Nutritional Artical Archive

[Mop]

*NOTES BEFORE READING: The first 3 posts are very long, but a great read. This is a very clean way of eating; very simple- Though I wouldn't follow it 100% the idea's a real great foundation to eating healthy. 3 posts by Paul chek is really one single article. out of a 5 hour long lecture. The 4th article is Noah Hitter, who is a Paul Chek graduate, and incredibly bright. Next weeks reads will more than likely be on fats w/ in diets.


Do me a favor before you read the next paragraph – go to your cupboards and refrigerator, and take a look at how many packaged food items you have in your kitchen. While you are there pull out a dessert item (i.e. ice cream), a boxed item (i.e. breakfast cereal) and any other item you have that is flavored (i.e. salad dressing) and take a look at the labels. After reading the ingredients list, ask yourself:

1.

How many words am I unable to pronounce?
2.

Which of these ingredients have I never heard of and/or have no idea what it is?

Go take a look at those labels and, when you come back to finish this article, I will tell you why you may be having such a hard time flattening your abs, and why, even if they are flat, you may feel so dull every day!

If you did this little exercise, you may be surprised at the number of multi-syllable words that look more like they should be the ingredients of super glue than of something you’re eating. It is time to enlighten you with regard to what some of these ingredients are and what they can do to yo
u. The gigantic and often strange words listed as ingredients (where food items are supposed to be!) are various concoctions used to color, stabilize, emulsify, bleach, texturize, soften, preserve, sweeten, add or cover smells, and flavor! In case you were wondering just how many of these little chemicals were sneaking into your mouth each year, current statistics say that the FDA lists approximately 2800 international food additives and about 3,000 chemicals, which are deliberately added to our food supply. When considering the number of chemicals used in the process of growing and processing food, by the food to the time it reaches our stomach we have consumed between 10,000 and 15,000 chemicals a day! (1)

While some of you may be thinking, “I don’t eat that many food additives,” I have news for you. The FDA doesn’t require food additives considered to be Generally Regarded as Safe (GRAS) to be put on an ingredients label. Instead, all that is required are the words “artificial flavor” or “artificial coloring” or “natural”. The fact is, the average American eats approximately his/her body weight in food additives each year, or approximately 150 pounds; this statistic is roughly the same for most English speaking countries. Of this amount, 15 pounds or more will be used as flavoring agents, preservatives and dyes, many of which are considered GRAS by the FDA. Before you get comfortable with chemicals considered to be GRAS, you should realize that to save time and money, the FDA allows the food and additive manufacturers to notify them of the GRAS status of their additives and they are allowed to provide their own evidence to support their claim! Think about that for a moment. Having the chemical manufacturers provide their own research showing a given chemical is safe is like asking a cigarette manufacturer do their own research showing cigarettes are safe! It’s no wonder that this takes place when billions of dollars are at stake and the health of the average person is unimportant.

The fact of the matter is food and additive manufacturers, like drug manufacturers, are running the largest study ever run in history – and you are the guinea pigs! That’s right. It is only when they get enough reports about the damaging effects of a given additive that they remove it from the GRAS list. With that in mind, what are the chances of some doctor reporting to the FDA that their patient suffered adverse reactions to acetaldehyde, acetic acid, or agar-agar when they were merely on the label as “food additives” and not listed individually because they are on the GRAS list? Consider the side effects of these chemicals:

*

Acetaldehyde is known to be an irritant to mucous membranes, which line your entire digestive tract, is a central nervous system depressant and large doses may cause death.
*

Acetic acid may cause gastrointestinal distress, skin rashes and eye irritation.
*

Agar-agar may cause flatulence, bloating (good bye abs!) and may have a laxative effect (2).

Please realize, I just pulled these GRAS food additives out of a book entitled “Food Additives, A Shopper’s Guide To What’s Safe & What’s Not” by Christine Hoza Farlow, D.C., and there are hundreds more GRAS additives whose side-effects look more like something Saddam Hussein would be interested in purchasing to use against Americans than it does something to be put in food. Yet millions of people are eating these chemicals every day!

By the way, don’t be fooled by the use of the term “natural”. Insects, insect larvae, monkey guts, and even mercury are all “natural” and are just a few of the natural items that end up in your food! Eric Schlosser, in his book “Fast Food Nation”, sums it up nicely by quoting Terry Acree, a professor of food science technology at Cornell University who says, “A natural flavor is a flavor that’s been derived with an out-of-date technology”. Food manufacturers play with your perception of what given words mean and they know that if they can label an additive as “natural”, the health conscious label reading consumer is much more likely to purchase it, yet just because something is natural, doesn’t mean it’s better for you. After all, alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and cocaine are all natural, but none of them are good for you!

To show what is being hidden from us and is right under our nose (literally!), consider these ingredients used in a Burger King strawberry milk shake, but are not disclosed because they are GRAS:

Amyl acetate, amyl butyrate, amyl valerate, anethol, anisyl formate, benzyl acetate, benzyl isobutyrate, butyric acid, cinnamyl isobutyrate, cinnamyl valerate, cognac essential oil, diacetyl, dipropyl ketone, ethyl butyrate, ethyl cinnamate, ethyl heptanoate, ethyl lactate, ethyl methylphenylglycidate, ethyl Nitrate, ethyl propionate, ethyl valerbate, heliotropin, hydroxyphrenyl-2butanone (10% solution in alcohol), -ionone, isobutyl anthranilate, isobutyl butrate, lemon essential oil, maltol, 4-methylacetophenone, methyl anthranilate, methyl benzoate, methyl cinnamate, methyl heptine carbonate, methyl naphthyl ketone, methyl salicylate, mint essential oil, neroli essential oil, nerolin, neryl isobutyrate, orris butter, phenethyl alcohol, rose, rum ether, g-undecalactone, vanillin, and solvent (3)!

To make this even more alarming, the ingredients listed here are only for the “strawberry flavoring” in a Burger King milk shake, this doesn’t include the ice cream or anything else in the shake! Can you imagine what the ingredient list for Neapolitan ice cream would look? Our liver must process all of this (Figure 1A & 1B), and when our liver becomes overworked, these chemicals can end up in our blood stream, with almost unlimited access to the cells of our bodies, as well as placing strain on our detoxification systems!

Figure 1A

Figure 1B

“Can’t Just Eat One” Syndrome

Have you ever reached for a bag of chips while thinking, “I really don’t need these, but I’ll just eat a few,” only to end up reaching back in the bag over and over until you reach the bottom? Or how about a tub of ice cream – ever started out nibbling away thinking “I’ll just have a few bites,” and next thing you know you’re scraping the bottom of the carton? Don’t feel bad if you do because, unless you were eating 100% certified organic chips or ice cream, you most likely fell prey to the chemical tricks food manufacturers are playing on your body and your wallet!

It turns out that food scientists have determined how to manipulate the part of your brain that controls food cravings called the appestat. The appestat constantly monitors the nutrient content of you blood and only when fifty-one specific nutrients are present at their proper levels will an individual feel entirely full and satisfied. Food scientists have found that by adding or subtracting some of these nutrients, they can manipulate your sense of hunger and satiety. While the research is still incomplete, it’s believed that that adding excess fat, sugar and salt to a food tends to make people over eat (4). This is why both sugar and salt show up in some of the strangest places. For example, would you have expected to find sugar in sandwich meats? Have a look at the ingredients on the package in your refrigerator and look for words ending with “ose”. Anything ending with this suffix is a sugar. While you’re at it, look at your catsup bottle, your canned soups, medicines and even cigarettes! How sweet of them to play such tricks on your appetite centers. If you are overweight, you are more than likely one of millions of victims of chemical manipulation!

So how effective have the food manufacturers been with their chemical games? Currently, approximately 90% of the money that Americans spend on food is used to buy processed foods (3). When you follow the advances in food science, there is loose parallel in how much fast food Americans are purchasing and the amount of chemical-trickery scientists do to our food. Consider that in 1970, when the food sciences were comparatively undeveloped, Americans spent approximately $6 billion a year on fast foods. By the year 2000, scientists had added thousands of new chemical tricks to their arsenal and, with more attractive packaging and advertising campaigns, fast food sales soured to $110 billion! This combination of advertising and chemistry used by fast food manufacturers is so successful that American fast food business tycoons can’t resist the opportunity to make billions by poisoning almost every corner of the globe. As of the middle of 2000, McDonald’s planed on opening 650 restaurants in Asia, 550 in Europe, 350 in Latin America, 200 in the US and another 250 in the rest of the world - a total of 1,500 new restaurants in Asia were planned by 2002! (5). Their strategic combination of marketing and scientific trickery has been so successful that half of Australian children ages 9 and 10 thought that Ronald McDonald knew what kids should be eating; McDonald’s has become the favorite food eaten by children in China! (6)

Human beings, armed with some 10,000 taste buds, are thought to have a fairly comprehensive sense of taste (7). While you would think that we would be capable of using this arsenal of taste buds to sniff-out foods of superior nutritional quality to eat, it would appear that chemical science has put up an effective smoke screen. Approximately 50% of the American population have eaten themselves into some degree of obesity and semi-starvation by consuming nutritionally inadequate foods! If that’s not enough, the US spends more money on health care than any other nation with each person averaging over $4,000 per year in medical expenses. Yet the US ranks last for life expectancy among all industrialized nations, is far from being the healthiest nation (Table 1). This is not hard to believe when you consider that in the year 2000, retail pharmacies in the US filled 3 billion prescriptions – that’s hardly what I would consider a healthy nation (8)! Then when you take into account that there were 281 million people living in the US in 2000, with 3 billion prescriptions being filled, that’s almost 11 prescriptions per person. This means, for every person who doesn’t buy a prescription, there is someone else getting 22 filled each year!

