What am I Eating – Is it Poison? Part 2

Keeping little children healthy can become a frustrating task.  The same goes for the elderly like my 87-year-old grandma. But let’s face it; staying healthy is an issue for everyone regardless of age.  There are many books, articles, classes, and reports available on how to be healthy and have a strong immune system but most of them seem to leave out one very important area, and that area is called FOOD.

Food believe it or not plays a VERY important part of our overall health and this goes for babies, teens, adults, and grandparents.  Unfortunately, most of us have been trained erroneously to think that we must eat and eat and eat some more to satisfy a craving or because food tastes good.  Often times those things that taste good are undoubtedly not good for us.

Food, unlike popular belief, should be consumed for the body’s health and overall well-being not just for pleasure, but in America we have this backward.  We consume food mainly for pleasure and rarely for our health or because we are hungry.  And so the vicious cycle begins.  We eat because we are happy, we eat because we are sad, we don’t eat because we think we are fat, and what we do eat is loaded with trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, msg, artificial food coloring, processed sugar, and the list goes on and on…

We treat our cars better than we do our bodies. Then when sickness strikes we run to fill a prescription for the magic pill that will eliminate all of our ailments.  Yet, regardless of all the pills and drugs available, developed nations like the US aren’t experiencing better health.  Every year the rates of cancer and other diseases increase in the US and I don’t hear anyone talking about FOOD or about Oxidative stress and cellular death.

Every year Americans spend millions and millions of dollars on laxatives because they aren’t getting enough living food in their diets so they have to resort to unnatural means to promote a bodily function that should be automatic.  Meanwhile, no one is telling people to change their diets.  I have on more than one occasion heard about doctor friends of mine telling their patients to take the orange fiber packets for constipation.  This type of advice is doing a huge disservice to the person.  If I was the doctor and someone came to me sick and suffering from constipation, the first question I would ask is: “Are you getting enough water?”  Followed by, “How many fruits, vegetables, and whole grains are you eating each day?” Lastly, Id ask them, “How’s your environment?”

Like Hippocrates said: we should let food be our medicine and medicine be our food.
If we lived by that principle we would experience better health.  I am a firm believer that food, the right food can help do away with most sicknesses and diseases.  When I say food I don’t mean white rice, French fries, chicken Parmesan and Twinkies.  I mean living food. Food that is loaded with life-building properties. I’ll add that it is equally important to watch the number of chemicals we use and apply to our skin. Also if we live or work in places with high amounts of toxins this can have a negative effect on our health.

As I was looking at recent statistics for cancer, obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure I was floored.  More and more people are suffering from these things; yet in spite of the statistics, people continue on their nutritionally deficient diets which break the body down instead of building it up.  Deficient diets are lacking the necessary phytochemicals, nutrients, enzymes, probiotics, and minerals the body needs for proper function.

The following lists some organic foods & herbs that help build our bodies instead of promoting cellular death:

Quinoa, alfalfa, spirulina, wheatgrass, kale, spinach, raw oatmeal, flax seeds, raw almonds and other raw nuts and seeds, sprouted grains, unrefined coconut oil, chia seeds, Chlorella, pomegranates, and all raw fruits and vegetables, raw goat kefir, cloves, thyme, rosemary, cinnamon, sage, turmeric, garlic, ginger, cat’s claw, and many other antioxidant-rich foods.

I have seen cases of cancer, diabetes, asthma, and other sicknesses completely being reversed because of a radical change in lifestyle which includes changing the living situation, diet and adding medicinal herbs.  But in most cases, you won’t hear this from your doctor unless they are experienced in holistic health and nutrition therapy.

A great majority of medical professionals, nutritionists, and health advocates have failed miserably at educating the public about the proper use of a well-balanced diet and the medicinal properties that some herbs and foods contain, perhaps because they aren’t aware of the benefits themselves.  One reason may be, that if we became food and herbal experts we would spend hundreds of dollars a year for curing diseases and sicknesses instead of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Instead, we have grown up on a diet of fast food burgers, processed meats, sodas, cookies, and energy drinks and this has resulted in the rates of obesity in children increasing at an alarming rate with children as early as 2 yrs old being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

It always bothers me when I see toddlers sitting at the Big Mac place with a burger, a soda, and a mountain of fries in front of them.  It makes me want to stop my car, get out and have a word with the parents.  But I have come to the realization that having a word with people is not enough.  In order to promote change we must care enough to educate others about what nutrition lies we have believed for so long, one of them is that we must eat a large carb and sugar-filled breakfast in the morning to have a good day.  Don’t you remember your caregiver saying this to you?  “Now honey, eat up all your potatoes, grits, pancakes, oatmeal, french toast, or muffins so you can be big and strong and have a good day at school!’?

Why is that?  Well for decades people have thought that eating a large breakfast full of refined carbs and sugars was a good thing.  But it’s not 100% correct for a few reasons.  The most important reason is that when you get up in the morning your body should begin the purging process to get rid of all the food you ate the day before.  Your digestive system wants to evacuate but you just shove more processed food into it which is like putting your finger over the end of a hose that is turned on.  The only thing you’re accomplishing is a lethal buildup of toxins that will be reabsorbed internally and begin to make you sick.  By doing this you are disrupting your body’s Circadian Rhythm.

And why should you care about this?  Well for starters, all of our bodies follow predesigned daily cycles known as circadian rhythms. Circadian refers to the regular recurrence of cycles of activity that occur every twenty-four hours. It has been proven that if you eat in line with these rhythms you will enjoy better health and work with your body instead of against it.

This is just one of the misconceptions regarding food that has permeated our brains but as with all things, education is power.  The more people learn about their health the more equipped they will be to make wiser choices and stop the vicious cycle of disease.

There is so much that I could say in this post. We still haven’t covered foods and herbs for supporting organ systems and for detoxification. This is a whole nother subject that causes a lot of confusion in people because they push detox 247 but some people’s bodies just aren’t able to release the waste so they end up sicker. I hope to share about this topic in a future post, for now, be sure to watch a great clip from a documentary on people who reversed their diabetes in 30 days click here.

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Remember to live life as a gift and give that gift away every day!
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