Friday, February 28, 2014

Friday Faves: Fooducate

Happy Friday!   Hope you've had a good week.   I have had one of those weeks where I've been busy, but haven't accomplished as much as I wanted.  I intend to take the weekend off, have fun and relax, so I will have lots of energy when Monday rolls around.

My Friday Fave this week is Fooducate.   If you have an interest in nutrition, this is an invaluable site.  You can look up any food and see the nutrition label (calories, protein, sugar, etc.) and also look at the ingredients.  The site sorts out "mystery ingredients."   

Growing up, my father was interested in natural foods and we shopped at health food stores regularly.  I grew up with whole wheat bread, natural peanut butter, wheat germ, bran, yogurt, etc.   I am a long-time vegetarian, but I will admit that until this past year I didn't look at labels past an ingredient check to make sure the products were vegetarian.

Then I found Fooducate.

It has been very eye-opening seeing the ingredients that are in many foods:  propellant (cooking spray), brominated vegetable oil (sports drinks), phosphoric acid (sodas), industrial caramel color (many foods, including salad dressing).

When I shop at my favorite grocery store, I always read labels now.  If in doubt, I look up the products on Fooducate.  There are always good choices in almost any category, products that do not have those long, unpronounceable chemical ingredients.

This site is available for computer, Android, and iPhone.  It is not available as a Blackberry app, unfortunately.  (Of course, I have it bookmarked on my phone and can pull it up that way.)

Fooducate has made a positive difference in my life, so I wanted to share it with you.

Hope you have a great weekend!