There are some ingredients to be cautious about. It might be quite obvious that it is not good to have too much of a certain ingredient in your daily diet. There are a few factors that make up what is too much, but they mainly differ from person to person. It depends on you, your goals and stupidly enough also your genes. This makes it very difficult to have advice that is applicable to everyone.
Nonetheless it is wise to check the ingredients of the products you (are tempted to) buy in for instance the supermarket. As mentioned in an earlier post about low-fat or fat free products, these products are likely to hold a wide variety of chemical ingredients. Needless to say that you should try and prevent to eat (much of) these products.
Sugar
First of all it is good to check if a product has refined sugar added to it. Eating too much sugar is very easy nowadays. Many and truly many products contain added sugar. As most people know, this is in cookies, sodas and other sweets. But what most people do not know is that for instance pasta sauce, soups and such product also (can) contain those added sugars. So that makes it really worthwhile to check all ingredient labels when you are shopping.
Non-edible Products
What most people also are unaware of, is that not only edible products can have ingredients that can harm you or the goal you have set for yourself. There are even cosmetics that contain substances that influence your hormone levels.
Major example of this, are parabens. These are common ingredients in cosmetics, shampoos, etcetera. They can be present as different types, but their biggest disadvantage is that they are being seen as estrogens by your body. This will ruin your normal estrogen – testosterone balance. Be aware, this does not differ for males or females, for both it is not good to use these products. Your diet can be spot-on and extremely good, but using a certain shampoo or toothpaste can have a devastating effect on your hormonal balance. In that respect there is even a chance of an air freshener or scented candle containing phtalates having the same effect. Phtalates are more and more banned in dialy use products, but they interfere with your hormonebalance as well.
Another part, that could be found in for instance anti-bacterial products, is triclosan. This is know for the testosterone-lowering effect, while there is some critisism on the bacterial-killing ability of triclosan. So it wise to check your products on this specific ingredient as well.
How to Do Your Research
In order to get to know which products are completely healthy there is a part on the website of the Environmental Working Group where you can review the products you have on their levels of toxicity. This might give you some surprising results and find more ingredients to be cautious about.
In case you do not want to research every item on this site, there are a few components of everyday products that you should be aware of and try to stay away from. And you should be able to scan the contents of the products you have in your house for these substances.
Conclusion
This article has only covered on parabens, phtalates and triclosan. For now these can be quite enough (or too much) to remember, since the names are so easy to remember… Nonetheless it would be good to review the products you have at home and to get rid of those that could have negative effect on your health.
Sources:
http://www.strengthsensei.com/top-10-androgen-killers/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraben
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate