Posted 6/30/2009 4:48 AM (GMT 0)
FitzyK23 -
i am the same way - i eat out it makes me sick. i make the same thing at home i'm ok. it has to be ingredients. sure maybe a little psychological too for me now that i know a bit about nutrition, but if i make it myself it is fresh and i can eliminate or reduce the bad ingredients and i dont have some one else with questionable hygiene handling my food.
whey protien is a very good protien. it is one of the two proteins from dairy (the other being caesin which is harder to digest and is responsible for milk allergies). egg white protein is a step down from whey but is also good. i've started to see some vegan protein powders now, but plant based protein is inferior to animal, so imho, dont use them. if you can handle whey protein then use it. the stuff in the big tubs are junk so dont waste your money. you need to do some research on this to find the good brands and types of whey protein you want. i forget off hand, but i know it when i see it in the store, so sorry i cant provide recommendations.
as for soy, ditch it. use almond milk instead. Soybeans have been cleverly disguised as health foods and wrongly championed by the health industry as the near perfect food. As tragic as it may sound, if you take a good look at the research you will find that soybeans really are not that good for you. For starters soybeans are the number one genetically modified (GMO) crop in America. Roundup Ready soybeans have been genetically modified to include the herbicide Roundup in the actual soybean itself. Soybeans are high in phytates, which prevent the absorption of minerals. Soybeans contain natural toxins called “anti-nutrients” which are essentially enzyme inhibitors. Many research studies have linked soybeans to a long list of problems, including impaired thyroid and immune system functions, reproductive disorders, impeding the sexual maturation of boys while accelerating that of girls, promotion of kidney stones, and even cancer and heart disease. Soy milk is actually a waste product from the tofu making process. Someone figured out that if this waste product is processed some more with added ingredients they can sell it as a milk substitute. Soybeans are marketed to you at Japanese restaurants as edamame. The Asian culture, particularly the Japanese, can live just fine on soybeans since they have been doing so for generation upon generation whereas the rest of us have not. Plus they eat a much healthier diet that includes more vegetables, and they generally eat fermented versions of soy (tempeh, miso, natto, and tamari) that negates most if not all of the negative effects of soy. The unfermented version of soy is the one to stay away from. Unfortunately it is the unfermented version you will find in tofu, soy milk, soy protein isolates, soy ice cream, soybean oil, and many, many other soy derivative food products. And steer clear of hydrolyzed soy protein, which is a common ingredient in imitation foods.
as for fish, read this. i forget where i got the article, but it should answer some of your questions:
High in protein, high in omega-3 fatty acids, a provider of vitamin D, B12, niacin, selenium, B6, magnesium and calcium—those are just some of the benefits of eating salmon and other fatty fish.
But what about farmed salmon vs. wild salmon? Are there any differences?
The answer is a resounding yes. And these differences are significant for health.
For starters, North American, South American, and European farm-raised salmon have high levels of PCBs and other environmental toxins (as many as 14 toxins--some of them human carcinogens) than wild salmon, according to researchers at Indiana University and five additional research centers. The study’s leader, Professor Ronald Hites, from the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs, said, “We think it’s important for people who eat salmon to know that farmed salmon have higher levels of toxins than wild salmon from the open ocean.”
They think it’s so important that they also recommended limitations on how much farmed salmon a person should eat per month. The recommended amounts varied from one-half a meal of salmon per month to no more than two meals of salmon per month. Compare those recommendations to how much wild salmon you can safely eat—which is as many as eight meals per month—and you catch a glimpse of how serious these scientists consider the toxins in farmed salmon.
And this is a rather broad problem, since the production of farmed salmon has increased 40-fold over the past twenty years. And it appears that the toxins may be derived from what these farm-raised salmon are fed. Hites and his fellow scientists measured toxins in this “salmon chow’—which is a mixture of ground-up fish and oil fed to the farm-raised salmon—and found a correlation between the toxicity of the feed and the toxicity of the salmon. They believe that the toxins are passed from the feed into the salmon.
But the toxin level in farmed salmon is not the only reason why wild salmon is preferred over farmed salmon. Here are some more convincing reasons:
Wild salmon contains more omega-3 fatty acids than farmed fish, a Norwegian study suggests. In the past, it was believed that farmed fish contained more beneficial omega-3s, but more recently, it is generally accepted that the percentage of omega-3 fats in farmed salmon is lower than in wild salmon. Additionally, farmed salmon is usually cooked in ways that reduce its fat content (due to its contaminants), thereby lowering its fatty acid content. Finally, fish feed is being used with less fish meat in it and more plant foods, which can lower the amount of omega-3s in the salmon.
Salmon farmers often use antibiotics and pesticides to control disease and these can be passed along to any consumer of the fish. These chemicals can potentially causes negative health effects for those who ingest the antibiotic-ridden or pesticide-laced salmon.
So, when it comes to your choice of salmon, it’s best to “take a walk on the wild side”—by selecting wild salmon, that is.