Let's Get HEALTHY!

[KitKat]

Let's Get Healthy

[KitKat]

The 15 Cancer Causing Foods You Probably Eat Every Day


What’s worse is that many of us have some potentially cancer causing foods as staples of our diet.

We all know that some foods are better for us than others, but are there any bad enough to avoid completely?

Research and recently completed long-term studies have brought to light some alarming results.

In addition to causing many problems like obesity, heart disease, and diabetes… certain foods have even been linked to cancer.

So let’s take a look at some of the “worst offenders” and see what we really shouldn’t be putting in our bodies.

[KitKat]

1. Soda Pop




Sodas are a sugar loaded, empty source of calories that can be very detrimental to your health.

In addition to being linked with weight gain, inflammation, and insulin resistance, this sweet caffeinated beverage can lead to gastro-esophageal reflux disease.

This condition causes the stomach acid to leak back into the esophagus resulting in pain and burning (ouch!).

The American Journal of Nutrition also found in a recent study that soda drinkers actually have a higher risk of stroke than non-soda consumers.

In addition to this, soda pop contains a whole host of artificial colorings and chemicals (which are too numerous to list here). So it’s no surprise that drinking soda can lead to a higher risk of cancer.

[KitKat]

2. Potato Chips




Who doesn’t love the taste of a salty, crunchy potato chip? While they may be satisfying to eat, the negative effect they have on your body may be hard to stomach.

Potato chips are calorie dense and high in fat content, both of which contribute to unintended weight gain. Not to mention many popular brands are high in trans fats and sodium which can result in high blood pressure.

Don’t forget that most potato chips at the grocery store contain artificial preservatives and dyes that are fried at a high temperature. This process creates what is called acrylamide.

Acrylamide is a known carcinogen that is found in cigarettes.

Although they are delicious, potato chips can cause some very undesirable effects as a part of your daily diet.



Here's a little side note:

Potato chips were an accidental invention.  You see, back in 1853, a chef in Saratoga Springs, NY, named George Crum became very irritated.  He had a customer that was being a total pain, repeatedly sending his french fries back saying they were too thick.  So George figured he’d show him!  He cut the potatoes as thin as possible, threw them in the fryer, salted them and sent them out!  Ha!

Turns out Mr. Fussy Customer loved them!  And potato chips were born!

Potato chips are now the number one snack food item in the United States!  We eat 1.2 billion pounds of potato chips a year!!  That’s a lot of chips!

[ChirpingGirl]

You can't have my kitchen cooked potato chips. 

[KitKat]

3. Processed Meats





Processed meats, including hot dogs, sausages, bacon, and most lunch meats, can be damaging to your health.

These meats contain chemicals and excessive amounts of salt that are used in the manufacturing process. A recent study by researchers was published in the journal of BMC Medicine.

In this study, people who ate more than 160 grams of processed meat increased their risk of death by as much as 44 percent over the course of 12 years. The study itself was conducted over 13 years and across 10 countries.

The chemicals and preservatives (including sodium nitrates) in processed meats are used to improve their appearance on store shelves. However, these same chemicals are commonly known carcinogens.

[KitKat]

4. Canned Tomatoes





 
Tomatoes, normally a staple in many healthy diets, can be made hazardous when canned. The can lining is usually made with a chemical substance called bisphenol-a, more commonly known as BPA.

The FDA is extremely concerned by BPA as it has been shown to alter brain chemistry in research done on rats. As a result, there have been efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to reduce and eventually eliminate BPA from canned food products, not just tomatoes.

The reason canned tomatoes are so so dangerous in particular is because tomatoes are very acidic. Acidic foods can cause more rapid leeching of BPA from the can lining into the food.

The BPA content from canned tomatoes can be so high that some brands warn parents not to feed them to their children

[KitKat]

5. Microwave Popcorn




What’s a movie without popcorn? This convenient, relatively healthy snack is seemingly harmless. The culprit here isn’t the popcorn itself, but the bag that it’s microwaved in.

Typically, microwave popcorn bags are lined with a chemical referred to as perfluorooctanoic acid (or PFOA). Quite a mouthful, right? This toxin is more commonly known to exist in Teflon.

A shocking study from the University of California found that this toxin can be linked to infertility in women.

In addition to this, PFOA has been found to significantly increase the risk of liver, bladder, kidney, and testicular cancer in humans in several other studies.

In some bags of popcorn, even the popcorn itself has been tainted with fat loaded soybean oil as well as a chemical called diacetyl. This chemical was so harmful that some companies have banned it from their factories due to workers developing lung diseases after working with it.

[KitKat]

6. Hydrogenated Oils



These types of oils are notoriously linked to heart disease, immune system deficiency, and of course cancer.

Vegetable oil, one of the most commonly used kinds of hydrogenated oil, is so dangerous because many varieties are high in deadly trans fats. Trans fats are not the healthy kind of fat.