Table 1

America ranks among the lowest of all the major industrial nations in terms of life expectancy, yet spends significantly more money on health care than any country in the world.

With prescription drug sales amounting to $145 billion in the year 2000 alone (9), and an additional $20.8 billion coming from over the counter retail sales (10), it would appear that the chemicals used in commercial farming, fast food restaurants and processed food are contributing a great deal of money to the medical and drug industry – all one big happy family of multi-billionaires!

Is Processed Food Really Food?

Have you ever wondered how it is that today that, in spite of the most advanced medical technology in history, in spite of the fact that we have more doctors, therapists, nutritionists, diet experts (per capita) and diet books than ever in history, we are more sick than ever in history? Could it be what we are eating? Were we always this sickly? I don’t think so, or we would never have withstood the selective pressures of evolution! Something has gone wrong – VERY WRONG!

In 1936, a highly respected scientist, dentist and expert in human nutrition named Weston A. Price, traveled the globe studying indigenous populations and correlating their dietary habits with their incidence of disease and dental carries (11). Price found that in tribes and cultures consuming a whole-food diet had virtually no dental carries (cavities) or disease!

Price also noted that diseases such as cancer were relatively unheard of in many cultures. Look at the photos in Figure 3A and 3B and ask yourself which Figure shows people who were eating “white man’s food” (processed food) and which were eating food native to their culture!

Figure 2A Figure 2B

(Used with kind permission from the Price-Pottenger Foundation)

In Price’s study of primitive cultures, he consistently noted that they engaged in minimal food processing. Primitive peoples mostly used fire to cook meats, but not all, as the Eskimos and others commonly ate many portions of animals and fish raw. Salting, lacto-fermentation and pickling were among the very few methods of processing foods for storage and not surprisingly, these methods have been found to increase the nutritional value of many foods (12)!

Dr. Price’s research was consistent with the research of famous medical doctor, Francis Marrion Pottenger, who wrote the book, “Pottenger’s Cats”. Pottenger clearly demonstrate using extensive studies of cats that exposure to pasteurized milk and/or cooked meats resulted in rapid onset of disease and bodily malformation; his clinical observations suggested that similar results occur in humans. Because of the findings in his studies, Dr. Pottenger stated, “…nutrition becomes one of the most important elements in preventive medicine.” Regardless of which disease process is studied, the link between poor nutrition and disease, including cancer, clearly exists in studies and clinical observations of animals and man. In fact, I know of no study showing that a diet of processed foods provides health-giving benefits when compared to a whole-food diet!

What you see in most shopping carts today are what I call “non-foods”. My definition of a non-food is, “Any food that costs more in nutrition to digest, absorb and eliminate than it delivers to your body.” Most people forget that there is a cost to metabolize anything you put in your mouth. Literally every cell in the body needs proper nutrition or it will die. There are billions of cells involved in the processes of digestion, absorption and elimination of foods, not including the nutritional demands of human movement. Yet as indicated above, 90% of all the money spent on food in the US is spent on FAST FOODS! So where does that leave you?

We don’t need to be a doctor, nutritionist or research scientist to figure out what’s going on. We can use a simple accounting analogy to get a clear image of the blunder we have purchased our way into. Consider your body as a business. It costs money to run a business - you must purchase goods and services such as supplies, electricity, water, waste disposal and you must pay your workers. If your business doesn’t bring in enough money to pay your expenses, including adequate money for you to make a living, the business will go bankrupt! Your body is just like any business. You have about 100 trillion cells, all of which are like little employees working for you around the clock. To keep your body running, it too needs water, air, energy and supplies in the form of nutrition. The business of running a body is also a little tricky because while you may have an unproductive employee now and then in a business, you can always lay them off or fire them. In your body, you can’t lay your cells off, you can’t fire them, and if you don’t supply them with adequate nutrition to repair themselves, they get sick and start to die. If this goes on long enough, you too will go bankrupt and you will die!

Now, just look at the statistics for disease and drug-use in this country and you will get a very good picture of what happens when you consume a diet of “non-foods” - foods that take more out of your bodily bank account than you have in the account to spend. Literally every time you eat candy, cookies, soda pop, processed sandwich meats, white bread, white flower or pasteurized, processed anything, you are deviating away from the dietary plan the human body was designed for. You are also spending more money/nutrition to process garbage disguised as foods than the foods themselves bring in. This leaves the body no choice but to draw upon your own tissues for the nutrients it needs to try and survive. To prove my point, one need only look at the skyrocketing rates of degenerative diseases, which are highest - you guessed it – in those countries consuming the highest percentage of processed foods.

CHEK POINTS:

1.

If you can’t pronounce a word on the label, don’t eat it! If you can’t pronounce a word on a food label, chances are very good it is a chemical that your liver will have to work to detoxify, and most likely, your liver won’t like it! Dr. Price found in his research of healthy people that they ate mostly unprocessed whole-foods and some minimally processed foods. They lived in accordance with nature and if you want to have a beautiful, healthy body, you should too!
2.

If it’s a non-food, don’t eat it! The more non-foods you eat, the more likely your body is to go bankrupt! Remember, food manufacturers are NOT required to prove that their products sustain life. Pretty much every research dollar they spend is to determine how to make foods cheaper, increase shelf life and how to trick you into buying them. Just remember this Paul Chek rule – “The more money they spend to market any food, the worse it is likely to be for you”! Good healthy food requires little marketing because people know it’s good for you. They need to convince you to eat their garbage, so they need to spend a lot in marketing to ensure you do.
3.

The longer it lasts on the shelf, the worse it is for you! Most things in nature will not last more than a few days once picked or killed for consumption. Increasing a product’s shelf life means stripping it of anything that can eventually go bad or rancid out of it, such as enzymes, vitamins, minerals and ultimately it’s life force! Many of the foods you eat today are so full of chemicals and pesticide residues you can leave them sitting on the kitchen counter for days on end and the ants won’t even touch them! The bugs are smarter than we are!
4.

Never eat anything with “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated oils/fats” in it! These are cooked fats that have been altered in a way that make them very hard to digest, as well as being damaging to the body. This form of fat does not occur naturally in nature and in fact, chemists say the molecular structure of hydrogenated fats more closely resembles plastic than food! Read your food labels and you will likely be surprised at how much hydrogenate fats and oils you are eating!
5.

Never eat any food product that has been “enriched”! The only reason food manufacturers “enrich” foods is because they have completely killed and stripped them in processing, leaving the foods so void of nutrition and life-force that they must add things back to them so they don’t kill off all their customers! If you read “Beating The Food Giants” by food scientist Paul A. Stitt, he tells you that the food manufacturers purchase the cheapest possible synthetic vitamins possible and they often apply them to foods (i.e. cereals) on the way in the oven! Any nutrition expert will tell you that most vitamins can’t withstand high heat and most of the rigors of processing. There is also plenty of literature suggesting that some synthetic vitamins may be toxic to the body!
6.

Avoid eating anything that has been genetically modified or genetically engineered! Currently, almost ALL processed foods contain genetically modified organisms. This is an entire topic unto itself, but eating any genetically modified food is a risk that you may want to seriously consider if you value your health.

Hopefully you enjoyed this article and it helped open your eyes to how food processing negatively affects our environment and our health. I will be releasing two more excerpts from this audio series shortly, so start working on the CHEK Points today!

[Mop]

This article is an excerpt from the newly released nine-hour CD/Workbook program "You Are What You Eat!" by Paul Chek.

The story of grains is part and parcel with the story of bread, neither of which the human machinery are designed to function optimally on. While I’m sure this comment is a surprise to some of you, significant amounts of scientific evidence suggests that for all of human evolution, right up until approximately 10,000 years ago, the primary staple in the diets of most civilizations was animal meat. There were times when meat was scarce for a variety of reasons yet in, general our consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds was seasonal and supplementary. Most of the animals we ate, such as deer, were plant eaters. These animals served to condense nutrition in their meats - one pound of meat contained the nutritional equivalent of several pounds of vegetables. Such a nutrient-dense source of nourishment allowed us a to have sustenance during the winter months when we had minimal food storage methods other than the cold itself. Although many argue (mostly from an emotional bias) that we must have carbohydrate sources to function, current biochemistry reveals that we do have the capacity to convert some fat molecules (glycerol) into carbohydrate (1).

