Nutrition: Toxic Foods Trio

The Toxic Trio (Plus One)

Let’s face it, there is no money in being healthy. Big Pharma made $85 billion last year and our health care industry tops $3 trillion per year. The food industry accounts for 12% of US GNP, employs 17% of our labor force and spends $33 billion just on marketing the foods that they would like us to eat, These include processed foods, candy, fast food, snack foods, soft drinks, sugary desserts, alcoholic beverages and convenience foods. Only 2.2% of that marketing budget goes to fruits, vegetables and beans. The USDA represents the agriculture industry. Why are they responsible for food policy? They and the food industry are promoting the very myths that are making us sick, fat and dying of diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s and others. Our Standard American Diet (SAD) is robbing us of our quality of life and killing us.

• Poor diet and physical inactivity contribute to over 400,000 deaths a year.

• Obesity has nearly overtaken smoking as the leading cause of death in the US. Obesity combines with high cholesterol and high blood pressure to become metabolic syndrome.

• Our diet in this country is industry driven and promotes obesity and chronic disease.

• The two most prevalent ingredients in processed foods are high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated soybean oil, a trans-fat. These are man-made chemicals, provide no nutritional value and are in nearly every packaged and processed food consumed today.

1. Wheat: The Double Whammy

Gluten has become one of the biggest villains in our food supply lately and rightly so. But that is only half of the story. Wheat, with or without the gluten, is toxic to the body. To understand why, it is important to understand the role of insulin in metabolism. Insulin is like the director of the metabolic show, directing some calories to fat and others to energy. As we digest our food, the body deals with carbohydrates, protein and fat differently. Carbs are digested and become glucose spiking blood sugar in the bloodstream.

• Wheat products elevate blood sugar levels tremendously. Both white and wheat bread have a higher glycemic index than pure table sugar.

• Wheat consumption causes increase in the growth of visceral fat, the toxic fat that accumulates around the belly, causing inflammation and increasing risk for heart disease and diabetes.

• High blood sugar damages the pancreas, the manufacturer of insulin in the body.

• Wheat has a morphine-like effect on the brain penetrating the blood brain barrier.

• Gluten has the ability to make the intestine permeable causing leaky gut which can lead to autoimmune diseases and affecting every organ and system in the body.

• Grains and particularly wheat, the most highly consumed grain, generate acidic by-products affecting blood pH robbing calcium from bones leading to osteoporosis.

2. The Sugar Blues

Sugar stimulates dopamine in the brain, making us feel better. The cravings, withdrawal and relapse symptoms of sugar are similar to those of cocaine and heroin. Sugar may be the primary factor not just in obesity but also chronic and lethal diseases. Sugar comes in several varieties, sucrose, or table sugar, fructose, commonly found in fruits, and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Americans consume over 150 pounds of sugar per year! HFCS is hidden in nearly all processed foods, fast foods and packaged foods.

• The liver converts the majority of fructose into toxic visceral fat, leading to low level constant inflammation, a factor in heart disease, stroke, cancer, autoimmune disease and other disease.

• Over-consumption of fructose raises blood pressure, damages the kidneys and causes inflammation.

• High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) differs from sugar, it is absorbed more quickly in the body causing cholesterol to rise and metabolism to slow leading to metabolic syndrome.

• HFCS affects brain function by not sending the message that you are full, causing sugar cravings and overeating.

• HFCS is an industrial food product, far from natural, created in an extremely secret process and is the major cause of liver damage in the US, creating fatty liver disease.

• HFCS also contains mercury, not regulated or measured by the FDA.

• According to Craig Thompson, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, the cells of many human cancers come to depend on insulin to provide the fuel (blood sugar) and materials they need to grow and multiply.

3. Trans-fats: Let’s Help Mother Nature

Trans-fats are chemically modified fats that are used primarily in fast foods, processed foods, fried foods and commercially baked goods. Trans-fats include vegetable oils, vegetable shortenings, and margarine.

• Trans-fats are fats that have been chemically altered to increase shelf life and flavor stability of processed foods. Their chemical composition is very close to plastic.

• Trans-fats lead to biological changes in the body that increase coronary heart disease, cancer and depression.

• Trans-fats raise cholesterol and increase clotting in the arteries.

• Trans-fats interfere with insulin binding and protective enzymes in the immune system increasing risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

• They increase risk of ADD, ADHD, and mental illness as the body is not able to digest these chemically altered fats

• FDA requires labeling of total fat, saturated fat and trans-fat but trans-fat less than .5 gram PER SERVING does not need to be disclosed

• Always look for the words “hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated” in packaged foods which indicates the presence of trans-fats even if the label says 0 trans-fat.

Plus One: Dairy, Nature's Perfect Food if You Are a Calf

We are the only mammals on the planet that drink milk from other animals and also that continue to drink milk after weaning. Dairy is highly allergic, 75% of humans stop producing lactase, the enzyme that allows for lactose digestion between ages 2-5.

• Casein- a milk protein which makes up 87% of cow’s milk causing inflammation which leads to leaky gut syndrome.

• Pasteurization destroys all enzymes necessary to assimilate calcium, minerals and vitamins that we think we are getting from dairy.

• Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH), routinely administered to dairy cows stimulates milk production, making tissues grow, including cancer cells in humans.

• Antibiotics are common in dairy foods causing production of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and destroying our disease fighting good gut bacteria.

Nutrition: Toxic Foods Trio

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