In this day and age, many parents are concerned about sending their children to school, which, given recent events, is completely understandable. However, there are certain threats to your child that you may have never even considered. Those threats don’t come in the form of another child or adult, they come from the school lunches your child consumes everyday.
Killer Ingredients in Your Child’s Hot Lunch
You make sure your children get their homework done; that they enjoy a good night’s rest before starting the day, and that they’re wearing clothes that are weather-appropriate before you send them out the door. But what about the fuel that’s supposed to be getting them through the day, giving them the nutrients they need to stay alert, focused, and healthy? If you’re handing your child some money instead of a home-packed lunch, your child’s health may be in more danger than you think.
Let’s look at some common school lunch menu items and see what killer ingredients may be lurking inside:
Burgers
A little bit of meat and salt on a whole-wheat bun can’t be that bad, can it? No, but that’s not all a school lunch burger is made of. In addition to pesticide-laden, growth-hormone-injected meat, your child is also being exposed to unhealthy additives that could be directly affecting his health and wellbeing.
These additives include:
- Soy Flour
Soy has been considered a health food for the past 15 years but recent studies have shown it can do serious damage to your child’s health. For one thing, 91% of all soy products are genetically modified. This means the soy your child consumes is loaded with pesticides that do damage to his gut and brain, causing everything from chronic gastrointestinal upset to behavioral problems. This commonly-used filler has also been linked to puberty delay in boys and early puberty in girls.
- Hydrolyzed Soy Protein
Hydrolyzed soy protein is a common alternative name for monosodium glutamate. MSG is potent neurotoxin that slowly destroys your child’s healthy brain cells, which can cause learning problems, mood disturbances, headaches, nervous ticks, and coordination concerns. Hydrolyzed soy protein has also been linked to obesity and reproductive disorders.
- Synthetic Vitamins
It should be a dead giveaway that if synthetic vitamins are being added to your child’s food that it’s not at all healthy or natural. Synthetic vitamins such as cooper gluconate and thiamine mononitrate do not function in your child’s body the way whole food vitamins do.
Vitamins created in a lab are missing the necessary components needed to be absorbable; meaning they have to take these components directly out from your child’s system in order to function. This can severely tax your child’s kidneys, which may result in frequent urinary infections, high blood pressure, and growth retardation.
- Caramel Coloring
Caramel coloring may sound safe but research has shown it can be a very dangerous additive in your child’s school lunch. Caramel coloring is derived from ammonia and has been proven to cause liver, lung, and thyroid cancer in laboratory animals. It is used in your child’s burger to add a “smoky” flavor that somehow is supposed to fool them into thinking they’re eating something fresh off the grill. Not so much.
- Disodium Inosinate
This dangerous additive in your child’s school lunch burger is very similar in chemical composition to monosodium glutamate, meaning it’s an excitotoxin that does serious damage to your child’s brain and nervous system.
Hot Dogs
As of May 2013, all processed meat has been declared unfit for human consumption according to the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) but it’s still being served to your children in their school lunches. Nearly all hot dogs and other processed meats contain an ingredient called sodium nitrate. This ingredient causes cancer-causing nitrohistamines to be produced by the human body, increasing your cancer risk by over 50%! You may not notice the effects this terrible ingredient is having on his or her health right now but the devastation will catch up in years to come.
Chicken Nuggets
Chicken nuggets wouldn’t be so bad if all they were made with was organic chicken, flour, and spices. Unfortunately, they’re filled with so many unnecessary additives; it should be illegal to call them “food”. It may disgust you to know that most fast food nuggets (which are what your child is eating in her school lunch) are only 50% meat. The rest of it is nothing but chemical additives and preservatives that shouldn’t even be in the same room with your child, let alone in his or her body.
- Dimethylpolysiloxane
This silicone anti-foaming agent is used to make Silly Putty and cosmetics and it’s in your child’s food. Gross.
- Tertiary Butylhydroquinone (TBHQ)
Next in your child’s chicken nugget is an additive used to make lighter fluid. It has been known to cause symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, breathing problems, ataxia, and fainting.
- Corn Starch
Sounds harmless enough but since most corn in the United States is genetically modified, it’s horrible for your child’s health. Genetically modified corn has pesticides built right in, which have been proven to cause devastating gastrointestinal and neurological damage.
Pizza
Kids love Fridays because it’s pizza day but it’s terrible for their health. Not only is the crust a storm of synthetic chemicals that are closer to embalming fluid than food, it’s also topped with cancer-causing processed pepperoni and fake “cheese” made from a combination of trans fat oils and food coloring. Yellow #5, a common additive found in both the cheese and the crust of school lunch pizza, has been linked to developmental, learning, and behavioral problems in children.
