweeteners

Artificial sweeteners are combinations of chemicals designed to make food taste sweeter. They are often found in foods that seem healthy or that are labeled hose are combination of chemicals that make food taste sweeter. Beware of finding them in baby foods that are labeled “natural”, “sugar-free” or organic.

These sweeteners cause cravings for more sweeteners and train the brain to mindlessly eat foods full of calories. Most foods that contain artificial sweeteners, like packaged bakery goods are also of poor nutritional quality.

Red dye additives are found in many foods such as Red Velvet Cake

Except for Stevia and Xylitol, that have larger molecules that are not absorbed by the body, it is best to avoid all artificial sweeteners.

Artificial Colors

Artificial colors do not occur in nature. Many are made from coal tar and can contain up to ten parts per million of arsenic or lead and still be met with approval by the FDA.

Here is a list of the worst coloring agents:

Blue #1, found in soft drinks, baked goods, and candy, and soft drinks, has been shown to damage the chromosomes in a cell’s nucleus and lead to irreversible free radical damage

Blue #2, which is found in fruit juices and candy, may cause brain tumours.

Citrus Red #1 is sprayed on green oranges to give them a pleasing orange color and it causes cancer

Citrus Red #2, used to dye the peels of some Florida oranges, can cause cancer.

Red #3 is often added to ice cream, muffins, canned goods and ice cream. Studies have linked this dye to nerve damage and to thyroid cancer.

Red #40 is found in gelatine, soda, candy, pastry, pet food, and it is also used to dye red meat so that it looks fresh in butcher case.

Yellow #5 is the second most widely used colorant, and it contributes to mood changes, and can cause allergic reactions. It is found in gelatine desserts and baked goods.

Yellow #6 can cause tumours in the adrenal glands and kidneys. It is found in baked goods, beverages, meat products, baked goods, candy, and gelatine.[1]


BHA and BHT
These preservatives stop food oils from going rancid. These additives seem may cause insomnia, and have been associated with liver and kidney damage, baldness, behavioural problems, cancer, fatal abnormalities, and premature aging.

Sodium Nitrate and Nitrite

Nitrates preservatives that are added to processed meat products such as bacon, corned beef, ham, hot dogs, lunchmeats, and sausage. They prevent the growth of bacteria in the product. However, hopefully you will be eating organic, grain-fed beef (and not a lot of it) rather than beef strewn with chemical preservatives when you are on the healthy and active program.


For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41) 440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Michael Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

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[1] Scotti HHC, Kelly “The Dirty Dozen: 12 Food Additives to Avoid and Why http://fooddemocracy.wordpress.com/2008/01/18/the-dirty-dozen-12-foodsfood-additives-to-avoid-and-why/

Understanding The Role of Basal Metabolism in a Healthy and Active Lifestyle

In general, the metabolism can be understood as being the rate at which your body burns calories just to keep itself alive.  You need calories to keep your heart beating and the blood pumping through your arteries. It is a fallacy to think you are not burning calories when you are at rest.

Your body is burning calories all of the time, even when you sitting as still as possible or asleep. In fact, you body burns a certain amount of calories per pound just to maintain body weight every day. The average woman burns about 10 calories per pound every day and the average man, about 11 calories per pound.

You Burn Calories When You Eat

Not many people realize this but you actually burn calories when you eat. About 30% of the calories that you burn each day are actually burned by the act of digestion. However, your body uses far more calories to digest a protein then it does a carbohydrate. You burn about 25 calories for every 100 calories of protein consumed and only about ten for every fat and carbohydrate you burn. This is why it is recommended that you eat lean healthy proteins to lose weight.

You Burn Calories Through Exercise

Every day you burn ten to fifteen percent of your calories as the result of moving your muscles. It does not matter what activity you do, you are burning carbohydrates every time you run, walk, lean over, flip a page in a book or press a key on the remote.  It is not really possible to burn more calories than fifteen percent a day, which is why it is important to lead a happy and healthy lifestyle and exercise as much as possible on a regular basis.

The Importance of Basal Metabolism

When fitness experts talk about the basal metabolism, they are referring to the calories that you burn per day when you are doing nothing at all.  Sleeping, watching television and sitting at you desk burn up between sixty and eighty percent of your available calories. That is because your body is at work all of the time, dividing cells, engaging in cell respiration and disposing of toxins.

The basal metabolism rate refers to the calorie burn that comes from the physiological functions that we don’t even think about or are not aware of it. That is why it is so important to eat foods and adopt a lifestyle that raises the basal rate of your metabolism so that all of your downtime is actually fat-burning time.  This is also why restricting calories works better than trying work off calories through constant exercise. Constant exercise works in shedding off the pounds to some extent but if you really want to lose weight it comes down to consuming less calories.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.

Lifestyle Habits To Keep Bad LDL Cholesterol in Check

It is possible for a thin person to have a stroke or a heart attack if they have high levels of LDL cholesterol. Living a happy and active lifestyle must include habits that support the consumption of good HDL cholesterol and lowers the damage to your body caused by bad LDL cholesterol. It is the LDL cholesterol that sticks to your arteries and it is the HDL cholesterol that helps clean it up from the artery wall.

Here are some ways that you can raise your cholesterol levels  -

Butt out that cigarette. Tobacco use is a major risk to your health and studies show that it smoking lowers HDL (good) cholesterol levels. It may not seem necessary to warn people concerned with leading an active and happy lifestyle but many people still smoke cigarettes in order to help them lose weight.  It is best to take a healthier approach.

Eat grapefruit for breakfast. Both the white and the red varieties of grapefruit help lower our total cholesterol levels by 8% if you find the discipline to eat a whole one every day.

Eat more oat bran. There was a study done at University of Connecticut study that found that men with high cholesterol who ate oat bran cookies daily for 8 weeks lowered their levels of LDL cholesterol by more than 20 percent. If you are trying to stay on a raw diet, remember that you can eat steel-cut oat flakes that have been soaked in coconut or almond milk overnight in the refrigerator.

Drink green tea. Studies conducted at Vanderbilt University found that drinking the equivalent of seven cups of green tea a day can help lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. Even drinking just two cups a day could have a beneficial effect.

Drink red wine. Drinking one glass of red wine a day helps lower dangerous levels of LDL cholesterol. There is a constituent of red wine called resveratrol that helps prevent damage to blood vessels and improves heart function.  However, take it easy when you drink, as drinking alcohol in excess is not good for the liver.

Drink unsweetened cranberry juice. Just as effective as wine is red cranberry juice. A study at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania showed that drinking the raw juice raised good HDL cholesterol levels by ten percent.

Get enough niacin (B3). This is an essential vitamin that the body needs to process fat in the body. Meat, fish and liver are the best sources of the vitamin, but vegan sources can be found in peanuts, mushrooms, green peas, sunflower seeds and avocado.

Eat more grains and beans. Researchers from St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto found that eating beans every day could lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels by almost 30%.

Eat more nuts, Researchers found that that ate 1 ounce of nuts daily decreased their risk of heart disease by 30 percent.

These are very simple and minor adjustments that you can make to your lifestyle in order to prevent heart attacks and strokes provoked by high cholesterol levels.

For more information about the Healthy & Active Program please visit our website at www.healthy-active.com. You may also call us in Toronto at (41)440-2217 and ask for Adrienne Wright Bulow or Dr. Micheal Rahman or email us at adrienne@healthy-active.com.