While there are many controversial theories as to why we began farming, it is more commonly agreed upon that we began farming practices, or nurturing the growth of specific plant species and domesticating animals no longer 20,000 years ago and more likely as soon as 10,000 years ago (2). During this time, there has been a progressive increase in the consumption of grains and grain-based products, yet this time period is but a flash in the scope of human evolution, during which our digestive machinery was formed.

Before the advent of factory farming, grain was partially germinated (sprouted). This resulted from being sheaved and stacked in fields, which stood for several more weeks before threshing. During this period, the grain seeds were exposed to rain and dew which soaked into the sheaves. The grain could pick up this moisture and, with heat from the sun, conditions were ideal for favoring a degree of germination and enzyme multiplication in the grain (3).

The process of sprouting not only produces vitamin C, it changes the composition of the grain in numerous ways that make it more beneficial as a food. For example, sprouting increases the content of such vitamins as vitamin B, B2, B5 and B6. Carotene, which is converted to vitamin A, increases dramatically - sometimes eight-fold. Even more important in today’s climate of indigestion, is that phytic acid, which is a known mineral blocker, is broken down in the sprouting process. Phytic acid is present in the bran of all grains, the coating of nuts and seeds and inhibits the absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc. These inhibitors can neutralize our own digestive enzymes, resulting in the digestive disorders experienced by many people that eat unsprouted grains; there are many scientific indicators linking grain consumption to rheumatic and arthritic conditions as well (4). Complex sugars responsible for intestinal gas are broken down during sprouting and a portion of the starch in grain is transformed into sugar. Sprouting also inactivates aflatoxins, which are toxins produced by fungus and are potent carcinogens found in grains.

How to Sprout Grains

Fill a mason jar one-third of the way with any grain or seed. Add filtered water to the top of the jar and screw on the top with its screen insert. Allow the seeds to soak overnight and pour off the water. Rinse the seeds well - you can do this without removing the top. Invert the jar and let sit at an angle so it can drain, and to allow air to circulate. These seeds should be rinsed every few hours, or at least twice a day. In one to four days the sprouts will be ready. Move the sprouts to another container and move them to the refrigerator.

From Nourishing Traditions By Sally Fallon

By purchasing your own organic whole grains and sprouting them before making your own breads or cereals, you can save yourself from the unwanted effects of phytic acid; you can also buy sprouted breads in many health food stores. Phytic acid, as I mentioned above, is also present in the coatings of seeds and nuts. As I am sure you are aware, many health and nutrition experts advocate the consumption of nuts and seeds and they are prevalent in many health food bars. Unfortunately, eating nuts and seeds without soaking them for at least 8-12 hours to break down the phytic acid can produce the same enzyme blocking and mineral blocking effects eating un-sprouted grains can, which is one of the reasons many of my clients find great relief when removing grains from their diet, particularly those containing gluten.

As is the norm when studying scientific or lay literature on any topic, there is always opposition among experts - and so it is in the case of phytic acid (phytates) and the potential problems it can cause. Some experts claim that cooking and processing, as in the making of bread, break phytic acid down, and nullify its effects on those consuming processed grain products. While my clinical observations suggest the opposite, some interesting test results with regard to zinc deficiency support my contention that merely milling grains into flour and baking it may not break down phytates.

In 1964 it was found that boys in Iran and Egypt had severely underdeveloped testicles. Tests showed that they had extreme zinc deficiency, yet zinc was plentiful and widely consumed in those countries. It was discovered that zinc was bound by phytates in the bread they ate, and while the bread contained a great deal of zinc, it was useless because it was locked up (5)! This important finding will become even more important in understanding the potential downfalls that come with over-consumption of processed grains as presented below.

While there is little argument that whole-grain cereals and breads are more nutritious, provide more fiber and aid detoxification, care must be taken to avoid consuming ill prepared or processed grains. As you are surely well aware, we have not only deviated far from our ancestral dietary, but we are in the era of highly processed foods. Food manufacturers have clung to public misperceptions with regard to white foods, particularly white breads, white rice, white sugar and white table salt, all of which are commonly referred to as white death by most nutrition experts and naturopathic physicians, and for good reason!

White flour became popular sometime prior to 1872, when the roller mill began to replace the stone mills of old. White flour, known to be better for making pastries and baking in general, was only available to the rich prior to advent of the roller mill because its production required significant manual labor, which only the rich could afford. Stone mills have no mechanism to remove the germ from the flour so the flour had to be sifted through silk filters over and over again until if finally reached a cream color, similar to that of milk. This labor-intensive process resulted in white flour, then a product perceived as one of royalty. The inability to afford white flour resulted in it being sought after by the poor, much the same as the chair was sought after by Egyptian peasants prior to their common use, as the chair was only used by royalty at one time.

While the poor had developed a taste for white flour and a desire for the sense of stature they must have felt it afforded them, they were nonetheless developing an attraction to a nutritionally deficient food source. With the advent of the roller mill, the baker was able to produce white bread at a cost most anyone could afford, all the while the nutritious portions, the bran and germ of the grain were generally fed to pigs and other farm animals! Not long after white flour was accessible to all classes, cereals began to suffer the same fate, losing their nutritional value due to processing. Today, the nutritious portions of the grain are sold off to health food stores and supplement manufacturers, so in effect, many of you pay for the same grain two or three times in the form of flour, fiber to combat constipation and finally vitamin supplements such as vitamin E from wheat germ.

While there are a number of nutritional deficiencies in white flour when compared to its stone ground counterpart, I would like to share a few of the less technical ones with you here:

*

Zinc, which naturally occurs in the outer portions of the grain, is milled away in the production of white flour. This disrupts the natural ratio of zinc to cadmium so that the zinc-cadmium ratio is reversed. Any cause of a zinc shortage in the body is a cause for concern because this very important mineral is a catalyst to numerous enzymatic and hormonal functions, not to mention being essential to protein synthesis and reproduction, the importance of which will become evident below.
*

White flour contains only 13% of the chromium, 9% of the manganese and 19% of the iron that is contained in whole wheat. Due to the fact that many of the B vitamins are concentrated in the outer parts of the grain, white flour is deficient in B vitamins (6).
*

White flour does not contain the germ of the wheat, which is a potent source of vitamin E, resulting in a high potential for vitamin E deficiency in those who’s diet is inadequate for vitamin E sources and/or comparatively high in bread-stuffs (7).
*

Research shows that since as long ago as the 1950’s, conventionally farmed American grains have been low in protein quality and quantity. So much so in fact that whenever the US tried to give its surplus grains away to countries with starving populations, they would not accept US grains if any other country was offering theirs; they had found that the deficient US grains did little to maintain or improve the health of the starving (8).

After 130 years of consuming highly processed grains in the form of breads, pastries and cereals, chronic disease states are rampant among most industrialized nations, with the greatest prevalence in England, which has the greatest consumption of white flour, white sugar and tea per capita - the US is in a strong second! Not surprisingly, we appear to be continuing another trend that began with the introduction of the steel roller mill - a declining birth rate. As you can see in the diagram, the more bran and germ millers extracted from flour, the lower the birth rate per 1000 people there were in England between 1872 and 1945. Today, things are not much better. Artificial insemination is a big business and, if not for advanced medical technologies, we would be losing a huge amount of babies that wouldn’t have survived even 100 years ago. Additionally, there are significant reductions in sperm counts among males, which may well be the result of both over-consumption of highly processed foods and toxicity in our food supply and our eco-system.

According to a recent analysis by University of Missouri epidemiologist Shanna Swan (9), the average sperm count of men in the United States and Europe has plummeted by more than 50% since the late 1930s. This finding fuels ongoing concerns that male reproductive health may be deteriorating. Based on 61 studies published since 1938, involving a total of nearly 15,000 subjects, Swan found that average sperm counts among healthy American men have dropped from 120 million sperm per milliliter (million/ml) of semen in 1938 to just over 50 million/ml in 1988, a decline of 1.5% per year. In Europe, sperm counts have fallen to roughly the same level, though twice as fast, at 3.1% each year between 1971 and 1990. While environmental chemical exposure is suspected, there is a very real possibility that malnutrition secondary to consuming too many processed foods is a real possibility. Francis Marion Pottenger Jr., MD demonstrated with his cat studies that feeding cats processed foods led to numerous disease processes, infertility and eventually extinction!


