Over the past week, I enjoyed dispelling some popular myths in a Q&A with you all on Facebook! There was so much value and engagement, I decided to share it here to help you make well-informed decisions in the aisles of your favorite grocery store. Let’s dig in:

1. Which is healthier for breakfast; juice or soda?

The Answer: Neither!

Most people tend to think fruit juice would be better for breakfast because it serves as fruit. Honestly, it’s liquid sugar. Instead of eating sugar in syrups, sauces, and breakfast pastries you’re just drinking it – or consuming both. There is no fiber associated with it, so your body registers it as a toxin. No more than 6 teaspoons of sugar per day gives your body energy and nutrients. Anything beyond that becomes harmful and addictive. Often, these juices have more sugar in one glass than you’re allotted for the whole day.

2. True or false: Sardines have more calcium than milk.

Answer: It is true!

There are a lot of things higher in calcium than milk, but that is it’s own blog at another time. For decades, we have been taught that we should have 3 glasses of milk every day. Most of the world is lactose intolerant, so that is a bleak start. Also, milk has so many things in it that would be perfectly healthy for you if you were a baby cow! Since you received an education and learned to read, I highly doubt that qualification applies to you. Dairy milk, in particular conventional, has no shortage of harmful chemicals that are no good for you.

Sardines are great for Omega 3s, choline, vitamin D, proteins, and healthy fats, which your mood, brain, liver, and skin need.

**Pro tip: I love sardine salad. You can add a sauce, chopped leafy veggies, and a crunchy veggie to a bowl of sardines and mix it all together for a scrumptious nutrient-dense snack.

3. Are grass-fed and organic the same thing?

Answer: Nope!

You might find yourself wondering if those pricetags really provide a return on your investment. Are the meanings of the billion and one stickers interchangeable? Better yet, why bother? It’s all food, right? Pardon my french, but contraire mon frere!

Conventional meats are not generally allowed to roam. They are fed a controlled diet of whatever is cheap. They are fed a genetically modified diet of the cheapest, most fattening substances, whether the animal would naturally eat them or not; this includes candy, corn, and other cheap grains, food not fit for human consumption, and even waste particles from other animals. Just like the Standard American Diet (SAD), our meat’s diet is not about nutrition, but how fat they can get the animals in order to sell more meat.

Opposing conventional meat, grass-fed animals have a more positive effect on our environment. Just because it’s popular doesn’t mean it’s natural. I say this all the time because it’s true. If we are in a perfect state of health, Flatulence becomes a thing of the past. Gas signifies fermentation and remnants of toxic waste.

The smell of that gas indicates how much damage is being done inside of you. We joke about the deadly fumes, but they really are deadly. The same goes for animals. The worse their diet is, the worse the gaseous emissions are for the earth, and the less nutrient-dense their poop is, which leads to lackluster fertilization. Their bodies cannot process half of their diets and neither can yours. You eat what they eat.

Also, grass-fed is very strict on how the animals live to ensure that you’re receiving the most nutrient-dense animal available. Grass-fed meat tends to be more expensive because the animals need more land for grazing and they tend to be more muscular and lean, with noticeably less fat.

Lastly, organic meats will typically be closer in price to conventional meat. The animals are allowed to eat more grains at certain parts of life. The nutrient value is less dense than grass-fed, but more than conventional.

Have you found these tips helpful? Feel free to ask me more questions in the comments below for a future Q&A!

Bringing the family back to the table,