First, let me preface this article by saying, that there is no magic bullet, no pill, no treatment that can take the place of rebuilding the body’s foundations to create health. Digestion is the place to start, along with examining the diet to make sure it is nutritionally dense. If what you are doing now, is not working, try something different!
Most of the nutritional ideas floating around out there in our culture are misleading due to marketing ploys and studies that don’t stand the test of time. Just because they claim it promotes health, doesn’t mean its true. There is nothing like real food, unprocessed whole food that is prepared properly, food that the body can recognize with all its innate co-factors intact. Let’s turn “conventional” thought about food upside down.
Sugar and Disease
Our bodies were not designed to eat sugar. Diabetes is now rampant in our culture and is creating a health crisis in our country. Did you know that cancer cells are detected by how much glucose they uptake? They need sugar to survive!
Studies done on indigenous tribes eating native diets revealed that when they introduced sugar and white flour into their diets, disease and deformity began to occur. Each generation deteriorated. Sugars include honey, molasses, corn syrup, organic cane sugar, maple syrup, fructose and any other natural sweetener except Stevia. (See “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration” by Weston A. Price)
Corn syrup is one of the biggest problems and is found in most processed foods. Modern breakfast cereals contain very little nutrition because it has been refined out and the wheat germ removed turning it into a refined carbohydrate that quickly breaks down to sugar inside the body. Juices are full of concentrated sugar and can cause dehydration. Instead, eat fruit or vegetables that are lower in sugar, in their whole form, in small amounts with all their natural fiber i.e., berries, kiwi, cucumber.
Chips and other processed foods are high in unrefined carbohydrates and contain preservatives that are addicting, so that you cannot eat just one, literally. Basically, all carbohydrates turn into sugar in the body, but refined ones break down faster and contain less nutrition than complex unrefined ones, so pick carefully.
Hypoglycemia can reflect poor adrenal gland function. The adrenals, pancreas, and liver are all involved in sugar metabolism. Eating sugar stresses the body, depletes vitamins, creates muscle tone loss, insulin resistance and diabetes leading to high cholesterol, heart disease, cancer and other chronic illness. Pancreatic exhaustion from a diet high in sugar is known to be a precursor to digestive disorders, leading to disease.
When the body gets overwhelmed by too much sugar and is unable to find places to store it, that left over sugar becomes dangerous free radicals that attack the inside of the blood vessels creating a need for cholesterol to repair. As more sugar is consumed, the damage inside the blood vessels builds up and more cholesterol is deposited until the vessel becomes clogged. It is a natural healing process that has been overwhelmed due to too much sugar in the diet. Cholesterol is not the enemy, sugar is, and you can control that very easily.
What is a Healthy Fat?
A high protein/fat, low refined carbohydrate diet is much better suited for the body. Protein from meat is important because vegetable protein does not contain the full range of amino acids that the body requires for its biochemical processes. Without fat, the body cannot absorb protein, vitamins, make hormones or control inflammation!
All vegetable oils, i.e., canola, rapeseed, olive, flax, sunflower, etc. are very delicate and should never be used at high heats, These oils are not safe to cook with because heat damages them and turns them into transfats. Transfats are vegetable oils that have been damaged by heat. These fats can actually lower your good cholesterol and raise your bad cholesterol. They are also referred to as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Most processed food and restaurant food contains transfat that causes weight gain and forms plaque in the arteries. Transfats also prevent the proper assimilation of what good fats we eat.
Unrefined virgin coconut oil is great for cooking. It is a healthy saturated fat that the body does not store and is less likely to become damaged in the cooking process. It has anti viral, anti fungal, anti parasitic properties and helps to fight infection. Just rub some on your next cut, cover with a bandaid and you’ll see what I mean.
Saturated Fat
“Bad saturated fat” is a term that threw the baby out with the bathwater. It came from a study that was done on vegetable oil transfats not saturated animal or coconut fats. Saturated fat is actually more stable and can be used for cooking on medium heat without the risk of turning it into a transfat. Our bodies can utilize saturated fat to our advantage. (See article, “The Oiling of America by Mary Enig at www.westonaprice.org)
Always cook meat on low-medium heat because heat damages the fats in meat too. Buy breads without flax seeds or nuts because they contain delicate fats that can become transfats when exposed to the heat used in the baking process.
A Word About Soy
Lastly, when it comes to soy, think again. Soy is virtually indigestible and contains goitrogens that suppress thyroid function. In Japan, soy is consumed in very small quantities, and is usually fermented. Japanese diets also contain lots of iodine containing foods like shellfish and kelp that balance soy’s thyroid suppressing action. Whenever we take a single food out of any other culture’s diet we should consider the whole of what they eat because the results will not be the same.
There is nothing like eating a diet of whole foods for preventing and healing disease. Educate yourself about your food. It can change your quality of life and is the best way to stay healthy and protect yourself from disease. I recommend a cookbook called “Nourishing Traditions” by Sally Fallon for learning more about how to properly prepare your food. It is full of facts and information that will change the way you eat forever!
Topic: breakfast cereals, cancer cells, corn syrup, honey molasses, indigenous tribes, natural sweetener, nutrition and physical degeneration, refined carbohydrate, sugar diabetes, wheat germ