Stress and Food Choice

Stress and Food ChoiceYou’ve heard it before:  everybody is super-stressed these days.  Personally, I think a lot of it has to do with technology creep into our daily lives.

Technology was supposed to make our lives easier, and it does, but it also has allowed work and distractions to creep into our personal lives, causing stress because there is no separation and no boundary between the two.

I grew up in a family that had a chemical/technical translation business in the home (before there were personal computers!), and it was dysfunctional enough then without the separation of work and personal lives.

I think it’s worse for people these days.  No one really goes on a true vacation any more because everyone brings their smartphones with them, which allows employers, clients, soccer teams, etc., to reach them even during down time.

So what can you do about it?  Here’s one very important thing you can do, and I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, because if you’re stretched for time with an overloaded schedule, it’s one of the things you’re likely not doing on a daily basis:  cut out the processed food.

Stress and food choice can be like a chicken-or-the-egg game:  which came first?  Processed food can exacerbate stress, and stress can lead to processed food cravings.

What Is Processed Food?

When I say “processed food”, I mean anything that comes in a bag, box or can.  I also mean 99% of all restaurant food and prepared foods because these typically contain ingredients that I don’t consider healthy, such as added sugars, preservatives, additives, canola oil, soy oil or other vegetable oils.  (Want more info about these unhealthy oils?  Check out the Weston A. Price Foundation.)

The main reason to cut out processed food is because doing so will have an enormous impact on your health, both now and in the future.  You’ll feel better, have more energy and get sick less often.  You’ve probably heard this before, but why is this the case?

Processed foods typically contain refined sugars/carbohydrates and refined oils, two of the most unhealthy “foods” there are.  Not only do they cause inflammation, which is a key component of any chronic health condition, but they also cause reactive hypoglycemia, which stresses your adrenal glands, which reduces your ability to handle stress and lower inflammation, which means you crave carby/bready/sugary foods that can raise your blood sugar quickly.  It’s a vicious cycle.

In addition to being nutritionally deficient, these “foods” also cause nutritional deficiencies in order to metabolize them.  It takes something like 50 molecules of magnesium to process one molecule of sugar.  With Americans consuming 130 POUNDS of sugar every year, it’s no wonder most people are magnesium deficient these days!  Magnesium is a critical mineral that is essential for relaxing the central nervous system.

Here’s What You Can Do

So here’s what you do:  once or twice a week, cook a big batch of something that’s easy to throw together, like chili or stew.  Eat half during the week, and freeze the other half for later.  Do the same with whole grains, like brown rice or quinoa; you can freeze whole grains, too.  (Need recipe ideas?  Click here.)

Every day, you’ll need to cook fresh vegetables.  Sounds hard, but it’s not, and it really doesn’t take too much time.  My favorite ways for cooking them quickly are roasting with a little olive oil and sea salt, steaming or sautéing with garlic, olive oil and sea salt.

Try this for a week or two, and see if you don’t feel better.  I’m betting you’ll be able to handle stress a whole lot better than you did before.

INFLAMMATION AND AUTISM

fireNew research suggests that mom’s inflammation during pregnancy contributes to a higher risk of autism.

Inflammation was measured by the amount of C-reactive protein (CRP) in a pregnant woman’s blood.

Results were striking:

  • Pregnant women with CRP in the top 20th percentile have a 43% increased risk of having a child with autism.
  • Pregnant women whose CRP is in the top 10th percentile have a whopping 80% higher risk of having an autistic child.

If you have any kind of chronic allergies, asthma, chronic runny nose, autoimmune, rashes, pain, swelling, digestive issues, etc., you have chronic inflammation.

 

ARE YOU USING ANTIFREEZE FOR CONSTIPATION?

Antifreeze bottle being poured

Antifreeze bottle being poured

Say what?  Antifreeze?  If you’re taking Miralax or any other laxative that contains polyethylene glycol, you (or your KIDS!) are essentially ingesting antifreeze, which is ethylene glycol.

Chemically speaking, polyethylene glycol is made from stringing ethylene glycols together.

Once again, I was furious at the lack of knowledge (and condescending attitude) of my former pediatrician for prescribing Miralax for my sons’ constant constipation when they were toddlers.

[Read more…]

FRENCH FRIES ARE NEUROTOXIC

What?  Yep, french fries and any other browned, starchy foods like potato chips and cereal contain acrylamides, which are both neurotoxic and carcinogenic.  Read more…

SOURCE:  Environmental Health Perspectives

 

INTERVIEW ON JESSE ANN NICHOLS GEORGE’S SHOW

I was a guest on Jesse Ann Nichols George’s show, “Activating Compassion in the Midnight Hour”.  We talked about how to work with dietary challenges during the holiday season as well as the autism epidemic, food choices, GMO foods, vegetable oils, the Weston A. Price Foundation and more.  We had a good time!  Listen here…

NO LINK BETWEEN SALT AND HEART DISEASE

Recent research has found no link between salt consumption and an increased risk of death or cardiovascular disease.  I recommend using a non-white sea salt or a land salt, like Himalayan pink salt, because these salts contain trace minerals vital to our health and often missing from our diets.  Read more…

SOURCE:  GreenMedInfo

MERCURY CAUSES NEUROTOXICITY

This video was shown in late 2012 at the Congressional hearing about the autism epidemic: “How Mercury Causes Brain Neuron Damage”.  Also, “we should be focusing on the dietary aspects” in relation to autism.  Parents have to do their own research, and researchers don’t listen to them.

SOURCE:  University of Calgary

 

BOOST YOUR MOOD WITH 7 DOSES OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

Anyone who’s spent time with a cranky child – or adult – after they’ve eaten too much candy can tell you: food definitely affects your mood.

Though we often crave sweet “comfort foods” when we’re feeling down, the truth is that sugar usually makes things worse. Spikes and crashes in blood glucose levels leave us feeling irritable, anxious, and tired a few short hours after we indulge. (New research suggests that unhealthy eating habits may even diminish your mental acuity and decision-making abilities.)

Cutting down on refined sugar is obvious. But what if there were foods that could actually boost your psychological wellbeing in the long run? According to a new study from the University of Warwick and Dartmouth College, the answer is surprisingly simple: look no farther than the produce section at your grocery store or farmers’ market.

Researchers analyzed the eating habits of about 80,000 people living in the UK and found that the more fruits and vegetables people ate, the happier they were. Controlling for other variables (such as the remainder of subjects’ diets and a range of demographic, economic, and social factors) researchers found that emotional health rose with fruit and vegetable consumption in a dose-response pattern – each additional portion of fruits and vegetables correlated with an increase in life satisfaction. The sweet spot, so to speak, was about seven servings a day.

Even more surprising was how huge the improvements were: eating more fruit and vegetables corresponded with an increase in .25 to .33 life-satisfaction points. If that sounds small to you, here’s some perspective: being unemployed produced a loss of .9 life-satisfaction points. In other words, eating lots of fruits and vegetables affects your mental wellbeing one-third as much as losing your job!

It’s still unclear exactly how this works, and correlation definitely doesn’t imply causation. But the physical benefits of eating fruits and vegetables are so overwhelmingly conclusive that this study should only act as further encouragement to fuel up on produce throughout the day. Your mood may thank you!

Have you noticed that food affects your mood? Are there any specific foods that you proactively consume or avoid?

HOW A DOCTOR RECOVERED HERSELF FROM MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS WITH DIET

This is one of my favorite recovery stories, as it shows how powerful food can be in recovering from an extremely debilitating chronic illness like multiple sclerosis.