What could I possibly have against these cute little "healthy" snacks that can be found in school lunchboxes across America? It's back to school time and Baby Carrots are one snack to keep out of your childs lunch.
It may shock you that baby carrots do not come out of the ground that way. There is no little baby carrot garden where these are harvested. Baby carrots are a result of taking all the broken and "ugly" big carrots they can't put in the package, grinding them all up, pressing them into the "baby" carrots and giving them a bath in chlorine to give them a bright happy orange color.
If you look on the package it doesn't say "Chlorine", because it was added as part of manufacturing and not added as an ingredient...why is that?
Packaged foods contain lots of chemicals both in the ingredients and in the manufacturing process. The tricky part is chemicals added as part of the manufacturing process are not considered to be an ingredient therefore does not have to be listed on the food label. So there is no way to tell what else is hiding in that box or package.
As defined by the EPA, Chlorine is a pesticide. Its purpose is to kill living organisms. So it would make sense that when you ingest chlorine it kills some parts of our body like the healthy bacteria in your gut and intestinal flora for instance. Chlorine is a highly toxic, yellow-green gas most heavily used in chemical agents like household cleaners and can be found in the air near industrial areas especially around paper processing plants. Exposure to Chlorine has been linked to health problems such as sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, narrowing of the bronchi, wheezing, blue coloring of the skin, accumulation of fluid in the lungs, pain in the lung region, severe eye and skin burns, lung collapse, a type of asthma known as Reactive Airways Dysfunction Syndrome (RADS).
Chlorine is also added to the public water supply. So not only are you drinking it, but you are absorbing it through the largest organ in your body, your skin. In fact, 2/3 of human absorption of chlorine is from inhaling the steam in the form of chloroform and fast absorption through your open pores in the warm shower or bath. The inhalation of chloroform is a suspected cause of asthma and bronchitis, especially in children... which has increased 300% in the last two decades. Other health risks associated with chloroform is cancer, potential reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage. Chloroform is also found in the air and in food, like baby carrots.
Conclusion: Stick to organically grown whole carrots. They are really easy to find as you can buy them at your local farmers market or grocery store.
Wash them and cut them into sticks for your childs lunch box. Carrots are an excellent snack that we enjoy all the time. Enjoy!
There was a time when the drive-thru and I were friends. For a short time we were best friends and see each other nearly every day. Obviously as you are paying for your "food" you know it's not GOOD for you but you think "I'll just eat something healthy later."
I'm a curious person, so one day I was online and decided to read the ingredient list. I was NOT lovin' it! I couldn't pronounce half of the ingredients...this wasn't food. It was a bunch of chemicals made to resemble food. Not long after that I watched a documentary that gave me the wake up call I needed and from that day forward I refuse to stop and eat at a fast food restaurant and am very particular on the restaurants I do go to.
This video is from Jeffrey Smith. He is the founder of the Institute for Responsible Technology an organization committed to eliminating GMO's (Genetically Modified Organism) from the U.S. food supply. This is not an easy task but absolutely necessary. The Obama administration has pledged to have products containing GMO's labeled but we have yet to see any action.
Children are at the BIGGEST risk from the dangers of GMO's. We are bombarding their developing bodies with these toxins that are proven to be incredibly harmful. The potential risks for kid's include cancer (the #1 killer of kid's in the U.S.), more susceptible to allergies, and antibiotic resistant diseases. GMO is in everything from baby formula, crackers, chips, milk, pasta's, some veggies themselves, and you guessed it Kid's Meals.
Isn't it scary when the foods we feed our children EVERYDAY can determine whether or not they will be able to have children of their own...your grandchildren? Our food supply is growing more and more toxic by the day and it’s crazy to think that it will have no impact. Our kid’s are undergoing one of the biggest human experiments ever conducted…and with irreversible effects because GMO’s can actually alter your DNA.
We talk more about this topic in our parent community where there are resources like a "Non-GMO Shopping Guide" you can print out and take to the grocery store with you. It's completely free to join, simply enter your information to the right and join us. See you on the inside! ~Angela