Even the FDA has stated that trans fats should generally not be regarded as safe for consumption, contrary to their former opinion.

A great way to substitute hydrogenated oils in your diet is to use olive, coconut, or grapeseed oil.

For cooking, grapeseed oil is a fantastic option since it has a higher “smoke point” (the point at which the heated oil begins to produce carcinogens) in comparison to other oils.

[ChirpingGirl]

This should be titled "Kit ruins everything".

[KitKat]

I'm sorry.

I'm just very into being healthy. I'm just as guilty as everyone else who enjoys these things, but the truth is, their poison. The less of these things we indulge in, the healthier we wil be. Sorry to be such a buzz kill.

[ChirpingGirl]

I'm banned from most of it anyway. 

[KitKat]

I'm banned from most of it anyway. 

Good!

[KitKat]

7. French Fries




These little fried sticks of potato are salty, delicious, and satisfying.

However, by and large, most cheap french fries are made with hydrogenated vegetable oil and topped with a mountain of sodium.

The trans fats and salt (as discussed previously) can increase your risk of high blood pressure, obesity, and other numerous diseases.

In addition to this, french fries commonly contain a chemical known as acrylamide. Any food that’s fried at high temperatures has a chance of containing this.

Acrylamide is also found in cigarette smoke and even building insulation.

It gets even worse: this compound has been linked to a increased risk of cancer.

[ChirpingGirl]

You want fries with that?

No thanks, they'll kill me.

 

[RopeFiend]

Fats (in and of themselves) aren't bad, it's everything added in with them.  The traditional diet of the Inuit Indians was amazingly high in fat (whale and seal blubber), yet they had the lowest incidence of heart disease and cancer.  We changed that, outlawing most of their whale and seal hunting, and substituted fast foods and the typical crap that grocery stores have been pushing since the '50s.  Their incidence of heart disease and cancer rose until it leveled off in the '80s, about the same now as the rest of us Americans.

(btw, I'm an organic vegetarian, and I preferentially use peanut oil and sesame seed oil when I stir fry...)  

Taking ANY oil up to 300+ degrees and holding it there causes the molecules to close off the oxygen bonding sites: it 'saturates' the oil, making it biologically as useful as tar.  The long the oil is held at temperature, the more it saturates.  French Fries at a fast food joint are particularly toxic, as the oils have been heated for hours before changing.  

Trans fatty acids are merely an extreme case of this.  They were originally invented to get us away from the 'dangerous' cooking oils - palm kernel oil and coconut oil, implicated in lots of heart disease in the '70s and '80s.  Oops.  The cure was worse than the disease.

[KitKat]

You want fries with that?

No thanks, they'll kill me.

 

Now you're getting the hang of it.

[KitKat]

Fats (in and of themselves) aren't bad, it's everything added in with them.  The traditional diet of the Inuit Indians was amazingly high in fat (whale and seal blubber), yet they had the lowest incidence of heart disease and cancer.  We changed that, outlawing most of their whale and seal hunting, and substituted fast foods and the typical crap that grocery stores have been pushing since the '50s.  Their incidence of heart disease and cancer rose until it leveled off in the '80s, about the same now as the rest of us Americans.

(btw, I'm an organic vegetarian, and I preferentially use peanut oil and sesame seed oil when I stir fry...)  

Taking ANY oil up to 300+ degrees and holding it there causes the molecules to close off the oxygen bonding sites: it 'saturates' the oil, making it biologically as useful as tar.  The long the oil is held at temperature, the more it saturates.  French Fries at a fast food joint are particularly toxic, as the oils have been heated for hours before changing.  

Trans fatty acids are merely an extreme case of this.  They were originally invented to get us away from the 'dangerous' cooking oils - palm kernel oil and coconut oil, implicated in lots of heart disease in the '70s and '80s.  Oops.  The cure was worse than the disease.

Yep.

[KitKat]

8. Farm Raised Fish


Fish, typically a very healthy meat that’s high in protein, good fats, and fatty acids, can also have a dark side.

Farmed fish (salmon, cod, tilapia) have been found to be chock full of antibiotics, pesticides, flame retardants (crazy!), and pesticides in a recent study at the University of Albany.

If that’s not convincing, I don’t know what is.

Each of those ingredients alone have been linked to cancer and combined they make a particularly lethal cocktail.

[KitKat]

9. Alcohol


 

Over 14 years, a study conducted on American women examined their diet and lifestyle habits.

Of the 200,000 postmenopausal women participating, those who consumed at least one alcoholic beverage a day showed almost a 30% increase in breast cancer rates in comparison to those who did not drink.

Not convinced? Behind tobacco use, Alcohol is the second leading cause of cancer.

In addition to this alcohol use can be associated with the following: heart failure, stroke, and sudden death.

However, there is a bit of silver lining. Moderate consumption can actually be healthy and reduces the risk of heart disease.