7th June

06 Health
Take Care
June 06, 2015 - June 12, 2015
Avoid Instant Noodles to stay healthy
Instant noodles are a popular
go-to lunch or dinner for those
who are strapped for time (or
cash), like college students.
While you probably don’t
consider them a health food,
you may think they’re not
that bad, or, at least, not as bad
as eating a burger and fries or
a fast-food burrito.
In a first-of-its-kind experiment,
however, Dr. Braden Kuo of
Massachusetts General Hospital
may make you reconsider your
love of instant noodles
He used a pill-sized camera to
see what happens inside your
stomach and digestive tract
after you eat instant noodles.
The results were astonishing…
Noodles Don’t Break Down
After Hours of Digestion
For starters, it could be putting
a strain on your digestive system,
which is forced to work for
hours to break down this highly
processed food (ironically, most
processed food is so devoid of
fiber that it gets broken down
very quickly, interfering with
your blood sugar levels and insulin
release).
When food remains in your digestive
tract for such a long
time, it will also impact nutrient
absorption, but, in the case of
processed ramen noodles,
there isn’t much nutrition to
be had. Instead, there is a long
list of additives, including the
toxic preservative tertiary-butyl
hydroquinone (TBHQ).
This additive will likely remain
in your stomach along with the
seemingly invincible noodles,
and no one knows what this extended
exposure time may do
to your health. Common sense
suggests it’s not going to be
good…
Five Grams of Noodle Preservative,
TBHQ, Is Lethal
TBHQ, a byproduct of the petroleum
industry, is often listed
as an "antioxidant," but it's important
to realize it is a synthetic
chemical with antioxidant
properties– not a natural antioxidant.
The chemical prevents
oxidation of fats and oils,
thereby extending the shelf life
of processed foods.
But you can also find it in varnishes,
lacquers, and pesticide
products, as well as cosmetics
and perfumes to reduce the
evaporation rate and improve
stability.
At its 19th and 21st meetings,
the Joint FAO/WHO Expert
Committee on Food Additives
determined that TBHQ was safe
for human consumption at levels
of 0-0.5 mg/kg of body
weight.1
However, the Codex commission
set the maximum allowable
limits up to between 100
to as much as 400 mg/kg, depending
on the food it's added
to.2(Chewing gum is permitted
to contain the highest levels of
TBHQ.) In the US, the Food and
Drug Administration requires
that TBHQ must not exceed
0.02 percent of its oil and fat
content.3
So there’s quite a discrepancy
in supposedly "safe" limits, but
it’s probably best to have little
or no exposure to this toxicant,
as exposure to five grams can
be lethal and, according to A
Consumer's Dictionary of Food
Additives, exposure to just one
gram of TBHQ can cause:4
•Nausea and vomiting
•Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
•Delirium
•Sense of suffocation
•Collapse
While TBHQ is not suspected to
be a persistent toxicant, meaning
your body is probably able
to eliminate it so that it does
not bioaccumulate, if you eat
instant noodles your body
might be getting prolonged exposures.
This is concerning, to
say the least. According to the
Environmental Working Group
(EWG), based on animal studies
health hazards associated with
TBHQ include:5
•Liver effects at very low doses
•Positive mutation results from
in vitro tests on mammalian
cells
•Biochemical changes at very
low doses
•Reproductive effects at high
doses
What Else Is in a Package of
Instant Noodles?
The monosodium glutamate
(MSG) in instant noodles is reason
enough to avoid them.
MSG is an excitotoxin, which
means it overexcites your nerve
cells to the point of damage or
death, causing brain dysfunction
and damage to varying degrees
-- and potentially even
triggering or worsening learning
disabilities, Alzheimer's disease,
Parkinson's disease, Lou
Gehrig's disease, and more.
Part of the problem is that free
glutamic acid (MSG is approximately
78 percent free glutamic
acid) is the same neurotransmitter
that your brain, nervous
system, eyes, pancreas, and
other organs use to initiate certain
processes in your body.
Not to mention, MSG is also
used to fatten up mice for scientific
study. Yes, MSG is the
perfect obesity drug. If you
want to achieve your ideal body
weight and health, avoid MSG
at all costs.
Return to Whole, Living
Foods for Optimal Health
Occasionally eating a package
of instant noodles clearly
won’t kill you, but when you
make a habit of substituting
convenience foods for real
food, it’s only a matter of time
before health problems will
likely develop. Instant noodles
are a prime example of the
types of processed foods you
want to avoid as much as possible,
as they are virtually guaranteed
to make you sick and fat
if you indulge too much (and
“too much” may be as little
as a couple of times a week).
Processed foods encourage
weight gain and chronic disease
because they’re high in
sugar, fructose, refined carbohydrates,
and artificial ingredients,
and low in nutrients and
fiber. Processed foods are addictive
and designed to make
you overeat; they also encourage
excessive food cravings,
leading to weight gain. Eating
processed foods also promotes
insulin resistance and chronic
inflammation, which are hallmarks
of most chronic and/or
serious diseases. On the other
hand, people have thrived on
vegetables, meats, eggs, fruits,
and other whole foods for centuries,
while processed foods
were only recently invented.
Ditching processed foods requires
that you plan your meals
in advance, but if you take it
step-by-step by nutrition plan,
it's quite possible, and manageable,
to painlessly remove
processed foods from your diet.
You can try scouting out your
local farmer's markets for inseason
produce that is priced
to sell, and planning your meals
accordingly, but you can also
use this same premise with supermarket
sales. You can generally
plan a week of meals at a
time, making sure you have all
ingredients necessary on hand,
and then do any prep work you
can ahead of time so that dinner
is easy to prepare if you're
short on time (and you can use
leftovers for lunches the next
day, so you don’t have to resort
to instant noodles).
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