Catchy word right? I came across this acroynm while going through my nutrition course and it’s an easy word to remember. CRAP stands for Carbonated Drinks, Refined Sugar, Artificial Flavoring and Coloring and Processed food. Yup, it’s all the bad stuff that we are suppose to avoid. Now, of course moderation is key in this matter because in our modern lifestyle, it’s quite hard to totally avoid them.
Let’s try to minimize them but indulge once in a while is ok, indulgence & happy feeling also generates good hormones so that’s in a way good for health right?
So I try to evaluate my intake for each of the groupings and you can do the same :
- Carbonated drinks : Coke, Pepsi, Fruit juice drink… wait a minute, hold on… I thought fruits are good for health? But did you know that bottled fruit juice has different way of processing and what is inside that bottle may not be entirely made of 100% fruit. Try to avoid the label ‘fruit juice drink’. The additional word drink at the end means it’s mostly cordial form and not natural pure juice. Example of a good brand is Florida Natural where they claim that their juices are not-from-concentrate and 100% pure. Ok, now back to how I fare in this group, surprisingly I do not crave for sweet drinks/soft drinks except when I was pregnant in my 1st trimester – I drank half a bottle of root beer almost everyday for 2 months! Now that I don’t have that excuse anymore, occassionally like once a month, I do reach out for ginger or root beer when I want to give myself a little treat.
- Refined Sugar : This exists in a lot of the biscuits, pastries, cookies, cakes and cereal. Yup, even the healthy cereal. This is the part for me which I fail miserably because I enjoy my cakes and pastries and occasional biscuit with my afternoon tea. Now, how do I minimize this? I do bake muffin with my son and have it for tea time, I could replace it with raw sugar. Now I use raw sugar in my home made bread loaf and it rises similar to white sugar. Minimize biscuits and replace with nuts. Notice that I didn’t plan to eliminate because if in moderation and it makes me happy, then it’s not too bad.
- Artificial flavours and colours : Sweets, candy and snacks. Now, this category I think I avoid like a plague. I prefer natural flavouring as it makes the food taste better and it does not add any value for colour in my food unless it’s natural.
- Processed food : These are the super salty and yummy stuff like sausages, ham, smoked meat, ice cream, frozen cake. I use to include ham/tuna/baked beans for the family once a week for breakfast. I believe it’s already in moderation. Looking across my pantry, it’s not brimming with processed/can food.