DO YOU USE FAST FOODS?

Life is too short. Time is money. Convenience is KING!

Our modern lifestyle demands fast foods and we can pay for it with our health. But more and more people are beginning to question, and rightly so, the safety of what they consume. It's time for a change. We can help reshape your attitude towards what you eat. We can inspire and motivate you away from fast foods because we can offer the ultimate alternative - Optimal Nutrition!

Fresh versus fast - learn about the negatives and then persuade with positives ..

We live in a consumer, throwaway society. Any time we can save by avoiding 'everyday' chores is time that can e diverted to enrich our lives in other ways, such as quality time with the family, time spent on leisure pursuits or time spent making more money!

Cooking is one such 'chore'. What used to be a daily activity involving home-grown produce and old skills, has been transformed by clever advertising campaigns. Cooking seems to have become a weekend activity fashioned by celebrity cooks who focus on dinner parties and the novelty of fresh foods!

Look into most shopping trolleys in the supermarket queue and you will see a colourful collection of oven-ready or microwaveable meals, frozen or tinned vegetables and a multitude of plastic -potted sweet delights from the chillers cabinet.

Persuasive advertising techniques.

Manufactures spend millions of Rand on high-tech TV, newspaper and magazines advertising to condition our thinking and make us believe we just cant' do without soft margarine that spreads straight from the fridge or magnificent microwaveable chips! The adverts tease and tempt us with their time-saving treats. Chips that take three minutes to zap take the place of deep-fat fried chips and oven chips and so on.

For busy people, fast food is a blessing. There's little or no preparation involved, it is usually tasty and looks good on the plate, and the appetite is satisfied. But what about he nutritional value of these foods? When manufacturer's process natural, wholefoods and turn them into plastic-packed convenience foods, what are you really getting?

Take a look at the long list of ingredients (and chemicals) on the food labels.

Chemicals are added to improve texture, flavour, colour, aroma, stability, sweetness, shelf life, none of which are found in fresh foods! So you are getting more that you bargained for when you eat convenience foods ..

Double-trouble-processing removes precious nutrients and fibre

Nutrients aren't locked into food; with time they are lost, so long storage and transportation time means that what we get in the shops has less to offer that if we bought it from a local producer or grew it ourselves. The closer to a sell- by date an items is, the less nutrients is has to offer. Shopkeepers put their oldest stock at the front of the shelf, or on special offer to get rid of it quickly - those 'bargains' are often nutritionally negative!

Foods that go through canning or bottling processes are depleted of Vitamin C, thiamine and folic acid. This depletion continues during storage, so again, check there is a far off used by date.

Most people don't realise quite what they are buying. When fresh food is 'off', it becomes quite obvious - visible mould, wilting and offensive smells are the signs that make sure they end up in the waste bin. Whereas many convenience foods are chemically manipulated to look good for longer. When you consider what's been added and what's been taken away, we are clearly often tucking into 'half-foods'.

It really is essential that those who eat nutrient-depleted fast foods snub these foods in favour of fresh, wholefoods and replenish their nutritional intake with high quality easily-absorbed supplements.

For more information on healthy living, contact your ShapeWorks coach or Herbalife distributor by clicking on the following email address info@shapelife.co.za