Shop Smart: The Art of Reading Labels

 In this podcast episode, Dr. Rodney and Karen Wirth delve into the crucial art of reading food labels for a healthier lifestyle. 

They outline practical guidelines for opting for grass-fed meats and avoiding nitrates, hormones, and seed oils that can trigger cancer. By shopping the perimeter of stores, where whole foods like produce and fresh meats are located, listeners are encouraged to sidestep less healthy middle-aisle items. 

The discussion includes advice on avoiding additives such as MSG, folic acid, artificial sweeteners, and emulsifiers, emphasizing their potential harmful effects on health and encouraging better shopping decisions. 

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Transcript

Dr. Rodney: Welcome to Stance for Health podcast with Dr. Rodney and Karen Wirth, where becoming healthy is not complicated. Control your health by focusing on six areas of life that we teach you so you finally have the energy you to do what you want instead of being a victim of your age. I have over 20 years of experience working as a chiropractor and Karen is an author, speaker, and longevity coach. We've seen how a tiny change in your habits today can open your life to a powerful future. Start today and take your Stance for Health.

Karen: Welcome to Stance for Health. Last Friday we were at Sprouts doing shop with Doc the art of reading labels. The history behind that is that we've been shopping there since they opened. We used to have to go about 20, 25 minutes to get to the local sprouts and then they put one very close to our house. They approached us and asked us to present some kind of training. So that's what we did.

We are delighted to add you to that Facebook group. We did it within our group and we shared that live, but we decided that we would come back and do a podcast on it because there's some really good information and some people have asked us that did watch it, that they wanted more of the details. So I want to start today talking about just some basic principles of how to shop for healthy meals, because you've heard our story several times. In 2020, Doc had a little bit of a scare.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. It was called basal cell carcinoma. Actually had it excised. They cut it off then and had good plastic surgery. And so about the same time that I was getting that honor about that date, I found out about what is one of the major triggers for cancer. What are some of the major, if you want to call them, ingredients. What makes the environment in your body safe for cancer to live?

We discovered that in a seminar. And ever since then, we've been honing this. Part of what keeps your body healthy is to read the labels. One of the things that keeps your body healthy in its nervous system.

Karen: Yes. The best thing to do when you're going to any store is stay away from the middle part until the very end, maybe as you're going out.But on the perimeter of the store are. There's more whole foods.

Dr. Rodney: Yes.

Karen: So let's say you walk in and the. You. You go by the meat department. So what are some things we would look at in the meat department?

Dr. Rodney: It's really simple. You just look for grass fed or range. Range fed.

Karen: Range fed.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. And that goes for the eggs, too. When you get to that department, past the produce.

Karen: Yes. And then if you see the bacon, very simple.

Dr. Rodney: No nitrates. No nitrates, no hormone, no hormones. Easy for me to say. Yeah, no hormones.

Karen: There you go. Say it 10 times faster. Don't. So the reality is that we want to make this simple because one of the biggest excuses that we hear from people is that they don't have time.

I think this way of shopping has saved us time because we're not perusing going up and down on the aisles. It's saving us much.

Dr. Rodney: What's the latest taste? Right.

Karen: And especially in pre prepared food. So shop the perimeter of the store and on the very backside is a whole row of produce.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: And experiment with that, see what's there. It's so easy to find recipes for different vegetables, salads or soups. And I, I make a beeline for the prepackaged salads.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: But especially the ones that don't have lettuce in them. Now if I'm going to eat them that same day, then I get the lettuce. But I get the ones that have the cauliflower, cabbage, the different cruciferous broccoli.

Dr. Rodney: Right. Kale.

Karen: And then that's a stir fry. But here's a secret because. Because there's something else that we avoid.

Dr. Rodney: We, we stay away from something called seed oils, mainly because of its inflammatory effects on your body. And inflammation is also another trigger, another additive that makes the conditions favorable for cancer in your body.

Karen: And the problem with these prepackaged salads, you have to throw out the insights because every single salad dressing. Except for one, except for one,

are made with the seed oils.

Here's the solution. You just get you some really good olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Dr. Rodney: And that balsamic vinegar really makes a difference, doesn't it?

Karen: It does. You're shopping the perimeter of the store. You're right. Then the eggs come next.

Dr. Rodney: Well, not only that. And then you're not even really tempted for the rest of the store. If you came there for food that's gonna feed your body. And you wanna stay away from sickness.

You're attracted to God's good green earth stuff that man hasn't tainted.

Karen: I'll never forget the shopping when we had the shutdown and we went to the local grocery store. We went in expecting to not be able to find food. And we went straight like we do to the perimeter of the store. And this particular store, the produce is ex to the right. There was tons of produce. There was no shortage right next to.

Dr. Rodney: The produce just five steps away, 10 steps away. Karen: There was absolutely no pastries.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah, it was basically, you want to say, it's like Hostess Little Debbie.

All of that stuff, all the packaged food, all the comfort food, totally bear. There might have been one or two things on that shelf.

Karen: We learned like, wow, I'm really glad that we eat this way.

