Meeting Notes for February 23

by Tami Newton

Jean-Francois Borny came to speak with us on Tuesday night. He graduated from Texas A&M with degrees in Chemistry, Computer Science and French and worked in the pharmaceutical, chemical and petrochemical industry for 25 years. He now teaches high school science, math and computer at Family Christian Academy in Channelview. As a scientist, he has studied the effect of the chemicals we ingest, for many years, and continues to research and study the foods we eat.
He had the audience members match up common chemcials to every day food we eat. For example, Dr. Pepper and acid were matched because all sodas contain phosporic acid. Milk was paired with medicine because milk contain hormones like the doctors give us for certain ailments. Bread matched up with bleach because all flour used in bread is bleached to extend the shelf life. If you want to buy bread that has not been bleached, the label must say "unbleached wheat flour". If the word "unbleached" is not in the ingredient list, then it has been bleached.

Powdered donuts were paired with paint because titanium dioxide is added to these donuts, for color. Margarine was paired with vaseline because they are basically the same product. Vaseline is actually a cleaner product. The first margarine was exactly the same color as vaseline and it was decided to turn it yellow to make it more appealing to the public. It worked. The popular children's snack, Fruit Rollups, was paired with Raid because it contains cottonseed oil and cottonseed oil is heavily pesticided because it is not actually a food crop.

Jean-Francois handed out a card with the list of items that contain MSG and the top five ingredients to avoid. They are as follows:

MSG - Monosodium Glutamate is always in:

autolyzed yeast monsodium glutamate
calcium caseinate sodium caseinate
gelatin textured protein
glutamate yeast extract
glatamic acid yeast food
hydrolyzed protein yeast nutrient
monopotassium glutamate
monosodium glutamate
sodium caseinate
textured protein
yeast extract
yeast food
yeast nutrient

Top five ingredients to avoid:

1. High fructose corn syrup
2. Preservatives (MSG, BHT, TBHQ, BHa, ...)
3. Partially hydrogenated oils
4. Artificial sweeteners (aspartame, Splenda, ...)
5. Artificial colors

He shared his favorite quote with us; "If it comes from a plant; eat it. If it was made in a plant; skip it." His position on this is because all chemically processed food is handled that way to extend the shelf life and all kinds of unhealthy chemicals are used. Also, these chemically processed foods are all highly addictive.

The reason he advocates going organic, as much as possible, is because organic food processors are only allowed to use 38 chemicals in their products. Foods that are not organic can use up to over 3,000 different chemicals in their foods. Makes you think, doesn't it?

He dispelled the myth that canola oil is the better cooking product. This oil is actually chemically altered through pressing, boiling and washing and then pressing again. His recommendation of cooking oils would be, in this order; extra virgin oil, virgin oil and grape seed oil. These oils are cold pressed and are not chemically altered.

He ended with a discussion of some of the labels brought that night and informed us of some of the bad ingredients in the food we eat on a daily basis. He answered many questions and stayed around afterwards to answer many more questions.

I stood up at the end of the meeting and showed people how to log onto the Crosby Meltdown blog. I supplied them with a handout on how to access the blog and how to sign up as a follower.

Connie Harding reminded everyone that they need to get their weights into their team leader by Tuesday of each week. It is then each team leaders responsibility to add the weights of all their team mates together. Team leaders please make sure you give Connie your team's combined total every Tuesday by email at Iconclh@hotmail.com or at the meeting. Individuals can also email their weights to her at the same email address, if they are unable to reach their team leader.

Connie named some specific teams that had not weighed in yet. She also asked that anyone who was not certain about their weight status to see her, after the meeting. Connie would like to be able to start giving a report of the weigh results at each weekly meeting but she cannot do that until everyone is consistently reporting.