SlimFast & Ensure – What you need to know
Many doctors recommend processed shakes for patients seeking to lose weight, boost nutrition or even for pre-surgery.
What most people do not realize is that these processed shakes are loaded with sugars, artificial sweeteners, synthetic vitamins, inflammatory oils, hidden MSG and thickeners. Instead of supporting health or preparing the body nutritionally, these shakes are depleting health, contributing to inflammation, and adding to the toxic burden of the body.
Take a can of coke plus a Flintstone vitamin and you’ll be doing the same thing to your body.
Ensure Marketing
Marketing: “Each bottle of #1 doctor recommended Ensure is a source of complete, balanced nutrition.” … uh, yeah, right.
Ensure key ingredients include two processed sugars (probably from a GMO source): Corn Maltodextrin and Sugar. Milk Protein Concentrate. Inflammatory oils (probably GMO): Canola Oil/Corn Oil. Soy Protein Isolate GMO). Milk. Synthetic vitamins, Natural & Artificial Flavor (MSG), Cellulose Gel, Salt, Cellulose Gum, Soy Lecithin, Monoglycerides (trans fat), Carrageenan. Two artificial sweeteners, Acesulfame Potassium and Sucralose.
Each can of Ensure has 32 grams of carbs which will turn into 8 tsp of sugar in your bloodstream.
Ensure Enlive Advanced Nutrition – is it any better?
Vanilla Ready to Drink also has Corn syrup, sugar, sodium caseinate, canola oil, corn oil, soy protein isolate, whey protein concentrate, synthetic vitamins, monoglycerides (trans fats), cellulose gum and carrageenan.
SlimFast Marketing
“Just replace any two meals with SlimFast shakes, bars or cookies, enjoy one sensible meal of your choice and three 100-calorie snacks in between.”
SlimFast key ingredients include Calcium Caseinate, Milk Protein Concentrate. Inflammatory oils (probably GMO): Canola Oil. Processed sugar: Maltodextrin. Artificial sweetener, Sucralose. Synthetic dye: Red 3. Cellulose Gel, Cellulose Gum. Natural and Artificial Flavors (MSG). Potassium Phosphate, Mono and Diglycerides (trans fats), Potassium Citrate, Soy Lecithin, Salt, Carrageenan, Sodium Citrate.
The main ingredients in SlimFast and Ensure can trigger Panic Attacks
Neurosurgeon Russell Blaylock, MD wrote several books and articles about food additives that trigger the brain which can lead to panic attacks. In 2006 he wrote, “There are things you can do to reduce anxiety in a much safer manner. For those not adequately controlled by these methods, it would allow you to use lower doses of your medications, which would reduce side effects.
“Most important is to avoid excitotoxins in your food. These include MSG, aspartame, hydrolyzed proteins, vegetable protein, isolated protein, soy products (including soy protein isolates, soy protein and soy milk), natural flavoring, sodium or calcium caseinate and others. All of these food additives worsen brain excitation and have been shown to specifically target the amygdala nucleus — a set of neurons in the brain’s temporal lobe. They are key to the processing of emotions.”
Harmful Shakes for Profit
SlimFast and Ensure are just two of the harmful, highly processed drinks that are being sold today at premium prices.
Ensure is made by Abbott Nutrition, a developer of “science-based nutrition products” and SlimFast comes from SlimFast Nutritional Foods, a company that manufacturers prepared foods.
Carrageenan
I want to highlight for you an extremely harmful ingredient, carrageenan, that is showing up in many foods today, even baby formula and some organic cream.
Carrageenan is a food additive that is derived from seaweed, also known as Irish Moss.
Carrageenan sounds healthy … but it is not!
Although this sounds like it is healthy, because sea vegetables can be healthy, carrageenan is not healthy. Quite the opposite is true.
“Carrageenan, commonly used in ice cream and baked goods, is an especially powerful promoter of cancer growth and spread.” — Russell Blaylock, MD and neurosurgeon.
Carrageenan is a gelatin or a gum used to thicken foods like ice cream, syrup, cream (even some organic cream), marshmallow fluff.
It acts as a texturizer or emulsifier in other foods. It is used to de-ice airplanes.
Joanne Tobacman is a researcher from the University of Iowa College of Medicine, who discovered that carrageenan causes cancer in the gut. See the study here.
There are two types of carrageenan, “degraded” and “undegraded” and Tobacman says that both are associated with cancer and stomach problems.
Human studies show that both types lead to human cancers and digestive disorders because enzymes and bacteria in the gut convert one form, undegraded to the more dangerous form, degraded.
There may also be a connection to breast cancer.
Dr. Tobacman’s findings were published in the October 2001 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a branch of the National Institutes of Health.
As always, we need to read labels, read labels, read labels!
Add carrageenan to the list of ingredients to be avoided.
Maybe you don’t want to give up everything that carrageenan is in, like Almond Milk (you can make your own!), but at least reduce it as much as possible by buying brands that don’t use artificial ingredients or carrageenan.
Food Products with Carrageenan
You will find carrageenan in many processed foods
- Soy milk, like Soy Dream
- Rice Milk, like Rice Dream
- Chocolate milk, like NESQUIK
- Whipping cream, cream topping
- Baby formulas, like Similac Sensitive
- Carnation Nutritional Drink
- Pudding
- Yogurt
- Cottage cheese, cream cheese
- Sour cream
- Party dips
- Ice cream
- Brownie mix
- Frozen foods
- Tartar Sauce
- Weight Watchers desserts and ice cream bars
- Sliced deli meats
- Marshmallows
- Jelly
- Pie filling
- Sauces
- Restaurant foods
- Pet food
- Medication
Recipe: Strawberry Shake, Dairy-Free and Sugar-free
STOP! It doesn’t have to be this way any longer!
Stop consuming toxic ingredients in packaged food and diet drinks.
Learn how eating a whole food diet, NOT processed food, is the key to permanent weight loss and amazing health.
We have been receiving wrong information from those we thought we could trust regarding nutrition (doctors, Big Food, dietitians).
Learn how to nourish your body by eating a real food way. I have written a book that will give you lots of tips, recipes, and background information.
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