Hot Dogs and Lunch Meat
If the phrase “Nitrates and Nitrites… Mmmm Yummy” have never flown out of your mouth, why would you put them in the mouth of your child? Hot dogs and processed lunch meats — frequent favorite kid foods — often contain nitrates, a preservative added to prevent the growth of bacteria, add color or preserve flavor but also can increase colon cancer risk.

A 2010 study in the journal Circulation found that consumption of processed meats was also linked to a higher incidence of both coronary heart disease and diabetes. That means tone it down on the hotdogs, mom! At the end of the day, the greatest gifts you can give your child are the tools to develop healthy eating habits that will stay with him/her forever. By modeling healthy eating habits yourself, you can significantly increase the chance that Junior will grow up with taste buds that yearn for whole, non-processed foods.