Figure 1

Over the past 18 years that I have been consulting people with physical and dietary complications and challenges, I have seen a distinct pattern - the over-consumption of processed carbohydrates! Most people get their dietary education from watching TV commercials and reading magazines. These are the two worst places in the world to acquire nutritional information because this is exactly where big industry plants its hooks into you. Another problem was the boom in running and triathlons, which resulted in the production of numerous popular books on how to eat for success in these sports. The diet plans in these books commonly resemble the USDA Food Pyramid (Figure 1 ), which is commonly referred to as the USDA Feedlot Pyramid by nutritional experts such as Dr. Barry Sears (author of “The Zone Diet”) because such dietary proportions are far better suited to fattening animals than they are to health and vitality! Unfortunately, the USDA Food Pyramid is used as a guideline by most school cafeterias preparing food for your children!

An additional problem that has come part and parcel with increased mechanization of food processing and the desire to increase shelf life of foods has been the addition of sugar to what was originally a potentially good food - natural unprocessed cereal grains. Consider that when ground to the particle size used to make white flour, the flour covers 10,000 times the surface area of the grain itself. The result is that when you eat a processed food product like white bread, cookies, donuts or classic boxed cereals, you are eating a high starch (high sugar) food that will be absorbed at almost the same rate as straight table sugar! While considering that, review these statistics from the book “Crazy Makers” by Carol Simontacchi, who compares the sugar content of 1 ounce of Pepsi (1.2 teaspoons of sugar) to common breakfast cereals:

*

Lucky Charms = 2.8 teaspoons per oz.
*

Froot Loops = 3.3 teaspoons per oz.
*

Cinnamon and Spice flavored Quaker Instant Oatmeal = 4.3 teaspoons per oz.!

Additionally, in his book “Beating the Food Giants”, Paul Stitt shows us that the average breakfast cereal today ranges between 46% and 53% sugar! With this knowledge, watch to see how much sugar people add to their cereals before eating them and how much soda pop is consumed in concert with many of these non-foods!

We have an epidemic on our hands with insulin insensitivity (Syndrome X), adult onset diabetes and obesity! We have children consuming massive quantities of sugar and food additives, most of which, like sugar are stimulants. White flour is literally a sugar in itself, and where it is mixed with fats in processed foods, the fats are commonly hydrogenated and rancid, increasing your susceptibility to a number of disease processes!

I suggest the following CHEK Points to improve your health and vitality:

1.

Before entertaining consumption of grain foods, always exclude all grains except corn, rice, buckwheat and millet for two weeks. If you feel a noticeable improvement in your health and well-being, you are probably gluten intolerant. When you start eating grain foods again after two weeks off, start slowly and eat only one grain food to minimize the possibility of a potentially uncomfortable reaction by the body; diarrhea and stomach pain is common among those that are gluten intolerant!
2.

MINIMIZE all consumption of commercial, processed grains and grain-based products.
3.

If you plan to eat any grains at all, restrict yourself to organic, unprocessed corn, rice, buckwheat or millet, rotating them on a four-day cycle. Only eat them after they have been presoaked for at least 12 hours to break down the phytic acid.
4.

If you enjoy grain based breakfast cereals, purchase only whole organic grains, soak or sprout and make your own breakfast cereals. There are a few companies that make reasonable boxed breakfast cereals, although my suggestion is to stay away from any processed, cooked grain products what so ever!
5.

If you enjoy bread, buy only sprouted whole-grain breads that contain no additives or preservatives. Use the above cereal guidelines to choose your breads and determine if you are gluten intolerant.
6.

Avoid any conventionally prepared pasta. Purchase only organic rice pasta or gluten-free pasta if you are gluten intolerant. Pasta is considered to be one of the foods most heavily laden with pesticide residues!
7.

Apply the soaking principle to all seeds and nuts. Pour the water off the nuts and replace it each day. Keep refrigerated while storing once soaked.
8.

Never eat more grain-based foods than ideal for your metabolic type with regard to how much carbohydrate you should be eating.

[Mop]

While there is a drive to eat more grain products than many natural health professionals feel is ideal for the human body based on developmental design, it is safe to say that most of us still see meat as the main staple of our diets. Meat was essential to human survival because it serves as condensed energy and nutrition to whoever consumes it. Plant eating animals convert plant nutrition in to proteins and fats, which are stored in their bodies and becomes available to us in the form of organ meats and muscles. In many parts of the world, it was fish and animal meat sources that allowed us to survive through winter months prior to domestication of animals, farming practices and the development of food preservation technologies.


Figure 1

The meats we consumed to nourish our bodies for millions of years were purely organic - strictly farmed by the principles of Mother Nature and not by man! Plants consumed by the animals we ate came from unadulterated soils, resulting in only the best food being consumed by the animals that became our food. The principle of the food chain - soil micro-organisms and organic matter feeding plant, plants feeding animal life, plant and animal life feeding human beings - is a chain that, by design, results in the health of any successive life form being only as healthy as the life forms which it feeds on. This cycle is referred to by many as “The Wheel Of Life” (Figure 1). Right up until about 1900, we lived at the top of an organic food cycle that was free of pesticides and relatively free of disease in comparison to today’s food chain.

A huge percentage of the meat eating population are not cognizant of the current health crisis that begins with our eroding and highly polluted soils - soils that are literally swimming with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, being applied at the rate of over 1 billion pounds a year in the US! The result of conventional chemical farming practices is an enormous reduction of organic material in our soils, which starves the micro-organisms to death, and leaves only 15 percent of the micro-organism population compared to that found in organically farmed soils. Losing the soil micro-organisms to feed and protect the plant life results in the rearing of animals and humans via the consumption of severely nutritionally deficient foodstuffs. In fact, commercial animal farming tactics today have resulted in the production of meat for human consumption by the use of disturbing tactics! For example:

*

Some commercial meat producers have begun research trials adding cardboard, newspaper and sawdust to cattle feeding programs to reduce costs.
*

Some factory farms scrape up manure from chicken houses and pigpens, and add it back into the chicken feed.
*

According to the US Department of Agriculture cement dust may become a particularly attractive feed supplement in the future, “Because it produces a 30 percent faster weight gain than cattle on regular feed.”
*

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials say that it’s not uncommon for some feedlot operators to mix industrial sewage and oils into feed to reduce cost and fatten animals more quickly.
*

There are numerous reports of animal cruelty emanating from investigations of factory farming. For example, it is well know that most of the chickens and pigs that end up on your dinner table today are raised in extremely tight cages, allowing them no exercise. Many factory-farmed animals are raised in giant barns and it is common that they never see the natural light of day! They are fed a constant supply of antibiotics to aid in rapid growth and to keep them alive, as they literally live their entire lives in their own feces (1)!
*

Seventy years ago, steers were 4 or 5 years old at slaughter. In the 50’s, they were 2 or 3 years old. Today, steers are accelerated from 80 pounds to 1200 in 12-14 months! How do factory farmers do it you may wonder? They use enormous quantities of corn (a food cattle are not designed to eat!), protein supplements and drugs, including growth hormone! These animals are literally living the drug life of a modern bodybuilder, but without the exercise - and you are eating them!

By now you may be wondering, “What is the result of raising animals this way?” In 1998, the USDA inspections and safety system reclassified an array of animal diseases as being "defects that rarely or never present a direct public health risk" and said "unaffected carcass portions" could be passed on to consumers by cutting out lesions. Among animal diseases the agency said don't present a health danger are:

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Cancer
*

Airsacculitis (pneumonia of poultry)
*

Glandular swellings or lymphomas
*

Sores
*

Infectious arthritis
*

Diseases caused by intestinal worms
*

Tumors - the guidelines state: "remove localized lesion(s) and pass unaffected carcass portions."

"They just cut off the areas," said Carol Blake, spokeswoman for the Agriculture Department's inspection and safety system. But the reality is that production lines are moving so fast that they can't catch all the diseased carcasses, and some are ending up on supermarket shelves. "When I started inspecting, inspectors were looking at 13 birds a minute, then 40, and now it's 91 birds a minute with three inspectors. You cannot do your job with 91 birds a minute," Jones said (2).

Another indicator that we not only suffer the fate of the animals we eat, but also of the food they eat can be seen when analyzing the pesticide residues in meat sources. For example in New Zealand, a country that has much tighter pesticide regulations than the US, it was found that a school child’s typical lunch sausage had DDE (a derivative of DDT), Chlorpyrifos-methyl, fenitrothion and Pirimiphos-methyl; Table 1 outlines some of the effects of these chemicals on us. Since farmers don’t spray animals with pesticides, other than an occasional application to kill lice or tics, it becomes pretty clear that we consume the entire food chain from the soil up. As the top of the food chain, we also suffer the concentration of toxins that occurs at each level!
Chemical Health Effects Associated with Chemical
Chlorpyrifos,
Chlorpyrifos-methyl Organophosphates which are cumulative and can cause damage to the fetus, the developing nervous system and brain, impaired immune response, birth defects and other reproductive abnormalities typical of estrogenic compounds. In bulls: sterility and impotence.
DDE A very persistent metabolite or breakdown product of DDT, an organochlorine. It accumulates in the body, is an endocrine disrupter and can cause abnormal sexual development, allergies and impaired reproduction as well as cancer.
Fenitrothion An organophosphate which can cause gene and immune-system damage, behavioural deficits in newborn, is a suspect viral enhancer and implicated in Reye’s syndrome

Pirimiphos methyl
An organophosphate which can cause gene damage.

