You ARE what you eat..

In my attempt to be healthier, I've found others that share the same principles and standards as I do. And though I've found it rather easy to make the switch to natural personal care products (ie: by replacing my formerly beloved & very popular name brand baby lotion with Pure and unrefined mango and shea butters) it has been a little challenging to opt for healthier choices in the grocery stores.
It seems as if health conscience people are just a little limited. Not to mention the fact that we have to be "ingredient detectives" because we cannot simply trust the 'natural' labels on our foods! Case in point, last weekend my husband and I were in one of our favorite grocery stores; we already knew what was on our menu for the upcoming week and wanted to get the shopping out of the way. One of the meals I decided to cook was grilled turkey burgers with a fresh spinach salad. So we're going up and down the aisles looking for ketchup to help set our highly anticipated dish off (needless to say, we were really looking forward to enjoying this summertime treat)! My husband (being the health nut that he is) grabbed my favorite brand of ketchup and began reading the ingredients to ensure that we wouldn't be consuming something that didn't need to be in our bodies. While he was taking care of that task, I picked up my favorite movie theatre butter popcorn, as I was due for a guilty pleasure and popcorn is one of my vices. However, in the name of eating better I decided to go along with my husband’s train of thought & proceeded to pick apart the ingredients list. Now, at first sight the ketchup and the popcorn seemed like decent choices--to me. Ketchup is obviously comprised of tomatoes, which is chock full of lycopene; and the popcorn is a delicious & fantastic source of fiber! Cancer-fighting lycopene and fiber, sounds like nutritious choices right? Well, we found out that this is not necessarily the case.
Unfortunately, my delight quickly transformed into distaste when my husband googled 'High fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)' which was found in the ketchup and 'Tert-Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ)' which was listed in the popcorn.
These guilty ingredients are (respectively) used to sweeten and preserve products. Regrettably, underlying health concerns are synonymous with these items as well. Needless to say, these particular brands of ketchup and popcorn did not make it into our shopping cart; instead, we took our time to find an organic ketchup which simply contained: Tomatoes, Salt, Vinegar and Sugar (as opposed to HFCS) and opted to purchase kernel popping corn with some extra virgin olive oil (to pop it on the stove, old-fashioned style). It may have been a very small step for mankind, but it was a pretty big leap for me! I find myself making better and healthier choices every day, and most of this pickiness comes from educating myself. Our bodies are truly temples; and although I am nowhere near perfect, I strive for it on a daily basis.

Moral of this story: Be good to your body and it will reward you when you need it most!
Pay attention to those labels, the companies have to reveal the ingredients to us and we should take advantage of that! Take responsibility for our own health.