Kick the Cans

It’s important to your health that you eliminate as many processed foods from your diet as possible. Processed foods are those that have been stored in cans or boxes or bottles in ways that make them less healthy than the same foods would be in their natural states.

Look at the canned vegetables you buy. These foods were plucked from the earth and shipped to huge processing plants, where they were cleaned and chopped, then cooked at temperatures high enough to destroy most of the vitamins these foods once contained. Then things were added to them—things such as salt, sugar (in all its wonderful disguises), preservatives, artificial flavors, colors, and stabilizers. After all this processing, little of the foods’ natural nutrition is still available, and health-defying ingredients such as sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate (MSG) now take center stage.

I grew up on a small farm. We canned lots of veggies from the garden. In home canning, the cooking temperatures are lower, and you don’t add much of anything artificial. Such hand-canned products are much closer to natural than the store-bought varieties. These days, however, home canning is practically a lost art. Most people don’t know how to grow or can their food, and, with improvements in transporting fresh foods, most people don’t need to know.

Fresh is your best first choice. Frozen foods are a good second choice. In freezing, the integrity of the foods’ cell walls is destroyed, which is why frozen vegetables tend to be somewhat mushy. Still, much of the nutritional value remains, so no additives are needed. With that in mind, check the labels of frozen foods—what has been added that wasn’t needed? Most frozen foods need little processing—just cut, clean, bag, and freeze.

Then read the labels on some canned foods, counting all the additives. Ask yourself if you can figure out why companies find it necessary to add sugar and salt to vegetables. If you were going to use canned products with no added sugar or MSG, how many choices would you have? What if you wanted to eliminate salt as well—now how many choices do you have? If you shop in a chain grocery store of the non–health-food variety, your choices will be very limited indeed. Make a note of what products and brand names have no added sugar, salt, or MSG. That way, when you have an emergency, need to fix something quick, or are in a hurry, you won’t have to make a trip to a health-food store. You can make a quick stop at the neighborhood grocery and still make fairly good, though somewhat limited, choices for a quick meal.

Years ago, you couldn’t find canned goods in health-food stores. You didn’t see many boxed foods either. Most of what you could buy was dry, and in big bins. If you were really serious about health foods, you even brought your own recycled bags to put the products in. How much the health-food industry has changed and grown in the past thirty years! Today there are a variety of organic canned vegetables, pasta sauces, and soups on the shelf, as well as freezers full of products. Fresh is still best, but when you need a quick meal, many organic, no-additive choices are available.

A few canned products are so convenient you can’t help but use them. We all know that beans soaked and cooked at home are fantastic, but when you don’t have that kind of time, canned beans are great. Again, use the organic, no-additives kind. There are a number of brands of natural soups on the market today; again, if you have time to cook, fresh is always best—but for a quick meal, an all-natural soup high in carbohydrates and a portion of fish or chicken makes a good, quick, relatively healthy meal.

Have you heard that saying “there are always exceptions to the rule”? It’s true. The rule is use as few canned, boxed, or bottled food products as you possibly can. The exception is when you’re pressed for time. Then go for packaged foods that are as close to their original, natural state as possible. As with all the other habits you’re changing as you read and apply this book, each time you choose the healthier shopping alternative, you’ve won a small victory. You’re that much closer to enjoying good health for your lifetime.