Years ago, our family decided it is worth paying more for organic food because of the positive impact to our long-term health. We see it as an investment.
But as I continue learning about the American food supply, there is much more to be aware of when buying food.
Below is a cheat sheet that I put together for my family to reference at the grocery store. I want to make this available to you to help your family stay healthy and decrease chances of chronic diseases.
Why do I need a cheat sheet?
The American food supply is much more toxic than it appears on the surface. Many foods appear healthy or “clean” when they aren’t. For years I was blissfully ignorant and feeding my family foods with carcinogenic or otherwise unhealthy properties.
I’m not even talking only about “junk food”! The corruption is in all types of food including staples and healthy foods like fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, flour, and more.
It can be very difficult to navigate the store without advanced research – and who has time for that? My hope is that this cheat sheet will be sufficient for the busy mom and also a launch pad for the mom who wants to dive in and research for herself.
Navigate the American grocery store
Organized by grocery aisle
| Food | Purchase criteria |
| Produce | Must: 100% organic / USDA Organic Desired: Local In season (usually not labeled) Non-GMO project verified Glyphosate Residue Free Find farms: Local Harvest In-season guide: Farmers Almanac |
| Milk & dairy products | No growth hormones / rBST / rBGH 100% organic / USDA Organic No antibiotics Check brands: dairy, yogurt, cottage cheese, |
| Eggs | USDA Organic Pastured (pastured > free-range > cage free) Not sterilized with chlorine (likely not labeled) Not coated with mineral oil (likely not labeled)1 Check brands: eggs |
| Chicken | USDA Organic Pastured (pastured > free-range > cage free)2 Not sterilized with chlorine (likely not labeled) Check brands: poultry |
| Beef | 100% grass-fed / grass-finished USDA Organic Pasture-raised Check brands: beef |
| Fish | Wild-caught Local & in-season OR frozen |
| Processed foods | 100% organic / USDA Organic No unpronounceable ingredients No “natural flavors” or “artificial flavors” No preservatives No artificial sweeteners Desired: Non-GMO project verified Desired: Glyphosate Residue Free Check brands: plant based beverages, snack bars, cereal Find non-GMO products: non-GMO |
| Oils | Organic Non-GMO YES: avocado, olive, coconut NO: soybean, safflower, sunflower, corn, palm, cottonseed |
| Salt | Unrefined Real Salt or Himalayan salt No additives |
| Flour, breads | Unbleached No bromate Whole grain |
| Personal care / beauty | Organic EWG Verified label Check for safety: EWG Skin Deep Find brands: toothpaste |
Why do I care about this criteria?
- Organic
- Organic produce cannot contain or be treated with: GMOs, pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizer, irradiation, sewer sludge.
- Organic animal products cannot come from an animal treated with hormones or antibiotics and the animal must have been fed organic as well.
- It’s important to buy organic because all of these practices damage the microbiome and cause inflammation. Over time or in accumulation it can lead to severe chronic diseases (like cancer and others).
- Organic labels explained: USDA
- NO GMOs
- GMOs (genetically modified organisms) haven’t been tested for safety but we have good reason to suspect they’re not safe. They’re produced by inserting a bacteria/pesticide gene into the DNA of a natural food, like corn. When bugs eat the crop, they ingest the pesticide and die. But that same toxic pesticide remains when we eat the food too.
- GMOs are often found in: corn, soybeans, cotton, sugar beets, canola, papaya, apple, eggplant, pineapple, potato, summer squash. It’s rampant, so assume if the package doesn’t say non-GMO, you’re eating GMOs.
- Find non-GMO products: non-GMO
- Glyphosate Residue Free
- Glyphosate is in Roundup, one of the most common herbicides. It is very bad for human health, linked to: leaky gut, leaking brain, endocrine disruption, cancer, Parkinson’s, depression, anxiety, diabetes, obesity, sleep disorders3
- It is not allowed to be used on organic crops, but it can still appear in USDA Organic foods if a neighboring farm uses glyphosate and it travels by air or stream.
- Find non-GMO products: non-GMO
- No antibiotics
- When animals are treated with antibiotics, those antibiotics or antibiotic residue will remain in the food it produces (meat, dairy, etc.).
- Antibiotics or antibiotic residue consumption contributes to antibiotic resistance. This makes you susceptible to a superbug, it hurts your gut microbiome, and it can cause antibiotics to no longer work (resulting in diseases that are curable today becoming incurable).
- No growth hormones / rBST / rBGH
- Genetically engineered recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) is injected into cows to increase their milk production but it also causes illness in the cows. It can cause mastitis which leads to pus, bacteria, and blood getting into the milk. They are then likely given antibiotics which also get into the milk.
- Importantly also it causes elevated IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor 1) in the milk which is strongly associated with colon cancer, breast cancer, childhood cancers, and prostate cancers in the milk-drinking humans.4
- This is banned in Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, EU
- Humane living conditions (pastured, wild-caught)
- For animal food products, we want the animal to have had a happy, low-stress life and engaged with nature and diverse foods. Ideally we only consume from true “pastured” animals who were able to roam, eat, live in a vibrant pasture land.
- Unfortunately factory farms (concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO)) produce a significant majority of the food available in grocery stores and restaurants. Factory farms are horrible living conditions where the animals eat, poop, breathe, and stress-out in a confined space. This impacts the food. The animals get diseases and then are treated with drugs to compensate.
- Another disgusting example: chickens from factory farms get significant feces on their skin, and the feces particles get punctured deeper into the skin during the feather-removal process. Chicken then gets doused in chlorine to compensate.
