Do you know what's in your food?

If you want to eat health-giving food, start reading labels and choosing foods with short ingredient lists. The more ingredients, the worse they probably are for you. Many are filled with chemicals that your body doesn't need or want!

Here's a few food facts I've learned lately:

Strawberry yogurt, fruit punch and several other red-looking products are often colored with an ingredient named "carmine." Carmine is made from ground up beetles. Guess it won't kill you, but... yuck.

MSG, which produces allergic reactions in so many people, is now hidden in safe sounding ingredients such as hydrolyzed plant protein, yeast extract, and calcium caseinate. Foods that often contain MSG include malt extract, bouillon, broth, natural beef or chicken flavoring, and spices.

Many Florida oranges are dipped in an orange dye to make them prettier. It's the same dye banned for use in foods because of cancer risk.

Artificial coloring can cause symptoms of ADHD in children.

Many guacamole dips are made of hydrogenated soybean oil and artificial colors - no avocados at all! (read that label!)

Eating commercially processed hot dogs and sausages increases your risk of cancer.

To reduce your risk of eating growth hormones and antibiotics injected into meat animals, you should always remove as much fat as possible before eating, because the body stores these chemicals in the fat. If possible, buy and eat meat produced by a reputable farmer who doesn't use these injections.

If Americans want to be healthy, we need to start making better food choices - and as hard as it is to face after a long day at work, we need to be doing more home cooking - with healthy ingredients and no food additives.