Table 1: Pesticides found on school-lunch sausage. (3,4)

If we look again at the principles of the Wheel of Life (Figure 1), it becomes obvious that the diseased state of the animals we are being feed merely reinforces the concept that each succeeding life form on the Wheel Of Life can only be as healthy as the preceding life forms - and about 99% of you are eating these animals!

Where's the Beef?

Have the truths about the meat industry presented above jolted you into wanting to know where to get safe, nutritious meets? I hope so! With 90% of the money being spent on foods in the US going toward the purchase of processed and fast foods, it is evident that there is a major lack of appreciation for how vital our food sources are to our health and vitality. Another major indicator of food ignorance among the public is the very low percentage of organic food sales in the US, and the rest of the world; there are few countries in the world that consume even close to 10% of their food as organic! When you realize that 85% of all Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and only a 100 years ago you would probably have had to walk around town all day to find someone on prescription drugs, it becomes pretty obvious that there is a link between our health and our food sources!

If we are to have a fighting chance at reducing medical spending for drugs, surgery and unnecessary doctors visits, we must STOP buying garbage foods and DEMAND organic meats and produce! We MUST support the small, local organic farmers that live near each of us. Organic produce and meats are MUCH more nutritious and are free of drugs, pesticides and antibiotics. To better appreciate why all of you reading this book, and everyone you know should be eating organic, compare information in the side bar “USDA Sets Rules For Organic Meat and Poultry” with the information I have given you about commercially farmed meats above!


USDA Sets Rules For Organic Meat, Poultry

Meat and poultry companies can now apply to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to have their products labeled as certified organic, according to a rule published in the Federal Register on April 13 (1999). Under the rule, meat and poultry must be certified as 'organic' by one of 33 private or 11 state-run groups approved by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Certified meat should have "no antibiotics, no growth hormones and the animals have to be fed 100% organic feed." Congress asked the department to establish national standards for organically produced agriculture products in 1990 with passage of the Organic Foods Protection Act, but until now, meat and poultry have not been allowed to carry the organic label. The new labeling is an interim move until the USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service proposes a definition of "organic" for all farm products, which is expected later this year. Until a final rule is published, the Food Safety and Inspection Service decided to allow meat and poultry companies to apply to have their products labeled as "certified organic." Less than 1% of the meat and poultry that is available is produced according to organic guidelines. Such organic products tend to be more expensive than products that do not carry the organic label. (5)

Hype About Animal Fats

The hype about animal fats, particularly fats from red meat, has resulted from two primary problems. First of all, the grain industry has nicely capitalized on public ignorance by encouraging and funding research with the intent of proving that many meats are unhealthy, placing emphasis on saturated fats as the villain. Secondly, while they are victimizing red meats, they are making billions by selling grains to the commercial meat ranchers to feed cattle that are designed to eat grass. Grain makes them FAT very quickly - just like they do to most of you! This was nicely described in Michael Pollan’s NY Times article “Power Steer” where he described how the calves, when being weaned from their mothers, become so sick that they can die from eating corn and grain in place of grass that they must be fed antibiotics! An interesting parallel is that WE are not designed to eat grains either, as evidenced by the fact that approximately 50-60% of us are gluten intolerant and today, 60 PERCENT OF US ARE OBESE, JUST LIKE THE CATTLE WE ARE EATING DUE TO THE CHEAP, COMMERCIALLY FARMED PESTICIDE LADEN GRAINS. It is no coincidence that nutrition expert Barry Sears, Ph.D (Author of “The Zone Diet”) calls the government Food Guide Pyramid the “Feedlot Pyramid”!

Not Just Any Egg!

Eggs were thought of by many pioneering nutritionists as one of the most complete and pure sources of protein. Unadulterated eggs are, in fact, not only an excellent protein source, they are an excellent source of dietary fats. Dr. Jensen, in his book “Foods That Heal”, describes eggs as having the right nutrients for brain, nerves and glands. My grandfather, whose hobby was the study of nutrition, told me when I was a young boy to always eat eggs. He rightfully predicted that more and more people would be told by doctors not to eat eggs secondary to the cholesterol scare, which he thought of as a bunch of bologna. He told me (and strangely enough I remember clearly), "Paul, no matter what they tell you about eggs having a too much fat or cholesterol in them, just remember that a healthy egg contains adequate lecithin to emulsify the fats in an egg, making the whole egg a well balanced - natural food source that is healthy."

The problem today is that the egg is only as good as the bird, which is only as good as it’s environment and it’s food, which is only as good as the soil it was raised on! Bad soil will negatively affect the quality of insects and greens on the soil and thus, directly affects the quality of the eggs the chicken produces. Consider that today, commercially raised chickens are allotted less than one square foot of living space in a metal pen, leaving them no room to walk, move, or even stretch their wings; they spend their entire life standing in, laying in and pecking in their own excrement in absence of insect nutrition! A free-range chicken has ample room to be a bird, which includes eating seeds, plant bits and insects as an important part of its diet; insects provide the birds with important proteins, fats and micronutrients.

Additionally, I could blindfold any of you and have you taste a commercially raised egg and then an organic free-range egg and it is very likely you would be able to immediately distinguish between the two. The fats in the commercial egg are discolored, often a pale yellow and lack nutrients such as sulfur, which give an egg its good taste. I was shocked the first time I went to Adelaide, Australia and had breakfast there. The egg yolks were an amazing dark, deep orange and the raw eggs had an incredible consistency. When the egg was broken open, its integrity was so great that the egg didn’t even run. By contrast, if you break open a typical store bought egg today, it is soupy, pale and almost flavorless!

The result of allowing chickens to live a natural life is an egg that is composed of quality proteins, optimal omega-3:omega-6 fat ratios and a great food and/or dietary supplement! By contrast, the typical commercially raised eggs you buy in the grocery store today are terribly imbalanced in their fatty acid ratios. A good free-range egg will have a ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 of approximately 1:4, while a typical commercially raised chicken egg will be as high as 1:16-30! This presents a problem for those that eat too many eggs, as omega-6 fatty acids facilitate the process of inflammation in our bodies and today our grain dominant diets and commercial foods are causing a massive imbalance in the omega-3 to omega-6 ratios.

What many fail to realize is that cholesterol is a key building block for all cells and whenever there is an inflammatory process, there is an elevated need for cholesterol. Stress, alcohol, medical drugs and many food additives are all capable of causing inflammation of the gut, significantly elevating the bodies need for cholesterol and thus your cholesterol levels. So you go to the doctor and he/she tells you your cholesterol is too high and that you need medication and you should stay away from all the foods that you actually need to produce adequate cholesterol to heal the damaged cells, while seldom ever looking into the potential causes of elevated cholesterol! This is easily proven by the fact that few, if any, ever maintain a normal cholesterol level upon discontinuing the drugs, unless they have also been coached on how to remove the source of inflammation from their body - which is often stress or diet related.

According to research, primal man’s diet resulted in a ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 of about 1:1-4, while today, some experts suggest the average American’s dietary ratio is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:16-30! This massive imbalance in fatty acids should NEVER be blamed on eggs, but on the farmers and food retailers that have so badly bastardized Mother Nature’s handwork and sold it to us disguised as an EGG! If you want provide your body with an excellent and needed source of protein and fats, organic free-range eggs are an excellent option. There are also a number of egg farmers now producing omega-3 fortified eggs, which are produced by feeding the hens flax seeds. These eggs are a big step in the right direction, but remember, the egg, regardless of having a little more omega-3 is only as healthy as the chicken and the chicken is only as healthy as it’s food and it’s environment! It’s a safe bet to say that the healthiest and happiest chickens are those that are free-range organic!

One little test I often give to my clients to show them the difference between a cage raised chicken and an organic free-range bird is based on a demonstration of how much stronger the ligaments of a healthy bird are than a sickly cage raised bird. All you have to do is buy a typical super market chicken, or even a rotisserie chicken cooked and ready-to-eat, and slowly and steadily try and break the leg portion away from the thigh, paying special attention to how much effort you must exert to break the ligaments of the knee joint. Next, buy a free-range, or even free-range organic bird. Cook it and do the same test. You will probably be amazed to find that it is three or four times harder to break the ligaments of that bird’s knee joint! I have seen the exact same problem with many athletes on garbage food diets that get muscle, ligament or connective tissue injuries and can’t heal, sometimes after years of therapy! It is only after I put them on a diet of real whole-foods for about three to six months that their body can begin to heal! Remember, you literally are what you eat!