Dr. Rodney: And so the good news is you're not going to have a lot of competition unless the store that you have is limited in their supply because they don't want to run out of stuff or they.

They don't want stuff to stay on the shelf. They don't want to have to discount it.

Karen: Right.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: Although I do go for the discount of those mixes.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: For the stir fry and stock up on them when I do that. Now, one of the other things that we add to that, another principle is to do food prep every weekend.

Dr. Rodney: We did that yesterday. I thought it went really well.

Karen: Food processor just saves so much time.

Dr. Rodney: And don't wait till after the 10 o' clock news to do it on Sunday night, otherwise you just won't want to do it. Right.

Karen: Yeah, just do it. And it's going to help you so much during the week because what you're looking for, when you go to things that are not the whole food, when you are looking for anything that's prepared, then you're going to look and read the labels. And this is where we're going to get into the specific things to avoid. The fewer ingredients the better.

Dr. Rodney: If you're looking for, let's say, something as simple as crackers that have fewer.

Karen: Additives to it, three to five ingredients.

Dr. Rodney: There is actually a sprouts brand that was really favorable, made with avocado oil.

Karen: So that is really important. So here's some of the ones that we've already talked about nitrates and we talked about seed oils, but we've got several others that we haven't checked off yet.

So what about this one here? The additives.

Dr. Rodney: When I think of additives, one of the major offenders that I think of are two things. One, MSG and all of its names.

Karen: I'll put the link to that.

Dr. Rodney: It's really important because especially if you're sensitive to msg, try to get away from msg. And the other one is folic acid, not folate. Folic acid doesn't appear in nature. Half of us have a problem with processing. Not even really a nutrient. It's more of a toxin to more than half of us.

Karen: Well, and here's the sneaky part about labeling is that when there was the ban on MSG,

then they changed the names. There's like 40 different ones which you'll be able to get from the podcast link we have below.

Dr. Rodney: Pay attention because that list may be changing all the time. They're finding all kinds of creative ways to call it something else.

Karen: How about something so benign as natural flame?

Dr. Rodney: I think the word is enriched.

Karen: Yes. For the folic acid.

Dr. Rodney: If something is enriched along the same lines here.

Karen: So it's when they started doing the enriched on all the different crackers. It's because they were adding folic acid.

Dr. Rodney: Folic acid again, that goes back to single nucleotide polymorphisms, which is a problem with your DNA. It's a misprint in your DNA. It doesn't process it. Your body doesn't process it properly, and you get hyper as a result of it. I would actually go so far as to say that it is an ADHD trigger.

And so that's one of the things that I didn't really know a lot of this information as it's being presented to you right now until within the last month. A lot of this stuff is fresh. It's been around since the 90s, but we really didn't know. A lot of us thought that folic acid and folate were interchangeable. They're not. And we haven't really discovered SNPs and all the different polymorphisms that are out there until recently either, because of genetic testing. This is a. It's a real blessing. But it's also something that's really troubling for a lot of us that can't process folic acid.

Karen: You have no way of knowing that unless you have that testing.

Dr. Rodney: Yes.

Karen: So the best thing if you don't want to do the testing is to just stay away from it.

Dr. Rodney: Just stay away from it.

Karen: The other one that's been so prevalent is artificial sweeteners. Just stay away from anything that has an artificial sweetener in it.

Dr. Rodney: A lot of these things are cancer triggers, too. These. These artificial sweeteners.

Don't do them. You're better off with. I'm not saying that, you know, cancer cane sugar is. Is a good thing to get a lot of. I've had too much of it in my lifetime. I've got the dental bill to prove it. It's better for you than these artificial sweeteners because these things are. They're neurotoxic. Neurotoxic. And you know what that means. That means it's affecting your nerves. And it's also affecting your brain. So we can go. We can go into a lot more.

Karen: Detail about that, not even mentioning the fact of what the. The system does. When there's the sweet taste, not the actual carbs to back it up, then you crave more. So that's. I think that's like another whole podcast.

Dr. Rodney: It sure is.

Karen: So the. Anything artificial, just avoid it.

Dr. Rodney: It's weird that you're here. You are with this. Now that we're talking about artificial sweeteners. It is. If the goal is to cut down on carbs by taking it and you actually end up craving carbs, you've defeated the purpose. It's dastardly.

Karen: It's artificial.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: And so many people, especially with the soft drinks, get so hooked on the other parts of it. And like I said, I think that's like another whole rabbit hole we can go down another time.

Dr. Rodney: That's right.

Karen: But let's talk about emulsifiers, because there's two products that we use every, every day, and that's our heavy whipping cream and our chocolate.

Dr. Rodney: Yes.

Karen: But we have to be careful with those emulsifiers. In both of those at the moment.

