What Not To Eat This Summer: 4 Common Toxic Foods

You know not to eat fried foods and ice cream on a regular basis. I’m not here to tell you that. I want to open your eyes to 4 foods that are often mistaken for being harmless yet are frequently consumed during the summer. As always, in moderation you will be fine but don’t make a habit of consuming any of these items as part of your regular balanced diet.

This video is part of my July Mission for the Ford Warriors in Pink. I am helping Ford fight breast cancer by increasing breast health awareness. While genetics play a major role, research has shown that breast cancer may potentially be caused by ingesting toxins through our diets. Take control of your health today by avoiding these foods and sharing this post to help educate your friends and family.

#1. Ketchup, Cocktail & BBQ Sauce

It’s not that ketchup is bad for you, it is the fact that most brands use High Fructose Corn Syrup to sweeten it and it’s pretty much all sugar! A lobster roll for dinner with fries dipped in ketchup, bbq chicken the next night, a quick burger for lunch at the beach snack bar or shrimp cocktail at dinner will give you quite the hefty dose of HFCS on your vacation.

A tablespoon of ketchup has about 4g of sugar, which means a quarter of an entire bottle is basically sugar. Now, who eats one serving of ketchup!? BBQ sauce is even worse as you can imagine.

HFCS and sugar are different. When used in moderation, it has been shown to potentially cause heart disease, obesity, cancer, dementia, liver failure, tooth decay and more. HFCS is absorbed more rapidly into the blood stream than regular sugar which triggers lipogenesis, the production of fats like cholesterol and spikes your insulin, our bodies major fat storage hormone. It also has been shown to increase metabolic disturbances that drive an increased appetite, weight gain, and diabetes.

How To Avoid: Read the labels on the bottles. Heinz ketchup is typically made with HFCS but they started making a variety that is not carried by B.Good! Trader Joe’s has an affordable HFCS free option as does Whole Foods. Opt for mustard, hot sauce, salsa or vinegar (oysters and french fries only) if there isn’t another option at the restaurant or just avoid ketchup. The least shocking is that a product made with HFCS usually means it is a poor quality food filled with disease promoting compounds. Avoiding HFCS forces you to make better decisions about the foods you put in your body.

#2 Ice Cream

Well, not all ice cream, just the kind that are made with cows treated with rGBH, which is a growth hormone given to cows to increase their milk production. It has been banned by Cananda, New Zealand, Australia and all 27 countries in the European Union but our government thinks we are strong enough to handle it. Blue Bunny, Dreyer’s, Breyer’s, Haagen Daas and Baskin Robbins still use milk for their ice cream that has been treated with rGBH. Unless the label says otherwise, assume it has been used. If that lovely GMO label bill had passed, you would know when it was being used!

The son of the Baskin Robbins franchise will not even eat his families’ own ice cream! The use of rGBH increase the need for antibiotics because it causes udder infections. This leads to puss and antibiotic residue in the milk used for your 120 calorie per 1/2 cup light churned ice cream.

If you are not aware of the side effects of ingesting antibiotics from a cow, it reduces the effectiveness of an antibiotic when you actually need one! But worse, the rGBH hormone when injected into cows more than doubled the levels of a substance called IGF-1 in a cow’s milk. Some studies show it increased up to six times the amount when rGBH is involved. This substance at an elevated amount poses serious risk for breast, colon and prostate cancers.

How To Avoid: I admit I do not eat ice cream a ton but when I do, I usually get it from small mom and pop shops that tell you where the cows are coming from. Be on the safe side and go organic or dairy free. Ben & Jerry’s does not use cows treated with rGBH! Read your labels again.

#3. Conventional Berries

I’ll keep this one short. Pesticides are fat soluble. When you buy certain fruits and veggies, there is still pesticide residue on the produce to help keep bugs away from them while they are growing. Food like bananas have a thick skin that we do not eat so conventionally grown are not going to have harmful pesticides in them. Berries however, especially peaches, that have a thin skin have the most traces of pesticides on them when grown conventionally.

Studies have shown that eating a high amount of pesticides that are stored in your fat cells can mutate and potentially cause cancer if you have a toxic diet that cannot flush them out of your system. They can also lead to nervous and reproductive system damage.

How To Avoid: Opt for organically grown blueberries, strawberries, peaches, nectarines, grapes and cherries or just don’t eat them and go for fruits that have thicker skin like pineapple and watermelon or bananas.

#4. Artificially Colored Frozen Treats

The kids are bouncing off the walls after they eat these low calorie Ice Cream truck options because of the sugar, right? NOPE. It’s the artificial coloring they say these days. A study with mice and rats exposed to blue 1 and 3, red 3 and yellow 6 suffered from brain, adrenal gland, thyroid and kidney tumors. In fact, Red 40, Yellow 5 and 6 contain known carcinogens and may be to blame for the rise is child hyperactivity.

A study done by the Center of Science in the Public Interest reported that, “In addition to considerations of organ damage, cancer, birth defects, and allergic reactions, mixtures of dyes (and Yellow 5 tested alone) cause hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in some children.

… Because of those toxicological considerations, including carcinogenicity, hypersensitivity reactions, and behavioral effects, food dyes cannot be considered safe. The FDA should ban food dyes, which serve no purpose other than a cosmetic effect, though quirks in the law make it difficult to do so (the law should be amended to make it no more difficult to ban food colorings than other food additives).

In the meantime, companies voluntarily should replace dyes with safer, natural colorings.”[source[

How To Avoid: So yeah… I’m going to pass on the Ice Cream Truck this year. Make your own frozen treats, buy ones that are colored and sweetened naturally. If you go to the beach and your kids are begging you for something, once will not hurt but do not make it a habit. Bring your own fresh cut watermelon which I know is not ice cream but I’ve been obsessed with it lately and tastes amazing on the beach.

Were you surprised by any of the above?