Seafood

There was a time, even as little as 100 years ago, when our oceans produced a source of edible organic plant and sea life. Today our oceans are toxic! Billions of pounds of sewage and industrial wastes are dumped into the oceans by industrialized nations every day! I remember working on a fishing boat and being sixty miles or more from shore and some days there was a petrochemical film on the water, just like you see in a boat marina! One can only wonder what it must be like for fish and other forms of sea life that have had their world turned into a toilet and a dump by disrespectful human beings! If I were a fish, it would certainly be enough to make me want to bite humans!

Our ill behavior is not only poisoning the fish, it is coming back to get us. According to Stephanie Hawks-Johnson, an Orca researcher at the University of Washington, the lack of salmon today and the presence of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls - pesticides) appear to be the primary reasons for the decline in Killer whale population. An Orca needs 40-120 kg of salmon a day but if it doesn’t get all this food, it draws from its blubber supply, which causes PCBs (which are stored in fat to protect the whale’s liver) to enter its system. PCB contaminated blubber in return affects the whale’s immune, neurological and reproductive systems.

The Puget Sound has over 15 PCB contaminated sites, and with less salmon available, Orcas need to dive deeper to get fish, which are more likely to contain concentrated PCBs. As this means diving 110m instead of 20m, it requires far more energy. Add it all together and you have the cumulative effect that has probably caused what is now recognized as a noticeable decline in the Orca population (6).

It is a sad truth that all our drugs, all our industrial chemicals and our pesticides are all affecting the lives of every living creature on earth, be they in the soil, on the soil, in the water or in the air, WE ARE MAKING THEM ALL SICK AND PROGRESSIVELY KILLING THEM ALL, much of which is being done in the name of modern agriculture, and now we know - modern medicine as well! Don’t be surprised if the government or the medical establishment steps in to establish tight controls and punishments for polluters because keeping people sick is big business! The worst part of it is that you can’t run from it, there is no where left to go - our complacency toward big industry, factory farming, food processing corporations and the medical establishment has left us, and all living creatures with no where to run - we must now eat our mistakes!

For example, about as far north as one can possibly go, the Inuit people on Baffin Island who mostly consume marine mammal meat as an essential staple of their diet, were found to be consuming up to 20 times the recommended safe limit of the pesticide chlordane. A sugar cube sized piece of ‘muktuk’, the skin and surface fat from the beluga whale, contains the accepted maximum weekly limit of PCB’s. In one week, some Inuit people eat a hundred times that amount (7)! The result of crashing our eco-system is such that fish is simply no longer considered a safe food to eat. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences estimated in 1991 that the risk of cancer to the average consumer who eats seafood can be 75 times greater than normally acceptable guidelines (8)!

Real Concerns About Farmed Fish

With our oceans becoming “fished out” (to use a fisherman’s term) and toxic, the environmental situation and demand for fish, forever considered a healthy food, has resulted in a boom of factory fish farms. There is good reason to be concerned about farm-raised fish. The raising of farm-raised fish is quite similar to factory farm yard methods used to raise cattle. As with cattle, fish are given a wide range of antibiotics and other drugs, all the while, the farmed fish industry is virtually unregulated. As a result, farm-raised fish are likely to contain residues of a wide variety of animal drugs, some of which are carcinogenic (8). Another real concern is that when you buy a farm-raised fish, you have no idea where the farm is located in most cases. If the fish farm is anywhere near a major industrial complex or commercial farming operation suited on the same coast line or anywhere near a river that feeds into the coast line, you run significant risk of eating farm-raised fish that is high in pesticide and industrial chemical residues. Those commonly found in seafood, be it from fish farms or otherwise, are benzene hexachloride, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, dioxin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, and polychlorinated biphenyls, the effects of which are listed in Table 2.
Chemical Health Effects Associated with Chemical
Chlordane and Heptachlor Probable human carcinogen, immune system suppression, blood disorders, liver damage, central nervous system disorders, suspected endocrine disruption, developmental disorders
DDT Probable human carcinogen, reproductive failure in wildlife, liver damage, central nervous system disorders, known endocrine disruption, developmental disorders, shortened lactation in nursing women
Dieldrin Probable human carcinogen, immune system suppression, nervous system disorders, reproductive damage, liver damage, kidney damage, suspected endocrine disruption
Dioxin Known human carcinogen, altered immune function, central nervous system disorders, skin disorders, disrupts liver and kidney function, reproductive effects: altered sex ration, reduced fertility, endometriosis, known endocrine disruption, developmental disorders, including birth defects
Hexachlorobenzene Probable human carcinogen, disrupts hormone function, damages liver, thyroid, kidneys, blood and immune system, Suspected endocrine disruption, developmental toxin
Lindane Carcinogenic, central and peripheral nervous system disorder, endocrine disruption, Immune system disruption
Polychlorinated Biphenyls Genetic damage causing developmental & cognitive retardation, vitamin A dysregulation, chlorachne, immune depression, peripheral nerve damage, liver damage, respiratory problems, thyroid hormone dysregulation, decreases in reaction time, spatial learning, short-term memory; excess pigmentation, (in animals: tumors, growth retardation, behavioural changes, fetal death, increased infection)
Benzene Hexachloride Bronchial, colon, and liver damage; leukemia; DNA damage; tumors including brain, liver, stomach, lung; cardiac abnormalities, eye irritation, drowsiness, unconsciousness, uncoordination, heart attack

Table 2: Pesticides commonly found in fish (9, 10)

How To Safely Eat Fish

Do you remember your parents either taking, or giving you “Cod Liver Oil”? How about recommending, or even forcing you to eat your fish? While many of us age 30 or higher may well have developed the perception that fish is good for you, the information I have provided above should raise concerns that are likely to change the dietary climate for today’s young, particularly with regard to eating fish!

The first thing I recommend to my clients is to rotate all protein sources that come from anything that has a set of eyes, including fish, on a four-day cycle - even if it is 100% organically raised. Applying this rule to your fish will minimize your chances of over exposing yourself to any given protein source, which can lead to food intolerance among most people in today’s climate of dwindling health and vitality climate. Additionally, rotating your foods on a four-day cycle as outlined in Table 3 (PDF) will minimize your chances of overexposing yourself to any given pesticide, antibiotic or drug residues that may have contaminated your food, not to mention heavy metal contamination.

Second, be aware that swordfish, shark, tuna and just about any deep-water fish (particularly the bigger ones) are mercury-accumulating fish. Today, many of these fish, fresh off the boat have been found to have mercury levels so high that eating them more than once a week is considered dangerous by many health experts - yet another reason to follow my food rotation eating plan! The greatest concern appears to be fish from the inland waters of the mid-west US and Florida (8).

Third, when cooking your fish, particularly the bigger fish that accumulate heavy metals, it is a good idea to grill or broil them to allow the juices to drip out. This allows pesticide residues and other chemicals to escape as you cook the fish. This is in part due to the fact that many industrial chemicals and pesticide residues that accumulate in fish are stored in the fat of the fish (the same is true of animals and man), which begins to drip away when heated to cooking temperatures. For this reason, any time you can trim the fat off of fish, it is a good idea!

Fourth, avoid fresh water fish unless it comes from high mountain lakes and streams, far away from any commercial enterprises!

Fifth, it is a good idea, in my opinion to stay away from farm-raised fish when ever possible. In addition to the concerns I have presented above, there is a difference in the omega-3:6 fatty acid ratio in farm raised fish vs. natural freshwater or ocean fish. It turns out that, with very rare exceptions, the fat ratios in farm-raised fish are about the same as a cage raised chicken egg, which is an omega-3 to omega-6 fat molecule ratio of 1:16-30; remember that research on developmental man suggests we should eat a ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 of 1:1-4! As you will see over and over every time man gets involved in trying to outsmart Mother Nature, things just get screwed up!

Processed or Cured Meat and Fish

How often do you eat cured fish or meats such as bacon, ham, beef jerky, salami, or packaged luncheon meats? Have you looked at the ingredients on the package of these foods? You may be surprised to see a number of words listed there that look as though they should be part of another language, and they certainly don’t look like they are a normal part of any food! One such ingredient found in many cured and/or packaged meats is “nitrate” or “nitrite”. Both of these additives are commonly used in the meats mentioned above, as well as fermented sausages, bologna, frankfurters, deviled ham, meat spreads, potted meats, spiced ham, Vienna sausages, smoke-cured tuna fish products and in smoke cured shad and salmon.

Nitrates and nitrites which are used primarily as a color fixative, for their ability to give meats a blood red color as well as to convey tanginess to the pallet and resist the development of Clostridium botulinum spores. Both nitrates and nitrites have been studied in University and private scientific settings and found to cause cancer and tumors in test animals. Some of the findings from injecting test animals with repeated small doses or single large doses of these chemicals are:

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Pancreatic cancer in hamsters similar to human pancreatic cancers.
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Deaths from methemoglobinemia, which results in oxygen flow to the brain being cut off.
*

Tumors analogous to human liver tumors

According the “The Safe Shopper’s Bible”, by David Steinman and Samuel Epstein, MD, researchers reported that children who eat hot dogs cured with nitrite a dozen or more times monthly have a risk of leukemia ten times higher than normal. Furthermore, children born to mothers who consume hot dogs once or more weekly during their pregnancy are twice as likely to have childhood brain tumors!

