Technology Solution
If you suffer from Hypoglycemia, shopping can be a nightmare.
Most of the products in our food supply are laced with sugar and other “food like substances” that predispose us to conditions like hypoglycemia that push us further into chronic metabolic disease states and keep us on the terrifying “blood sugar roller coaster”. What if there was a way you could “filter” out the the most harmful foods – based upon criteria developed by the Hypoglycemia Support Foundation – instantly and effortlessly?
Surprise! An amazing technology solution by a new social enterprise start-up, currently in “stealth mode”, called “perfact” is now available to the HSF community on an exclusive basis – and it is 100% free.
A Recommendation Engine In essence, the perfact solution offers a patented recommendation engine takes criteria combining any number of ingredients, nutrients, recommendations, or warnings from any number of sources and boils them down to a personalized yes/no instantly. If a product doesn’t match all criteria, the engine makes recommendations that do. The perfact “Criteria Store” makes picking criteria from experts, government and non-government organizations, publications, or any individual of trust as convenient as picking apps on the Apple AppStore. Like on the AppStore, all criteria, bundled into “filters”, are vetted for quality, have descriptions, and ratings.
Imagine, just flipping a switch and filtering out all pasta sauces ingredients that might exacerbate conditions like hypoglycemia, such as added sugar? Now imagine applying this filtering technology to any food substance? Check out the demo below…. see all pasta sauces represented by blue squares… filter is applied… and remaining (green squares) represent sauces remaining without questionable ingredients!
Preview Group Is Here – Free Yourself from the “Chemical Soup” Also Called Our Food Supply
The HSF has started a “preview group” trial of perfact – designed for people with hypoglycemia – so you can try it out for yourself. The processed food and cosmetics industries employ an army of chemists and engineers who literally use consumers as human guinea pigs for thousands of processes, substances, and formulations that receive little oversight or regulation. While a given substance may seem innocuous, we really don’t know the effect it may have when it is thrown into the chemical soup that is our food supply or beauty product supply. We don’t know, but the preliminary data on the exposomic effects of thousands of man made chemical flooding our bodies is not good. Indications are that processed foods are causing many diseases, including cancer. So, the burden of proving a substance is “good for us” is on the companies that make them and put them in the products we buy. In the HSF filter, we only whitelist ingredients that we can easily identify as real food or constituents; a key assumption being – “is it reasonable to believe this substance is good for us?” – vs. “we don’t think it is harmful”, or “no one has proven it is harmful to us yet”, etc.
PLEASE NOTE
There is no “one size fits all” diet. The HSF criteria in this filter are generalized. Any successful diet requires individualization – different individuals respond differently to different foods, even though they are predicted or validated in a group. This may be in part related to differences in the microbiome, in gastro-intestinal motility, etc.
- grain flours
- sugars (see Dr. Lustig’s Sugar Matrix Project)
- non-stevia-based sweeteners
- caffeine
- myriad chemicals added to our food including anti-caking agents, antioxidants, artificial sweeteners, emulsifiers, food acids, colorants, humectants, artificial flavors and flavor enhancers, foaming agents, salts, preservatives, thickeners, and stabilizers – (all ironically included in the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “Generally Regarded as Safe” (GRAS) list)
- inspired to help you stay within recommended limits on total sugar, we restrict high sugar content foods…more than 11.25g of sugar per 100g (as the FDA doesn’t define a “low sugar“ threshold, we use the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency (https://www.food.gov.uk) traffic lights system as a reference (https://www.food.gov.uk/
sites/default/files/media/ document/fop-guidance_0.pdf). 11.25 or more g of sugar per 100g would be labeled with a red traffic light).
- raw or just minimally processed (=cut, ground, cooked – NOT pressed) ingredients that have been used as food anywhere on the world over generations.
- any of the above having undergone one of the following classic processes that have been employed all over the world over generations:
- cold-pressing to obtain oil
- non-alcoholic fermentation to obtain full-fat dairy products
- non-alcoholic fermentation to obtain vinegar
- classic extraction to obtain essences
One challenge is that many food manufacturers deliberate obfuscate the nature of ingredients and how they are processed on the label. So, we are forced to examine and screen products using unscientific and easily manipulated terms like “instant,” “puffed,” “creamy” “healthy,” etc. that may be on the front of the package or in the product description. This process is a labor of love, and the HSF filter isn’t perfect. We all need to work together to assure the effectiveness of such a powerful tool.
Here are some of the criteria and rationales we apply to filtering the food supply for people with hypoglycemia:
| Criteria | Description |
| Sugar | No one “needs” added sugar – especially people with hypoglycemia – just eliminating this one substance could dramatically improve your health. |
| Food Additives | Like acetone and thousands of other chemicals called “food additives that are “Generally Regarded as Safe” by our government working in cahoots with industry, and little regard for consumers. |
| Colorants | Artificial non-caloric sweeteners like Neohesperidin dihydrochalchone… no thanks! |
| Oils | We allow cold-pressed oils, but most commercial oils are subjected to extreme processing and “thermal abuse” often turning seemingly harmless oils into substances that act like transfats. |
| Flours | Pulverize any substance, strip the fiber, germ, nutrients, and beneficial biota and you get “acellular carbohydrates” – strongly linked to causing metabolic disorders – so we restrict most of them. |
| Dairy products | Whole fat dairy? Go for it. But most of the dairy derivatives are on our suspect list. |
| Flavorings | Real food already has flavor – “Natural Flavorings” is often a cover up term for companies who don’t want to tell you what the substance really is (or really isn’t). |
| Grains | Whole grains with intact fiber, yes, but no flours, processed grains, or “grain-like” products like “Capryl Wheat Bran/Straw Glucosides” |
| “Everything added to food” | The U.S. Government says everything on this list is ok for us to eat. Really? We think not. When you apply the HSF filter, 75% of the products being sold are screened out. Of course, you can still run out and by some *Flaming Hot Cheetos, if you want, but now you will be informed/warned about what you are really eating. |
*Flaming Hot Cheetos Ingredients: Enriched Corn Meal (Corn Meal, Ferrous Sulfate, Niacin, Thiamin Mononitrate, Riboflavin, and Folic Acid), Vegetable Oil (Corn, Canola, and/or Sunflower Oil), Flamin’ Hot Seasoning (Maltodextrin [Made From Corn], Salt, Sugar, Monosodium Glutamate, Yeast Extract, Citric Acid, Artificial Color [Red 40 Lake, Yellow 6 Lake, Yellow 6, Yellow 5], Sunflower Oil, Cheddar Cheese [Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes], Onion Powder, Whey, Whey Protein Concentrate, Garlic Powder, Natural Flavor, Buttermilk, **Sodium Diacetate, Disodium Inosinate, Disodium Guanylate), and Salt.
**Sodium Diacetate is made by Mitsubishi Chemical. Sodium diacetate is Mitsubishi trade mark, categorized as composition of sodium acetate (described as a a shelf-life extending agent) and glacial acetic acid (a sour agent). Chemical suppliers and manufacturers typically produce sodium acetate by reacting acetic acid (vinegar) with sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate. Sodium acetate is potentially flammable and should not be brought in contact with open flames. It reacts violently with some strong oxidants and strong acids like nitric acid or potassium nitrate. Under the right conditions, a mixture of potassium nitrate and sodium acetate will explode, so sodium acetate must be stored separately from potassium nitrate and other strong oxidants. (This was just one ingredient in Cheetos. It isn’t food. And no one is saying this substance is good for your health. So, why eat it?)
Now you have a clue why a technology tool like perfact might be something you would find helpful when shopping for your food.
Click here to sign up for our HSF / Preview Group.