- Another resource from EWG: Label decoder
- No chlorine rinse
- Chlorine disrupts your microbiome and an imbalanced microbiome predisposes you to disease.
- Any chicken with USDA inspection has been sterilized with something (chlorine, citric acid, paracitic acid, concentrated hydrogen peroxide).
- Most eggs in the grocery store have also been sterilized.
- This isn’t likely labeled so it will require getting to know which brands don’t use chlorine, or buy direct from a farm that doesn’t need to sterilize because the birds have humane living conditions.
- Local & in-season produce
- Consider: How it is that perfectly ripe summer fruits are available to purchase in the dead of winter? Unless you live along the equator, this isn’t natural.
- Most fruits are picked in spring-fall and are beyond ripe a few days after picking. Processing happens to that fruit to allow it longer shelf life and ability to travel hundreds or thousands of miles.
- In theory, local and in-season means less processing, less intervention. Although you still need to look at what the specific farmer and supply chain is doing to that fruit.
- Grass-finished, 100% grass-fed
- When a cow is fed grain it causes a highly acidic environment. Meat from that cow could have bacteria acclimated to higher acidity than the human stomach. When consumed by humans the bacteria won’t get killed in our stomach (as it normally would, if the cow were grass-fed) and instead can hurt us.5
- Avoid unpronounceable ingredients, “natural flavors” or “artificial flavors”, preservatives, artificial sweeteners
- Although it sounds lovely, natural flavors are not natural at all. Food producers can hide an undisclosed number of chemicals when they write “natural flavors” under the ingredients list.
- The sad truth is that thousands of chemicals appear in our foods that haven’t been proven safe to eat. They aren’t required to be tested for safety, and we know many of them aren’t safe but still appear in food.
“your microbiome is largely responsible for your overall health and well-being. Thus, the secret to being healthy, happy and free is being kind to your microbiome.” (p82 Beyond Labels)
Additional ingredients to avoid
Aside from the above principles, below are some common ingredients with known or strongly suspected negative health impact.
This is NOT a complete list. Just because an ingredient isn’t listed below doesn’t mean it’s safe to eat.
- Acesulfame K –
- Artificial colors – derived from petroleum, carcinogenic
- Artificial sweeteners (aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, sorbitol, xylitol, acesulfame K) – leads to weight gain, metabolic syndrome, gut dysbiosis, inflammation, type 2 diabetes, headaches, cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease and more6
- Aspartame – carcinogen
- Blue 1 – carcinogen
- BHT, butylated hydroxytoluene – promote tumor growth and damage DNA7
- Cane sugar – feed bad bacteria and kill good bacteria
- Canola oil – inflammatory
- Caramel coloring – carcinogen
- Carrageenan – gastrointestinal inflammation and disease, including higher rates of colon cancer in research using laboratory animals8
- Corn oil – inflammatory
- Cottonseed oil – cotton is not even a food.. inflammation
- Emulsifiers – gut inflammation
- Guar gum – emulsifier, can upset stomachs
- Maltitol – gut disruption
- Maltodextrin – preservative, derivative of GMO corn, bad for stomach, spikes the blood sugar
- Modified food starch – GMO corn starch
- Natural flavors – could be hundreds of different untested chemicals
- Palm oil – inflammatory
- Potassium bromate – carcinogen9
- Potassium sorbate – preservative, bad for gut and intestines
- Red 5 – carcinogen
- Saccharin –
- Safflower oil – inflammatory
- Sodium ferrocyanide – toxic in higher amounts, exposed to acid or UV light causes highly toxic gas
- Sodium lauryl sulfate, SLS – bad for oral microbiome, often in toothpaste
- Sodium phosphate – preservative
- Sorbitol – gut disruption
- Soybean oil – highly inflammatory
- Sucralose – damage DNA
- Sunflower oil – inflammatory
- Titanium dioxide – derivative of paint, often in toothpaste
- Vegetable oils – highly inflammatory
- Xylitol –
- Yeast extract – this is MSG, impacts brain and increases cravings
- Yellow prussiate of soda – also called sodium ferrocyanide, toxic in higher amounts, exposed to acid or UV light causes highly toxic gas
Sources
Highly recommend this book: Beyond Labels. I learned a tremendous amount from this book! Many of the tips above came from this book.
I also recommend this food guide to help find quality brands for all food categories: Weston A. Price Shopping Guide
- https://www.treasuredtips.com/are-you-eating-the-healthiest-eggs/ ↩︎
- According to Beyond Labels, grocery stores will only have “factory farm” chicken, even if it comes with the “pastured” or “free-range” label and price tag. So, you may or may not want to pay more. They recommend buying eggs from a local farm instead, if possible. ↩︎
- p163-164 “Beyond Labels” McCullogh/Salatin ↩︎
- p145-147 “Beyond Labels” McCullogh/Salatin ↩︎
- p93 “Beyond Labels” McCullogh/Salatin ↩︎
- p123 “Beyond Labels” McCullogh/Salatin ↩︎
- p151 “Beyond Labels” McCullogh/Salatin ↩︎
- https://www.cornucopia.org/research/carrageenan/ ↩︎
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9898660/ Ncheuveu Nkwatoh T, Fon TP, Navti LK. Potassium bromate in bread, health risks to bread consumers and toxicity symptoms amongst bakers in Bamenda, North West Region of Cameroon. Heliyon. 2023 Jan 21;9(2):e13146. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e13146. PMID: 36747561; PMCID: PMC9898660. ↩︎
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