The Good Food Campaign

Another good reason to avoid processed food?

A lack of magnesium.

It’s lost in the processes used in refining.

A diet low in magnesium has been linked to asthma and other respiratory ailments. One recent study found that four out of ten asthma sufferers had a magnesium deficient diet.

To get more magnesium in your diet, eat more leaf green vegetables, beans, and prunes, and of course, cut back on processed foodstuffs.

In the United States, 90% of the nation’s food budget is spent on processed food. A recent government report says that over 40% of the food products found in the average supermarket contains trans fats, and there is no safe recommended limit for trans fats, or partially hydrogenated oil.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest estimates that banning trans fats from all foods would save at least 30,000 lives each year in the US alone.

Again, you need to become a keen label reader. The more ingredients on a label that you don’t recognize, the more chance is that it’s some chemical junk. If in doubt, look it up, and check what effects it might have. Isn’t a few minutes taken now, better than losing years later due to illness, that could have been avoided?

Michelle Obama has been championing healthy living, since  ditching processed junk a couple of years ago, on the advice of her pediatrician, when the kids started getting a bit chubby.

She has been extolling the virtues of community vegetable gardens, and has opened the White House kitchen to cameras.

It’s a good example to set to other Americans, many of who eat way too much high fat, high sugar, high fat containing processed foods.