Ask me: “Kristin, Can I Eat This?”
Is it food? Should you eat it? Should your kid eat it? Don’t you wish you had someone, anyone, you could ask, “Can I eat this?”
Ask me.
It defies logic that my approach to eating -- simple whole food, real food -- is considered a radical approach. But the deeper I dive into this, I realize it is radical. Why? Because I want to teach you how to eat to save your life.
I’m not saying “eat less and exercise more,” or “all foods in moderation,” which only serves an industrial food system which has been proven to make us ill. There is no tweaking around the edges, or making processed foods “healthier;” the entire system needs to drastically change if we want to save the planet and ourselves.
It’s actually pretty basic: if we want to live on a habitable planet and be healthy, we must reject the entire industrial food model. So let’s get started! Ask me. “Kristin, can I eat this?”
Debunking Food Industry Lies One-by-One
I’m your radical guide to figuring out what to eat — and not eat — in our industrial food landscape. After 12 years of research, five years spent writing a book, a nutrition certification, and working with doctors and their patients I know how to eat. And it’s probably not what you think.
You won’t get any wishy-washy answers from me, just the bottom line on whether it’s safe to eat or not. If I wouldn’t eat it, you shouldn’t either. Follow me on Instagram, where I’ll offer simple advice on what to eat.
Send me pictures of products you’re not sure about and we’ll get to the bottom of it together. Let’s learn, have some fun, and takedown Big Food while we’re at it!
Here was one of the first questions submitted: One of my readers, @erikatime asked if her family can eat this Forager’s Cashewmilk Yogurt (picture below)?
Answer: Erika, this is a great example of how complicated our food landscape has become. 😬
The main ingredients are whole foods: cashew milk and coconut cream, that’s good!
But then it lists locust bean gum as an ingredient. Hmmm ok, what’s that? Sounds pretty natural, right? It is...sort of... it is derived from carob seeds of the carob tree. It’s commonly used in many processed foods as an emulsifier to keep the product a uniform texture. There are many different types used in our foods. Some you might see are polysorbate 80 or CMC. These are synthetic emulsifiers that have a negative effect on your microbiota (the bacteria in your gut). Researchers have found that the naturally derived emulsifiers also have a negative effect on the gut but to a lesser degree.
So how much of the emulsifier is in the product? There’s no way for you to know beyond the fact that it’s below a certain threshold allowed by the FDA.
Another question to consider is how many other emulsifiers are you eating in other products throughout the day? And what are their combined effects?
Very little (if anything) is known about the combined effects of these kinds of additives in our foods.
Finally, it’s in plastic. Chemicals in plastics are known to leach into our foods and the research on those chemicals (like BPA, for example) is extremely troubling. 😳
BOTTOM LINE:
This has too many strikes against it. I’d advise you not to eat this, or if you do, make it occasional and not a staple of your diet. Keep an eye out for emulsifiers which are everywhere. Chapter 5 of my book @formerlyknownasfood has way more detail on this!
Is there something you aren’t sure of? Take a picture and send it to me. I’ll post it on my Instagram, @kristin_can_i_eat_this with an answer. I’ll use some for blogs here too.
A New Online Class Starts Next Week
Want to take a deep dive in how you, your baby, and your entire family can eat to stay alive and thrive despite Big Food? Click here.
It’s a four- week online class I’m co-teaching. You’ll learn more than you can imagine, meet others online who share your passion for health, and start to beat the system that’s destroying our health. Hope to see you there.
