“You Are What You Eat.”
If you have a chronic illness or not the food that your put into your body has the power to heal the body or harm the body. The gift of good nutrition is one of the most precious gifts you can give to yourself. Modern society has distanced us from the connection of food and its impact on health but there is good news! More and more people are becoming more aware with the increase of chronic illness that food really does matter.
How Did the Western World Lose Their Connection With Food?
After the first World War, pesticides and chemicals started to be used heavily on produce crops. The reason for using them was that they were supposed to protect the crops from bugs and insects, thus producing a higher yield. Also Convenience foods were also introduced after the first World War. Convenience foods are commercial products designed for ease of consumption. Generally, this definition includes just about anything in a package, including soda, soup, processed meats or take-out meals. Much of the world was focused on the war and food manufactures were no different. For good reason, they developed products that would travel and store well, such as Spam. When the war ended, they turned their focus elsewhere. $$$$Money$$$$. Food manufacturers began an intense campaign to create a market for the convenient foods after the war was over. We will find out in this blog post that most of the health issues that pleage the world today are because of greed and lack of knowledge when it comes to nutrition.
Their new, undeclared, war became one against the traditional, home-cooked meal. Their timing could not have been better. After years of doing without, of women working outside the home for the first time, it wasn’t a difficult switch to make. Women had less time, and less energy, to spend on cooking anyway. With an aggressive advertising campaign, convenience food soon became the fashion. Fresh food began its gradual and persistent demise.
The Effects Of Processed Foods On The Western World
Lifestyle Malnutrition is a major cause of poor health in affluent modern societies. We nearly all suffer a degree of malnutrition due to inadequacy in our diet. We have the most food choices but make the worst choices when it comes to nutrition. Part of the blame is the media, social peer pressure to eat out and socialize, being raised on processed foods (Which are addicting), and lack of education when it comes to nutrition in the medical field. Although these things factor in to some of our choices it still is our choice what we put into our body and what we put in out body can ether support it and it will function at the highest level or it can not support it causing it to effect not only your life but society as a whole! All disease starts in the gut! Getting back to the basics and caring for your body like the precious gift that it is will not only help you manage your chronic illness or pain but can reverse some chronic illnesses all together!
The food you eat can either be the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison.
Ann Wigmore
With the increase of processed foods full of chemicals and substances that are not to be in the human body and increase of stress, there has been a extreme increase of chronic health conditions in the Western World. The number one killer of Americans is heart disease which is not only manageable through dietary changes but reversible. So why would a person with such a deadly disease continue to eat bad and take a pill that covers up the symptoms but does not address the underlying cause? Because these foods are very addicting! YES ADDICTING! Many people are food addicts which is one of the hardest addictions to deal with because you have to eat! You can not just give up eating like you can alcohol or drugs. So it is an addiction that can only be managed while the addiction is put in your face by media, social interactions, and even family. It has been said that Sugar and carbohydrates (Which turn into sugar) light up the same part of the brain as crack cocaine and heroin.
Researchers at Princeton University studying bingeing and dependency in rats have found that when the animals ingest large amounts of sugar, their brains undergo changes similar to the changes in the brains of people who abuse illegal drugs like cocaine and heroin.
“Our evidence from an animal model suggests that bingeing on sugar can act in the brain in ways very similar to drugs of abuse,” says lead researcher and Princeton psychology professor Bart Hoebel.
Kids are most venerable to sugary and processed foods because the media has so many products out with cute cartoon characters and upbeat jingles with foods high in processed sugar and additives.Some countries such as the UK have banned this type of marketing which has lowered the consumption of these products.
| In the UK, restrictions exist on ads that ‘might result in harm to children physically, mentally or morally’ and on ads employing methods that ‘take advantage of the natural credulity and sense of loyalty of children’. Nor may advertisements ‘exhort children to purchase or to ask their parents or others to make enquiries or purchases’. There are rules on food advertising, health, hygiene, safety and decency and there are restrictions on transmission time (for alcohol, medicines and slimming products) [Independent Television Commission, Rules on Advertisements to Children, 1997]. |
Parents buy these products for their children because they are overworked and there is a certain amount of guilt some parents have for not spending real quality time with their kids so they try to indulge them with the things they want rather than the things that are healthy for them. Little do they know they are making their bodies toxic and venerable to chronic illness later in life. Kids are now being diagnosed with ADULT ONSET type 2 diabetes as early as 8 years of age. A disease that is completely preventable! The video clip below is one of the saddest clips I have ever seen. It shows how disconnected from real whole foods the Western world has become. If this clip does not affect you I don’t know if my words can affect you.
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” ~Hippocrates
So you have a chronic illness and you are tired of feeling sick and tired! Is it to late for you? Will eating real whole foods NOW benefit you at all with all the damage that has been done to your body? The answer is a big fat YES! Whole foods have tremendous healing power and the sooner you start eating these nutritious, vitamin, and mineral pack natural foods the better! A lot of people try to eat better and they do not realize what they are putting in there body is unhealthy! The effort is to be commended but you most have knowledge of what foods are healthy and which are not. All those frozen foods like weight watchers, lean cuisine, or any other diet food are not healthy and is processed. It does not matter if it says all natural or fortified with vitamins. Anything that is fortified with vitamins is a food that has no nutrition so they pump it up with vitamins so that product can be marketed as healthy. It is a marketing trick to get people to THINK they are eating healthy. Any food that is microwaved is also depleted of most vitamins and minerals. If you want to know how bad microwaves are for you there are plenty of studies online you can read and do your own research or you can do an experiment on your own. Buy two plants and water one with tap water and one with microwaved water and watch the plant with microwaved water shrivel up and die. That is what you are doing to your body when you microwave food. This is new information for me and I am getting rid of my microwave as we speak. I am still on this journey of health and wellness and learn new things everyday! (Just a side note if you have a food allergy or sensitivity you must eliminate that food in the foods I am going to be listing)