B00AFU6252 EBOK by Jessica Alba Read Free Book Online Page B

containers into your food. The big one to avoid is bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical that strengthens plastic but is also an endocrine disruptor—which means it messes with healthy hormonal development.
    Look for glass food storage containers (I like Pyrex, Ball mason jars, or Wean Green Cubes for Haven’s food). At the very least, ditch old, scratched plastic for BPA-free replacements. To be sure you’re not getting anything sketchy, check the number usually stamped on the bottom of a container in a little triangle. And remember the mantra: “4, 5, 1, and 2—all the rest are bad for you!”



DIY BABY FOOD
    WHAT TO DO:
Place 1 pound of any vegetable (peeled and chopped carrot, squash, cauliflower, broccoli) in a large pot with 3 to 4 cups of chicken stock and a clove of garlic, 1 teaspoon fresh ginger, and 1 teaspoon sea salt. Boil and then simmer until soft, up to 20 minutes. (I sometimes use frozen organic produce—a breeze!)
Remove veggies and place into a blender with 1 cup applesauce (see this page ) or banana, plus a drizzle of olive oil. Puree until smooth.
Let cool, then store in reusable glass jars so you’ve got a week’s worth of meals ready to go. These also freeze well.

Honestly Worth Avoiding
    Y OU’LL NOTICE THAT most of this chapter focuses on what you
can
and
should
eat, instead of what
not
to eat. That’s because the whole beauty of Honest Eating is that you don’t have to sit around memorizing lists of off-limits foods. You simply focus on enjoying whole, fresh foods (and educating yourself a bit on how to make the best choices) and you automatically avoid the junk. But since we’re so inundated with misleading food marketing and junk food pretty much everywhere we go, I thought it might help if I also explained a little more about what I don’t eat and don’t buy for my family—because I honestly don’t want these nonfoods in our lives. Period.
REFINED SUGAR
    This is a hard one. I’m not going to lie and say,
Oh, I never even miss sugar.
I absolutely have a sweet tooth—if you put a plate of red velvet cupcakes with butter cream frosting in front of me, I’ll eat the entire thing. Because that’s how sugar works: The more you eat, the more you want. I find it easiest to minimize our intake as much as possible by saving baked goods for special occasions and skipping all the packaged foods that are loaded with extra sugar we just don’t need day to day.
REFINED FLOUR
    This ingredient is in the same camp as sugar—because as far as your body is concerned, it
is
sugar. Refined flour (like the kind you find in white bread, regular pasta, muffins, pies, and so on) breaks down into glucose almost as soon as you eat it, which causes a quick spike of your blood sugar and then a terrible crash. When that happens, you feel like death, and then you’re hungry again in about 5 minutes anyway. Swapping all the refined flour foods in your diet for their whole grain equivalents is probably the easiest way to incorporate a little Honest Eating into your life—and reap huge rewards in terms of fewer mood swings, more sustained energy, and fewer crazy, overpowering food cravings, too.
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS
    These are bad news. Like regular sugar, they overdevelop our palate for sweet things and make us want more, more, more all the time. And kids’ foods are loaded with them, which I’ll never understand. Little kids’ taste buds are already way stronger than the average adult’s, so why do they need foods to be so sweet? Answer: They don’t. The worst part about these sweeteners is the slew of health problems associated with them. Check it out:
ASPARTAME: May trigger migraines, increase your risk for diabetes, and break down into formaldehyde. Next!
SPLENDA (SUCROALOSE): We don’t have adequate research to draw conclusions about how it impacts our health.
HIGH-FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP: This sweetener is practically on America’s Most Wanted List at this point, so you don’t need me to rehash the