A most interesting observation in today’s world of Viagra popularity is that potassium nitrate is the chemical name for “saltpeter”, which is thought to be used in prisons to diminish libido; how much processed meat are you eating…? Nitrites are also known to suppress the immune system, which can’t be a good idea in today’s environment.

In 1977, Germany banned nitrites and nitrates except for use with certain fish species, while in the US, the FDA revoked its proposed phase-out because manufacturers said there was no adequate substitute for nitrites. I suspect that what the manufacturers were really saying is that “there is no cheap substitute for nitrites”, so even though they are well known to produce disease in test animals, we will just keep feeding them to you anyway! You have to wonder how Germany can do without them, and the US, a country famous for its advanced technology, can’t do without them…

While we are on the topic of food preservatives in meats here, it is worth mentioning that nitrates change into nitrites on exposure to air. Our major intake of nitrates in foodstuffs comes primarily from vegetables or water supplies that are high in nitrate content, in addition to those consumed through cured meats and fish. Nitrates are natural constituents of plants. They occur in very small amounts in fruits but are as high as 3,000 parts per million (ppm) in certain vegetables, such as spinach, beets, radishes, eggplant, celery, lettuce, collards and turnip greens. The most important factor responsible for large accumulations of nitrates in vegetables are the high levels of fertilization with nitrate fertilizers, and the tendency of the species to accumulate nitrate (11). It is important to realize that nitrate or chemical fertilizers ARE NOT used in organic farming, only commercial farming. It is bad enough that such toxic additives are placed in our meat and fish foods, yet there is a massive problem with nitrate run-off from commercial farms into surrounding water supplies, contaminating them.

Another problem with processed meats is that they trigger false food allergy in many people. Some of the preservatives in meats, and the meats themselves produce histamine. You are probably familiar with histamine because one of the effects of histamine is to make your nose run when you have a cold - thus the use of “anti-histamine” medications. Histamine can also cause a wheal reaction, as commonly seen as an allergic reaction. For example, if you have ever been scratched by a cat or a thorn, the wheal reaction (raised red and white lines) results from histamine released by the irritated tissues. One way to determine if your body is having a histamine reaction to processed or cured foods is that after eating them, your nose may begin to run. In more severe cases of false food allergy, after eating a given food you may start to itch and develop a wheal reaction as descried above. Such reactions are indications that your body doesn’t like the food you have eaten, even if you do! (12)

An important tip for those of you that have an appetite for the kinds of fish and meat products being discussed here, or for some circumstantial reason feel you must eat them is to consume antioxidants with them. As it turns out, vitamins C and E inhibit, or block the formation of nitrosamines, which can occur naturally in a number of foods by combining with stomach fluids. Some nutrition experts suggest consuming fresh vegetable juices, such as fresh squeezed carrot or juice (both high in vitamin C) with food products containing nitrates and nitrites. You can also supplement your diet with “ACES”, which stands for vitamins A, C, E and selenium, all beneficial antioxidants.

Source of safe meat products:

Personally, I stay a country mile away from all such cured meats unless they contain no harmful additives. It is possible to get fresh sausages and salamis from gourmet butcher shops that make them fresh or produce meat products using natural methods. They will be more expensive, but all the money you save not seeing doctors will buy you a LOT of fresh, high-quality meats!

There are a number of organic butcher shops in most major cities throughout the world. I can say that with assurance because I have sought many of them out in my travels. “American Jerky” is an example of a company that makes very high quality jerky that is free of toxic additives. “American Jerky” and many other gourmet and organic butcher shops also offer wild game meats. The butcher shops often buy wild game meats from hunters and offer them seasonally. There are also local farmers selling organic meats. For example, two of my staff members and my wife and I just purchased an organic pig that won first place at the Del Mar Fair. You would be surprised how much good food is available for those that make the effort to find it!

CHEK Points for Safe Meat, Fish, Foul and Egg Consumption

1.

ALWAYS go out of your way to purchase organic, free range meats, including bird meats. They are far more nutritious, pesticide, hormone and antibiotic free!
2.

If organic meats are not available, the next best choice is “grass fed - free range” animal meats. At least they were free to roam, getting exercise and eating what they were designed to eat!
3.

Always go out of your way to eat organic, free-range eggs. The fatty acid ratio and quality is far superior in them! I recommend minimizing all commercially farmed eggs because they are really just another form of processed food, as is the case with meats raised commercially.
4.

Avoid farmed fish. They suffer the same fate as the factory farmed cow, pig, chicken, yet may be even more toxic depending on the location of the fish farm and the drugs and antibiotics used in this relatively unregulated industry.
5.

Read all labels, eliminating, or at least minimizing the consumption of processed meats. If there are words you don’t understand on the label, chances are good your body probably won’t like what ever it is either! Be sure to look to see what fillers are used in sausage type meats, as wheat and other grain-based products are commonly used, triggering uncomfortable and unwanted responses in those that are gluten intolerant. Avoid meats with nitrates and nitrites, as they are carcinogenic. Most butchers have the same meats without such additives and they are often kept in the freezer section.
6.

Minimize the consumption of smoked meats and fish. While they often taste great, they do increase the risk of cancer in most cases. Occasionally enjoying them as a delicacy is probably fine, but eating them as a meal on a regular basis may be asking for trouble.
7.

It is always best to rotate proteins that come from anything that has a set of eyes on a four-day cycle. I suggest rotating in this order, Beef/sheep, bird meats, swine (pork) and finally fish. This insures variety and minimizes exposure to anything your body may find toxic.
8.

Do NOT fear the fat in the meat, or on the body of any protein source that has eyes if it is from an organic source. That is the fat that got us here!

[Mop]

(The above diagram was referenced with kind permission of the C.H.E.K Institute from the book, "Under the Veil of Deception" by Paul Chek.)

I can’t think of one single smooth or clever way to introduce the sheer and utter importance of the following nutritional concepts. Marketing and PR in this country, and society as a whole, have done an incredibly AWESOME job of convincing consumers like you and I that this “AGE OF PROCESSED FOOD & PHARMACEUTICALS” we are currently in - is harmless to us. We have been brainwashed by a life-long onslaught of propaganda. This propaganda, which programs us from birth on, reaches us via TV, magazines, radio, billboards, internet, movies, etc. By using techniques that dehumanize, generalize, emotionally charge, stall, distract, maximize, minimize and LIE, these giant corporations make millions, billions and trillions of dollars annually, and they do it quite effortlessly.

We as the “general public” are at an unbelievable disadvantage. Millions of dollars are spent to research the most efficient and scientific methods of “trickery” to use on us all! This includes research on taste, color, economic class, racial/ethnic ties, sex appeal, perception... you get the idea. How can we compete? Unfortunately, many simply believe that since an MD on TV said a product is healthy, or safe, or harmless... that it must indeed be. As you might expect, this could not be further from the truth.

We must be made aware of the fact that there is little money to be made in the use of natural remedies, regardless of how beneficial they are. Why would industry and conventional medicine subscribe to such a notion? After all, they generate over a trillion dollars annually (the most profitable in America) by prescribing drugs and diagnostic and surgical techniques! If we learned how to take care of ourselves, there would be no money for them to make!

So one might ask, “Why aren’t doctors more interested or knowledgeable about NUTRITION?” The answers here are simple. The average medical school provides only a handful of hours in nutritional education. Medical doctors are trained to “treat,” not to “prevent,” and thus focus only on the “medical model”, not wellness. This is because there is a reduction in liability of risk when “usual and customary” procedures are followed. But perhaps the ultimate reason is INSURANCE DOESN’T COVER NUTRITIONAL GUIDANCE. So the story of their education goes: Anatomy--->Physiology--->PHARMACOLOGY.

The purpose of this article is simply the advancement of truth. The reality of the current health situation of this country is not a good one; we are “on the fence and teetering.” Disease and sickness are running rampant, and the processed food and pharmaceutical industries have much to do with it. The only people with the power enough to change knowledge and perception for the betterment of all... are ourselves of course. In the following pages, some of the most common FOOD PRODUCTS, to be avoided at all costs, will be the topic of discussion. If we all can manage to reduce and eliminate these from our lives, we will all be one step closer to a happier healthier existence as well as beating those corporate monsters at their own game.

1. SUGAR

It’s no mystery, sugar, particularly refined sugar, is bad for you. What you may not be aware of is just how bad it truly is. Some government officials have even stepped up and proclaimed that if they’d known decades ago just how terribly damaging sugar was to our health (it has been labeled by some experts to be as addictive and destructive as heroin), the substance would have been treated and regulated as if it were a CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE!!!