Milk
Back in the 1950s, milk was a healthy staple of the American diet because it came to your door raw, unprocessed, and filled with immune-boosting probiotics. Not anymore. The milk served to your child in his school lunch now contains growth hormones, antibiotics, and pesticides that can do serious harm to his health. Recently, there has been talk about adding the neurotoxic sweetener, aspartame, to milk to make it more appealing to kids!
Here at Health Scams Exposed, we find this very disturbing.
How to Pack a Healthy Home Lunch for Your Child
When you send your child off with some money for school lunch, you have no real way of knowing what they’re putting into their bodies. When you pack a lunch at home, you can feel confident knowing that what you’re giving them is the healthiest food they can eat.
Packing a lunch for your child everyday doesn’t have to be time-consuming or complicated. It doesn’t even have to be expensive.
The best thing you can do for the health of your entire family right now is to start reading food labels. Familiarize yourself with the ingredients in the foods you usually eat. Do they contain a lot of additives and preservatives you can’t pronounce? If so, they’re not good for you or your children. Even the bread you use to make sandwiches isn’t the health food it pretends to be on the label.
Instead of sandwiches, try packing these nutritious treats into your child’s lunch box:
- Organic Produce
Organic fruits and vegetables should be a staple in your child’s lunch box. Sliced apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, etc. are easy to prepare and give your children the energy and fuel they need to get through the day. The same goes for carrot slices and broccoli crowns. (They’re great dipped in hummus).
- Hummus
Hummus is a dip made from mashed chickpeas. If your child has never tried anything like it before, they might not be sure about it. Take home and try a few different flavors and see which ones they’re most agreeable to. Hummus is a great way to get picky eaters to eat more vegetables because it’s fun to dip and eat!
- Nut Butters
Organic peanut butter, almond butter, and cashew butter is the perfect dipping companion for sliced apples, carrots, and celery. You can even make it more fun by melting some organic dark chocolate into the nut butter and spreading it onto some organic cookies. Yum!
- Cheese
Cheese is packed with healthy protein to help your child get through the day. Slice up some hard cheese and pair it with organic crackers or include some fun-to-pull string cheese in the lunch box. Cottage cheese is another fun option too. Pack it alone or mix it with pineapple slices or another favorite fruit.
- Yogurt
When choosing yogurt for your child, be sure to read the label carefully. Many yogurt brands contain unnecessary additives and preservatives such as aspartame and food dyes that can cause serious health problems for your child. The yogurt you choose should be organic and preservative free. Greek yogurt is packed with protein and can often be a stand-in for the traditional sandwich as it is very filling.
- Trail Mix
Nuts, seeds, dried fruit, and organic semi-sweet dark chocolate chips make a great homemade trail mix that lasts all week. Homemade trail mixes are better for your child’s health than most of what you can find in the supermarket.
- Organic Juice
Not all juices are created equal. This is why it’s important to read the label. When choosing juice for your child’s lunch box, be sure it’s organic and preservative-free. Packing juice for your child helps curb the temptation to visit the vending machine for some soda during the lunch hour.
While you’ll never be able to completely control what your child eats (after all, they’re going to trade their sliced apples for donut bites at some point), you will be instilling in them an appreciation for nutritious food and help them build a healthier foundation for the future.
If your child has a difficult time making the transition between hot lunch and a homemade lunch, slowly make the switch over the course of a month, trading in pocket money for interesting packed lunches until hot lunch has been completely phased out. You can even try looking at the school lunch menu a week in advance and preparing similar, healthier versions at home!
**Recommended Research**
Many of my friends assume that because I am a health expert that I am somehow different than them. They think I am immune to the munchies and snack attacks.
But the reality is I am no different than you! When I get hungry I reach for the closest thing to eat. Sometimes that means I grab a burger on the go or a bag of chips on my way out the door.
I know it’s bad, but the allure of easy, fast food is too strong, even for me!
I hate feeling like a hypocrite. I write letters about how to eat healthy and then eat yummy, calorie laden foods like everyone else.
I knew I had to stop. But what was I supposed to do when I’m out and need to eat on the go? I lead a busy lifestyle like everyone else. I don’t have time to make elaborate, healthy meals.
That’s why I was relieved to read this letter by Carolyn Hansen. She’s proven to me that you can eat healthy and still lead an on the go lifestyle.
Her book made it so easy for me to make healthier choices (the hardest part) while still eating delicious, filling, and indulgent-feeling meals.
I want you to check out Carolyn’s brief message about how she found these on the go snacks and meals and check out her recipe book.
Enjoy!
Jessica Coffey
Publisher, Health Scams Exposed
Sources:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/09/18/soy-can-damage-your-health.aspx
http://www.truthinlabeling.org/
http://drbenkim.com/articles-vitamins.html
http://preventcancer.aicr.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=15642&news_iv_ctrl=0&abbr=pr_
