Top 10 Reasons Why Fresh Food Is Best

Top 10 Reasons Why Fresh Is Best

Eat like your grandma did, and your health will improve!

  1. Fresh food tastes best: I think we’ve gotten away from knowing what real, fresh food tastes like. Chef Jamie Oliver is famous for going into schools and asking children to name the vegetables he holds up. Very few can correctly identify them because they never eat them!
  2. “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison” (quote by Ann Wigmore): If we have to detoxify from the processed food that we eat, then our bodies are not able to properly detoxify. Eating whole, fresh foods made from scratch ensures high nutrient levels.
  3. Our “food” isn’t food if it’s packed with artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and long chemical names: “The Crazy Makers: How the Food Industry Is Destroying Our Brains and Harming Our Children” is a book that shows us how food additives contribute to declining mental health. Your brain and your child’s brain are starved for nutrition, and they’re not getting it if your “food” comes with a long list of chemicals in the ingredients.
  4. Artificial colors, flavors and preservatives can cause ADHD symptoms: The Feingold diet for ADHD shows how all of those pretty blues, yellows, reds and other colors in our kids’ fun foods can cause spaciness or hyperactivity, especially in children. Artificial flavors and preservatives, especially BHA and BHT, do the same. Food isn’t fresh if it’s got these ingredients in it.
  5. Canned foods have high levels of endocrine-disrupting BPA, BPS and phthalates: That plastic lining on the inside of your canned food is doing more harm to your health than you think, as it can lead to hypothyroidism and gunk up your cells’ mitochondrial dysfunction. Plus, the food is definitely not fresh!
  6. Even frozen food isn’t fresh: The late Dr. Annemarie Colbin, author and founder of The Natural Gourmet Institute in New York City, said that freezing fruits and vegetables ruptures the cell walls of the plants, thereby reducing the nutritional value of the food.
  7. You can add love to your food when you cook it: Have you ever noticed how much better food tastes when it’s homemade or made by your mom? Some people think it’s love that makes the food taste better.
  8. Processed food contains more sugar and/or high-fructose corn syrup: Robert Lustig teaches how harmful sugar is to our health. I know you’ve read that statement before, but did you know that sugar is the most inflammatory food there is AND it feeds cancer?
  9. Processed food typically contains unhealthy canola, soy and other harmful vegetable oils: I know you’re scratching your head at this one. It took me a while to wrap my head around it, especially because many “healthy food” magazines tout the benefits of canola and other vegetable oils. The Weston A. Price Foundation shows us how the extreme processing of these oils leads to rancid oils containing high amounts of inflammatory free radicals. Grandma didn’t eat these oils, and neither does my family!
  10. Fresh food has more nutrients: Compared to “healthy” fast food alternatives, fresh, homemade food has more nutrients plus the love you put into it!

How to Reduce Healthcare Costs

How to Reduce Healthcare Costs

Find out how to reduce healthcare costs by investing in a healthy lifestyle here. True, it costs more money up front, but as Benjamin Franklin is famously quoted as saying “A stitch in time saves nine.”

One of the best ways to create health is to eat organic foods.  Pesticides used in non-organic foods have been linked time and again to diseases and disorders ranging from cancer to Parkinson’s to autism and ADHD.

Yes, organic foods cost more, but consider that the typical American family pays less than half of what other cultures do because so many of our unhealthy crops are subsidized (sugar, corn, wheat, soy, canola, etc.).

Joel Salatin, founder of Polyface Farms and author of “Folks, This Ain’t Normal:  A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People and a Better World“, says “If you think the price of organic food is expensive, have you priced cancer lately?”

Another way to create health is to eat fresh-as-possible foods.  Americans typically eat far more processed foods loaded with these subsidized crops than other cultures do.

Take a look at this Time photo-essay to see that most other cultures eat far more fresh food and less processed food than Americans do.  Many times, processed foods contain preservatives, trans fats, sugar, artificial colors, antibiotics, growth hormones and, sometimes, even carcinogens.  No wonder Americans have such high healthcare expenses!

Do you think what you eat can have an impact on your health?  I know it does from both my personal and professional experience.

 

TRICLOSAN LINKED TO MUSCLE WEAKNESS

hand sanitizerGreat.  Not only is triclosan, the drug in many anti-bacterial hand sanitizers and soaps, an endocrine disruptor (it damages your thyroid and hormonal system) and a pesticide (it kills your good gut flora), but now researchers are finding out it leads to muscle weakness, including cardiac weakness.

So not only is triclosan linked to allergies and any other chronic conditions with a gut dysbiosis component (like autism, ADHD, allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases, but now it might be linked to Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis and heart disease.

Please pass the word.  This is a product no one should be using!

 

BOOK REVIEW: PRIMAL CUISINE – COOKING FOR THE PALEO DIET

Primal Cuisine: Cooking for the Paleo Diet

Primal Cuisine: Cooking for the Paleo Diet

What is the primal diet?  Heck, what is the Paleo diet?

As the author of “Primal Cuisine:  Cooking for the Paleo Diet“, Pauli Halstead, explains in this video:  “It’s the diet that humans evolved on, which consists of wild meat and fish, found vegetables and nuts, seeds and berries.”

She also tells us that “It’s a very good diet if you’re diabetic or have weight problems because it has virtually no carbohydrates.”

I would go further and say that it’s good for anyone with gut dysbiosis and/or autoimmune and/or neurological disorders, such as autism, ADHD, sensory processing disorder, asthma, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, etc. [Read more…]

PESTICIDES AND FOOD ALLERGIES

And here’s yet another reason to eat organic food:  pesticides might be causing your food allergies.  Dichlorophenols, such as the pesticide 2,4-D as well as moth balls and room deodorizers, kill bacteria, including the good bacteria in your gut and may thus contribute to gut dysbiosis.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Rodale News

 

LOW LEVELS OF PESTICIDES DAMAGE THE BRAIN

Here’s another reason to eat organic food and stop spraying your lawn:  even low levels of organophosphate pesticides cause brain damage.  Exposure is linked to a decline in memory and slower processing speed.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Science Daily

 

PESTICIDES RAISE RISK OF CANCER AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES

Pesticides and other toxins in food are linked to cancer, developmental delays and birth defects.  Eating organic food would avoid these risks.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Environmental Health Journal

TRICLOSAN INCREASES ALLERGY RISK

Triclosan in cosmetics and personal care products can increase allergy risk.

“The study found that triclosan levels measured in urine were associated with elevated levels of Immunoglobulin E (IgE) and rhinitis (blocked nose/hay fever) in 10 year-olds.”  Read more…

SOURCE:  Science Daily

PARKINSON’S AND PESTICIDES

Head injury and pesticide exposure leads to 3x the risk of Parkinson’s disease.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Science Daily