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EWG Food Scores Database Ranks Your Grocery Buys

EWG Food Scores

There’s more to radiant skin than using the perfect skincare. Whole body wellness is key to feeling and looking great. Eliminating harmful chemicals from your cosmetics and personal care products is the perfect place to start. And, of course, a healthy diet is essential to our overall wellness.

We, mostly, know what it takes to eat a healthy, balanced diet. Still, even the most knowledgeable foodies have their moments of weakness. Whether you are in a hurry or wrongly convinced that those veggie burgers you down each afternoon for lunch are healthy, we all make mistakes when it comes to groceries.

Wouldn’t it be great if there were a way to check on a specific item to see if it truly is a healthy product?

You are going to love this! EWG has come out with a food database, ranking tons of grocery items on Nutrition, Ingredients, and Processing. Food Scores allows you to search through food categories, or search a specific item, and gives an overall ranking of the food’s healthiness. It also breaks it down to show you how nutritious the item actually is, if it is organic or contains harmful ingredients, and whether it is a whole food or processed.

Pretty cool. Think Skin Deep Database for grocery shopping. A higher rank means the product is more hazardous. You are looking for low numbers here.

Example: The aforementioned veggie burger. I love Morning Star Farms Mushroom Lover’s Veggie Burgers and eat them several days a week for lunch. With a little hummus or guacamole? Definitely yummy, but healthy? Not as much as I’d hoped. These veggie burgers ranked a 5. It is not organic, contains additives and added sugar, and is a processed food. More concerning were the flavor ingredients. Evidently, some foods contain a cocktail of chemical flavor ingredients that are not always fully disclosed on an ingredient listing, much like fragrance ingredients in cosmetics. And worst of all…possible hormones and GMOs. EWG says these burgers may contain animal ingredients (but I thought they were veggie?!) “possibly treated with antibiotics and/or growth promoters”. Things I do my best to avoid and would have never expected to find in my veg burger. I may be well versed in reading cosmetic labels, but looks like I need to brush up on deciphering food labels. This new database will come in super handy.

Let’s move on to a product that is actually healthy. Take Alter Eco Organic Royal Rainbow Quinoa, for example. It ranks a healthy 1, and EWG tells you this product is certified organic, non-GMO, and gluten-free. It also gives the label’s nutrition facts, so you have that at a glance.

This tool could become addictive. I’m going to go look through my fridge and cupboards now and, likely, come up with a new grocery list.

 

[Image of woman grocery shopping via Shutterstock]

Written by Liz Thompson

I am an organic beauty expert, writer, and mom of two young environmentalists who can already spot a toxic product when they see one. Read more about me at Organic Beauty Source.com, and find me on , Twitter, Pinterest, and Facebook.

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