Unjunk Your Junk Food book description:
Join the edible (R)evolution! You don’t have to give up junk food just to eat healthy – just make smarter choices. Discover yummy alternatives to your favorite treats. Unjunk Your Junk Food is a quick and easy guide to healthy choices for the snacks you crave, savvy alternatives to conventional brands, tips for reading food labels and recognizing false claims, nutritious ingredients to look for and dangerous additives to avoid, and much more. Now you can have your cake and eat it too!
About the authors:
Andrea Donsky and Randy Boyer are health and wellness advocates and cofounders of NaturallySavvy.com, one of the web’s most popular and trusted resources for living a natural, organic, and green lifestyle. They appear frequently on television and radio to help consumers make healthier everyday choices.
Lisa Tsakos is the chief nutrition expert for NaturallySavvy.com. She is a nutritionist and educator specializing in weight management and corporate nutrition programs.
My Thoughts:
Let’s be honest… one of the most difficult things to do when you’re changing your diet is giving up your favorite junk foods. Sometimes, it’s the driving force behind NOT changing your diet. We like our snack foods, our comfort foods, and the idea of giving them up is hard. Well, Unjunk Your Junk Food takes you down a journey of replacing those oh so yummy but really bad for you junk foods and replacing them with delicious, healthy alternative.
On page 25 of the book, there is a chart which shows the Worst Ingredients. You are encouraged to go through your pantry and really look at the ingredients in some of your favorite junk foods. Do they have a lot of the worst ingredients in them? Well, if they do (and they probably do), then it’s time to find some better-for-you alternatives.
Now, I have to note that I was perplexed to see palm oil listed as partially hydrogenated as well as coconut oil listed as hydrogenated. My experience has been that both coconut oil and palm oil vegetable shortening are non-hydrogenated (at least, the ones in my kitchen are). So, I would say that you need to verify the specifics of your own personal stash of oils and shortenings. There are a couple of other things on the list that I don’t necessarily agree with, but overall, it’s a great list.
So, now that you’ve gone through your pantry and gasped at what’s in the ingredient lists, it’s time to head back to the book and find some new snacks for your pantry. The book covers:
- Chips, Dips, and Party Foods
- Ice Cream and Other Frozen Treats
- Cookies
- Chocolate
- Cakes and Other Desserts
- Granola Bars and Other On-the-Go Snacks
- Candy
- Soda and Other Drinks
The book concludes with a detailed list of Naturally Savvy approved brands. On a side note… even though a company is on the list doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check the ingredients list. I have personally found that even though something is listed as organic or natural doesn’t mean that it still doesn’t have some not-so-great stuff in that ingredient list. Obviously, you always want to get your ingredients as close to whole, natural foods as possible. Some of the items I would stay away from as they still have things like modified soy protein in them. Some of the picks don’t always make sense because there will be a statement about corn syrup being a no-no in one comparison, but in another comparison the savvy pick has corn syrup in it.
That being said, I think this is a good way to start out the natural food journey. It gives you a good stepping stone between unhealthy junk food and natural unprocessed foods.
Book Details:
- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Gallery Books; Original edition (December 27, 2011)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1451616562
- ASIN: B007R904GW
- Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
- Retail Price: $17.99
- Amazon price at time of review: $7.20 (affiliate link used)
