Growing up, as a child my mom and I would fly to New York (Brooklyn) every summer to visit my grandparents and extended family. My favorite part of the trip was opening the tasty cheese dip for the small bag of pretzels they provided to me. As an adult it became a go to snack, pub cheese, cold packed cheese food and crackers during just about any sporting event on TV.

As I mentioned on another area within the Health Network, I found an App for my phone that my family and I started using a few years ago once I was diagnosed with a few serious health conditions that I was in immediate need to improve. I am not overweight, had always been in pretty good shape, and never considered myself a binge eater or someone who ate "bad." I liked "good restaurants," "eating at home more than out," and "mostly avoided fast food." If I ever started gaining weight, I'd usually just remove soda from my diet and I'd drop 5lbs. Simple pimple. But this was different, it was blood counts that were off, and as part of my corrective necessities, I added a "why not, I'm only eating real food" to my list of "kill me already" lifestyle changes.

Yuka is an app that *I thought* would tell me the basics: too much fat, sodium, sugar, etc.. In a kind of red, yellow, green light way, making it simple for my aging eyes to avoid having to read the label, and while the app does do this; I was frankly shocked into scanning just about everything for some time, and even (on occasion) rescan the same foods now in my pantry, prior to repurchasing them, "just in case." To not repeat myself, let's just say the food industry has not been honest, and has been on purpose putting ingredients, chemicals, and yes even medication, in our food and simply added as one more ingredient we can't pronounce. If you're like me, I always thought it was just another "preservative," shrugged, and threw it in the cart. Now, I'm much more aware and for this weeks "Yuka discovery" lets just say, I don't eat cold packed cheese any longer. Maybe I'll find a way to make it from scratch at home, like most other inconvenient things I've done. What I will say about my "Yuka App" discovery, as a supplement in my desire to improve my health as I age, is that a statement I made to my wife 3ish years ago rings more true now than ever before: "We will have to be inconvenienced, and work harder, if we want our children and us to eat well."

This weeks find: Yuka App (Look for the Carrot icon)

Pine River Port Wine Cold Packed Cheese Food (Yum!)
Rating "Bad," ZERO out of 100.
2 high risk, 1 moderate risk, 2 limited risk, and 1 Risk-Free additive in the food.
Too caloric, fatt, and sweet.
Positives: Excellent amount of protein.

Hmm .. 2 high risk chemicals?

1. Red40, food coloring: Child Attention Deficit disorder, Disturbance in gut microbiota, urticaria in sensitive individuals, possible presence of aluminum. ADHD, Aluminum (Alzheimer,) triggers hives, and gut microbiota. I can attest, I get hives with some foods, maybe this is one cause? Dunno, not eating it.
2. Disodium Phosphate: I typed this in more detail on another area of health net so in short: cardiovascular diseases, adverse effects on the kidneys, disorder of bone mineralization, exceeding of the ADI.

There is another level we can go on each ingredient which shows all detailed studies, such as with Disodium Phosphate, which included attempts made in courts by such organizations as American Society of Nephrology and the National Kidney Foundation for there to be a warning label placed on any food with this ingredient.

As someone who gets hives, and has had past acute kidney failure (in 2012,) with "no known cause," I likely will avoid Disodium Phosphate and Red40.

If you're using your app, post your find for the week! Here is what Yuka recommends as an alternative to this (once beloved) cheese spread (it's not always what you want to hear): Cottage cheese, or Bai Antioxident Infusion Water. Sounds to me it's saying "If you're that damn hungry drink water but don't eat that crap!" lulz.

Have a blessed week.

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