Within the body, sugar creates drastic spikes in insulin. High levels of insulin PROMOTE fat storage, as well as the PREVENTION of fat being burned as fuel. Over time, these chronic high levels of insulin promote INSULIN RESISTANCE (IR) because the body is trying to protect itself from the toxic effects of high insulin. Now, what’s the problem with IR? The problem is that insulin’s primary function was NEVER to solely control blood sugar. Controlling blood sugar is now simply a primary trivial side effect of insulin, due to our society’s obsession with carbohydrates. More importantly, insulin is in charge of the storage of nutrients such as protein, magnesium, vitamins, etc. as well as functioning as an anabolic hormone - a muscle builder! (This is of course so key, as muscle is the key to an increase in the metabolism as well as fat burning.) The point is, when one develops IR, that individual is ultimately becoming resistant to all of the other life-sustaining functions of insulin (just a few of which were listed above). Hence, the chronic diseases of aging may be soon to follow (i.e., cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, obesity, diabetes, cancer). It is also important to note that a pregnant woman who has eaten herself into IR will pass it on to her child.

Sugar has many other damaging effects (ultimately stemming from IR). Sugar suppresses the immune system, and research has shown that just one teaspoon of sugar can suppress the immune system for up to 4 hours! Imagine the devastating effects on the health and development of children when taking into consideration that the average 12 ounce can of soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar! Coke itself has 41 grams of sugar per can. Sugar’s dark resume goes on and on... ...(2)

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SUGAR can upset the body’s mineral balance.
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SUGAR can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, concentration difficulties and crankiness, (ADD).
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SUGAR can cause drowsiness and decreased activity.
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SUGAR can adversely affect children’s school grades.
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SUGAR can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
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SUGAR can weaken eyesight.
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SUGAR can produce an acidic stomach.
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SUGAR can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and grey hair.
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SUGAR increases the risk of CORONARY HEART DISEASE.
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SUGAR can lead to ALCOHOLISM.
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SUGAR contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection.
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SUGAR can cause KIDNEY damage.
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SUGAR can reduce helpful high density cholesterol (HDL’s).
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SUGAR can elevate harmful cholesterol (LDL’s).
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SUGAR interferes with absorption of CALCIUM.
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SUGAR may lead to BREAST CANCER as well as CANCER OF THE
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OVARIES, PROSTATE, RECTUM AND COLON.
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SUGAR encourages the overgrowth of CANDIDA ALBICANS fungus in the digestive tract.
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The list goes on, and on, and on... ... ...

2. FLOUR & PROCESSED CARBS

Processed flours are similar to refined sugars in their negative effects on the body and are absolutely nothing like nature intended. Because of this, they are something to completely avoid. Reason being as follows: A wheat grain kernel has three layers: the outer bran where most of the fiber is, the middle endosperm where the starch (carbs) is, and the inner germ where the many nutrients and essential fatty acids are found. In order for a wheat grain to be healthy for consumption, all three of these components must be in tact. This is where the nightmare of processing comes into the picture. Where flour originally was milled with stone keeping these three vital components together, today’s methods are seriously inferior. Today, industry’s high-speed steel roller mills eject the germ and bran - the most nutritious part of the grain - leaving nothing but the starch, essentially nothing but sugar. What’s worse, even whole wheat flour is compromised by the high temperatures of these mills reaching 400 degrees Fahrenheit, destroying the vital nutrients and rendering them useless.

It is important to keep in mind that our ancestors ate grains in their whole, unprocessed state. In nature carbs (i.e. sugars, grains, etc.) come from whole food sources and therefore were naturally linked with their corresponding vitamins, minerals, enzymes, proteins, fats and fibers. These components are the body’s health-building and digestion-regulating elements. Refined carbs (i.e. sugar, breakfast cereal, pasta, breads, chips, crackers, soda, juice, candy, etc.) are devoid of these essential elements to vitality. Thus, consumption of these “empty” or “negative” calories requires the body to give up its own stores of vitamins, minerals and enzymes for proper metabolization. Essentially, as mentioned above, you’re left with nothing but starch - sugar. The previous section on sugar detailed that monstrosity.

3. GRAINS

The “Paleolithic Concept” is an item to consider concerning grain consumption. According to Crayhon, because the human genome has changed relatively little in the past 40,000 years since the appearance of behaviorally modern humans, our nutritional requirements remain almost IDENTICAL to those requirements which were originally selected for stone age humans living BEFORE the advent of agriculture.(11) Meaning in terms of evolution, since the organized farming and nurturing of grains is thought to have began as few as 10,000 years ago, this has created a situation where our “digestive machinery” simply hasn’t had enough time to “evolve” to be able to process them safely and efficiently.

Grains contain phytic acid. In the digestive tract, phytic acid joins with calcium, iron, magnesium, copper and zinc, and thus blocks their absorption. Hence, they essentially are mineral blockers. Research has also shown some whole grains to contain enzyme inhibitors that can interfere with digestion as well. It is for this reason that grains must be soaked or sprouted before eating them. Sprouting is a process that will neutralize phytates and enzyme inhibitors, in essence, beginning the digestive process before consumption, so that all the nutrients will be made more available to the body. Below, Fallon explains the sprouting process.(13)

Fill a mason jar one-third of the way with any grain or seed. Add filtered water to the top of the jar and screw on the top with its screen insert. Allow the seeds to soak overnight and pour off the water. Rinse the seeds well - you can do this without removing the top. Invert the jar and let sit at an angle so it can drain, and to allow air to circulate. These seeds should be rinsed every few hours, or at least twice a day. In one to four days the sprouts will be ready. Move the sprouts to another container and move them to the refrigerator.

An allergic reaction to the protein Gluten (a protein found in many popular grains such as WHEAT), is called GLUTEN SENSITIVITY (GS) and/or CELIAC DISEASE (CD). GS and CD have been found to be at the root of a proportion of cases of cancer, auto-immune disorders, neurological and psychiatric conditions and liver disease as well as being associated with back pain and chronic fatigue. The implication is that the heavily wheat-based western diet (i.e. bread, cereals, pastries, pastas, etc.), is actually making millions of people ill! It is estimated that in the American public, 1.8 million adults and some 300,000 children have undiagnosed CD. (NOTE: These are considered to be LOW estimates.) The immune reaction to Gluten that damages the gut in CD can also cause problems almost anywhere else in the body. Signs of GS and CD are:

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Upper respiratory tract problems: allergies, etc.
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Symptoms of nutrient malabsorbtion: anemia, fatigue, osteoporosis, etc.
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Bowel complaints: diarrhea, constipation, bloating, etc.
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Autoimmune problems: rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis, etc.
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Behavior problems: depression, ADD, etc.

4. SOY

Soy got its beginning as an INDUSTRIAL WASTE PRODUCT. To put it simply, after multi-million dollar figures spent on advertising and intense lobbying to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), about 74 percent of US consumers now believe soy products are another healthy(26). Another brilliant example of the effects of PR and marketing on the public’s perception of healthy eating. From an evolutionary standpoint, soy was originally only consumed by a few cultures. These cultures consumed it in conservative quantities with specific techniques for preparation. Now however, it’s being pushed as the “next best thing.”

The reality of the situation is that soy has been strongly linked to thyroid disorders, kidney stones, weakened immune systems and powerful food allergies. Soy has been found to contain phytates and enzyme inhibitors, such as those found in unsprouted grains, as well as haemagglutin which causes red blood cells to clump together and inhibits oxygen up-take and growth. But perhaps the most dangerous of soy’s downfalls is that it contains high levels of phytoestrogens (the plant form of estrogen) that can indeed mimic the effects of actual human female estrogen! This has been linked to increased risk of breast cancer. Research has shown just two glasses of soy milk a day for one month are enough of this chemical to change a woman’s menstrual cycle! Feeding soy to infants is even more devastating. It has been found that infants fed exclusively on soy formula are ingesting FIVE birth control pills worth of estrogen daily!

To top it all off soybeans, like most non-organic agriculture, are grown for the numbers. Meaning massive quantities must be grown to make a profit. This means the HEAVY use of pesticides, herbicides and quite often times, genetically modified (GM) plants (the effects of which we will only know in the future).

Research has shown that sprouted forms of soy such as tempeh, miso, natto and soybean sprouts are the only forms that can be consumed with some health benefits. This means avoiding all processed forms - soy milk, soy burgers, soy ice cream, soy cheese and all of the other trendy junk foods!

5. PROTEIN SUPPLEMENTS

Folks, this is a no-brainer. Whey protein (bars, powders, shakes, etc.), like soy, was originally an industrial waste product. It’s processing involves extremely high temperatures which render the product nutritionally void. The vitamins, minerals and any other nutrients added back in are synthetic, and potentially toxic. In essence, it’s DEAD. Exposure to this processed “food product,” just as previously noted with flour and processed carbs, forces the body to tap into its own reserves of vitamins, minerals and enzymes just to process and eliminate what your body perceives as “garbage.” Whey can also seriously dehydrate its consumers as the average powder form of this product will absorb many times its own weight in water. To get your protein - EAT REAL MEAT!