Dr. Rodney: I can't prove it or disprove it, but I have a. A theory or a. Probably not even a theory. It's more of a hypothesis. Is that you. If, when you're start, if you start to talk about LDL and HDL, you want, you're happy. HDLs, because they're taking back from the target tissue what's been delivered to the tissues, back to the liver for processing. LDL needs to get there. But it's the VLDL that's the problem. I have a hunch. I said all that to say this. I have a hunch that emulsifiers are the things that actually make the particles too small. I have a hunch that it's like dawn dishwashing liquid in your body. Right. You don't want that lipoprotein to be smaller. You want it to bounce off of your arterial and venous walls. You want it to get to the tissue. You don't want it getting stuck along the way and puncturing the walls that are already stressed by some of the other stuff that we've eaten. Yeah. I want to do some more research on that, but I think that's where we're going to go with that emulsifier.

Karen: So one of the ones that you want to avoid in the heavy whipping cream is the creation.

Dr. Rodney: It's a thick substance derived from the type of protein that's found in shellfish if you have problems with shellfish, then by all means, stay away from Carrageenann. Now, the other part of Carrageenan that's a problem is that's oftentimes laced with MSG like substances. Yeah, glutamates and things like that. Not naturally occurring ones, but ones to make you even more addictive to whatever that substance is.

Karen: So the one heavy whipping cream that didn't have any of that is hard to find. So we're using some now that do have xanthum gum just to make them thicker. And those are okay, except they will affect your stomach.

Dr. Rodney: When we're doing our coffee in the morning, I measure out 4 tablespoons. Now, there are times on the weekend where I do more than four tablespoons. Thank God I haven't gotten the stomach upset. But I do take an enzyme oftentimes when I know I'm going to be doing that.

Karen: Now, one of the emulsifiers you want to avoid in your chocolate is lecithin. And it's. It's very hard to find a chocolate that doesn't have sugar and lecithin. So we did find one, and it's called hu,

Hu for human. After our lunch and our dinner, we have a square, and that's it.

Dr. Rodney: Sometimes we have two square days. Yes, we do have two square days, but it's really. We're not eating the whole candy bar.

Karen: There you go. It's really yummy, too. And it's the dark chocolate. You want to have the 70%.

Dr. Rodney: 70%.

Karen: It's just really, really good.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah, it's tasty.

Karen: So our final one we've covered, all the ones to avoid is citric acid. Tell me more about that.

Dr. Rodney: So citric acid is found in obviously, like, citrus, citrus fruits, but you can actually manufacture it through mold.

Karen: And why in the world they don't just put lemon or limes in there?

Dr. Rodney: It's gotta be shelf life.

Karen: It is. It is. Just like so much of the msg, like the maltodextrin, it's so that it has longer shelf life.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

Karen: And you also want more, crave more.

Dr. Rodney: So if you see citric acid on the ingredient list, buyer beware.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: Especially if they don't say it's sourcing well.

Karen: And usually on the new labeling, the ones that you're going to want to get, it'll say organic limes, organic oranges, organic lemons. But if it says citric acid, that's more than likely sourced from a black mold. It's all about price. It's all about Driving everything down and making. Not the prices are going up, but they want the manufacturing prices to go lower. And so it was fun to see people that were on board with some of this, especially when we're talking about the samples and we want to do it again.

Dr. Rodney: We do.

Karen: We're going to go back and do it again and just. Maybe even just walk the store with you and give you some recipe ideas. Because we managed to eat healthy. Very small prep time, especially if we work on the weekend food prep. And we're loving it. Five years into it, have not gone.

Dr. Rodney: Off of it, Nothing I would change except I would do it sooner.

Karen: Yes.

Dr. Rodney: If I could partner with somebody like Karen, that's something that I would tell anyone listening right now. Find some label reading buddies that you can compare notes with.

Karen: Yeah.

Dr. Rodney: At the very least. And then if you have someone that you can cook with, it is great. If you have a husband or a wife, that. That will do this with you or a boyfriend or a girlfriend that'll do this with you, it can really help. It can help the relationship. If you're both on, on board with it.

Karen: It does. It really does make a difference. I will compliment Dr. Rodney here, by the way. If you didn't know already, we are married, also work together. And the thing about it is is that I do the cooking and he does the cleanup in the kitchen. So it's a fun partnership.

The most important thing that I want to say is that we feel so much better. Our immune system works well, we have energy and it's promoting our longevity, which I've recently got my function health blood work back and I'm happy to report that I'm 12.7 years younger than my stated age. I think the way we eat has  so much to do with it.

Dr. Rodney: I agree. It helps to have an attitude like Karen's. Just kudos to Karen here today.

Karen: Well, thank you.

Dr. Rodney: Yeah. So I think that wraps it up. I wish we could take questions right now because this topic is just so ripe. This is where really the rubber meets the road. Because this is, you know, it's right there in the store.

Karen: And you and I want to encourage you to just make two small, three small changes or to buy the bacon, make sure that it's hormone and nitrate free. Look at the labels. If it has stuff you can't read, then put it back three to five things.

Cook at home more and get the best ingredients you can.

And do your food prep on the weekends.

Focus on vegetables, salads and soups and develop a taste for that and take.

Dr. Rodney: Your Stance for Health.

Thanks for listening. Thank you for joining us at Stance for Health podcast, where getting healthy and staying that way are not as complicated as you might think. Subscribe now and discover steps and small changes that can increase your energy and open the door to vibrant health and longevity.

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