{Meatless Meat }Do You Read The Label? If You Do You'll Be Sick From It

• Independence day on the fourth of July is almost here. As the family and friends gather and prepare their BBQ ribs, Hot dogs, and Hamburgers they would probably like to give a choice to those that are vegan due to diet or religion. Something that has been growing by leap and billions is meatless meat. In other words products that are made to look like meat and some people, not me, think that they taste like meat.  At least the makers of these products advertise them as such. 
• That is all  nice and good as long as these products, even if they don’t do as advertised nor taste like they are supposed to; We don’t expect them to hurt us. So people are giving up meat because of the hormones that are fed to the cows and they are not sure how those animals were raised. Even on a healthy animal the conditions in which they are raised will take anybody’s appetite away. We know of 'mad cow disease' in which the meat from cows infected with this brain and nervous system virus in which if the cow is infected the person eating the meat, even after is been cooked runs a risk of acquiring an incurable deadly disease. 
• So there are many reasons for which there is a market for meatless meat. What we don’t expect is to have the cure being as bad as the disease. 
• I am going to be showing you things that are available to you, the consumer before you buy these products. It’s called the ‘label’. Sadly few people read those labels. I know that they are made small and uncomfortable to read on purpose because if most people knew what was in their food, be meatless meat or peanut butter they would not buy it. Why would you buy peanut butter that has almost not peanuts and is made with hydrogenated oils, between corn oil to palm oil which has a good track of blocking arteries.
• But let’s just stay with meatless meat today: 
• Neurotoxins & Carcinogens – The majority of store-bought veggie burgers contain some form of soy. Non organic soy is extracted using hexane, a chemical byproduct of petroleum refining. The food industry uses the hexane extraction method because it is cheap. Several studies have been published about the neurotoxicity of exposure of humans and animals to hexane, but the most alarming ones link exposure to brain tumors. Currently the FDA sets no limit to the amount of hexane that can be used in non-organic soy products and no one knows for sure how much residue is being consumed by the American public. If you want more info on this – the Cornucopia Institute released an excellent report about several popular veggie burger brands that use hexane. To quote top researcher Charlotte Valleys, “The bigger picture here is that hexane is being released into the atmosphere—since it’s an air pollutant. It leads to smog, which is ground-level ozone, which leads to a whole bunch of health problems, like asthma in kids. These effects are very real.” 
I don’t want this in my body or in the air I breathe – do you?

*Image taken from Cornucopia Institute’s report on hexane in soy

• Cheap Oils – If you see the words “canola oil, soy oil, corn oil, sunflower, and/or safflower oil” it is likely extracted with hexane too. But what further complicates this matter (if having a neurotoxin byproduct in your burger is not enough) is that the overconsumption of these cheap oils are causing an abundance of Omega 6 fatty acids in our diets. The imbalance of Omega 6 fatty acids increases the risk of inflammation, heart disease, obesity, and prostate and bone cancer.
• Textured Vegetable Protein, aka “TVP” – Several frozen veggie burgers available are developed using soy products and Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP). TVP is one of those foods I avoid at all costs and no one will ever convince me to eat something this processed. TVP is extracted from soy at a super high heat and made into a powder before it is “reshaped” into strips, chunks and granules and put back into food. The processing can also add artificial and natural flavors, MSG, colorings, emulsifiers and thickening agents, including nitrosamine, which is a carcinogen no one should be consuming. Does this picture of TVP look like nutritious nuggets of real food to you?

• Chemically Altered Flavorings & MSG – There are several hidden sources of MSG found in vegetarian meat substitutes. The food industry uses MSG to make processed food that is low in nutrition taste good, tricking your taste buds into liking something that isn’t real food. Futhermore, MSG increases your insulin response, tricking your body into thinking you can eat more than you actually should. And this is exactly how scientists make rats obese, by feeding them MSG laced food. I don’t know about you, but knowing there is a potential substance that can trick me into eating more food is reason enough to avoid this at all costs. But MSG is linked to all sorts of terrible reactions in humans like migraines, toxicity, and autoimmune disorders that you can read about in this tell all book about MSG.

• Full of Genetically Modified Ingredients (GMOs) – If the burger contains anything derived from corn or soy, you can almost guarantee it comes from genetically modified seeds unless it is certified 100% organic. Genetically modified foods have been linked to toxicity, allergic reactions and fertility issues and have not been studied for their long term effects on our health. Unfortunately, here in the US, companies can get away with including GMOs in our foods without us knowing it. If you want to know if GMO’s are in your food – support the Just Label It.org by signing their petition to the FDA

The Morningstar Farms Black Bean Burger, along with several other brands are guilty of every one of these points above. This burger is marketed as “healthy” and has even more questionable ingredients like caramel coloring (which is linked to cancer) and a slew of other chemical based preservatives. Knowing that I used to eat this particular brand many years ago on a weekly basis, absolutely disgusts me now. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of processed and convenience foods making a fool out of me…share this info with all your veggie burger buying friends and spread the word.

Well adamfoxie*blog and Adam its publisher wishes you a tasty and healthy fourth of July! My suggestion is that if you like meat, eat the real meat. If you feel meat is weighing you down wether imagined or real, then have the potato salad or the bread with lettuce and tomato and nothing in between.  If you eat meat on the fourth of july but then hold off for the rest of the year, how bad can that be?

Adam used as a source Food Babe.com