Healing with Nature

Many people rely on the numerous studies that are released quite often that show certain dietary results. Some of these studies will show that a certain supplement, nutrient, food, partial food or substance does something to one’s health. These results are released by the media through it’s many channels such as here on the internet, on the radio, television, magazines, and newspapers.

What if anything do the majority of these studies show? First of all these studies are almost always performed on a group of very unhealthy individuals. We already know that more than 70% of the US population is overweight by the medical establishment’s standards. Most people are so sedentary and have a body that most likely harbors cancer, early diabetes, arteriosclerosis, and many other diseases that using them as a subject in a study is not going to give results that reflect on what would happen to a truly healthy person.

Before the study is even defined there is a bias against it since the subjects are all drawn from the population of sick and frail individuals. The basis of most of the studies is on modifying a diet or adding something to a diet that will prevent or reverse some disease.

Rarely if ever are there studies created to verify how to keep a healthy person healthy. It would be a daunting task to even find a sample of healthy people who were willing to participate in such a study. Most healthy people wouldn’t elect to participate in a study that would cause them health problems. Healthy people know the cause of health and would not stray from this path for money or any other compensation.

Even if there are clear and definitive results from a study that shows a correlation between a food and health, these results need to be taken with a grain of salt. In fact most of the studies we hear about are to determine if a certain product which often is sponsored by the corporation that sells the product are healthy. In essence these are just a marketing program and not an unbiased study at all.

A realistic study would use a pool of already healthy individuals and it would study their dietary habits over a period of time to see if they continue to remain healthy. This group can be compared to a control group from the general population which would represent people with poor health and bad dietary habits.

The current methodolgy of research studies is really useless and nobody should use the results of these studies to modify their diet.

There are so many studies that are released which contradict other studies that one must be a specialist in health and nutrition as well as statistics to even be able to dicipher the data. Rarely is the data consistent with previously released studies.

My advice on this topic is to forget the studies and just learn about health and fitness from unbiased sources. Try a couple of the best diet recommendations that you can find and which make sense and not cents and dollars to some wealthy corporation or diet guru.

What’s wrong with the USDA food pyramid?

First of all I am referring to the original USDA food pyramid that was updated in 1992. That food pyramid which is really a general guideline for the kinds of food groups that people should be eating from displays a large base that represents the grains food group. The recommended amount of servings was between 6 and 11 a day.

The foods in this group include pastas, breads, cereals, wheat, noodles, and other products that are grain based. These are all starch based foods which contain many anti-nutrients as well as the opioids that were mentioned here. Besides these negatives nearly all grains need to be processed or heated in order to be edible. The human body has a great deal of trouble to digest these foods that mother nature had intended to go to birds.

Many people have become very sick from this wonderful food group. These foods are almost always full of salt and other condiments because they simply do not have much of a taste. Salt causes many health issues such as blood pressure problems, adrenal gland failure, stroke, and others. The grains themselves can cause many types of problems including gout and even cancer. 

The second section from the bottom of the pyramid is the vegetable group. The recommendation was 3 to 5 servings a day. If the pyramid insisted that these vegetables are eaten raw and without condiments they were surely onto something. However most Americans eat french fries several times a day or the favorite for breakfast, hash browns. These were considered a part of this vegetable section. 

Potatoes (especially the usual white variety) are considered to be the less healthy than table sugar. They raise the insulin level to extremely high levels only to drop right back down shortly thereafter to cause a craving for the same kind of low quality food. These are considered to be acceptable as part of the vegetable food group. 

Most other vegetables are despised by most Americans and often are eaten with generous helpings of butter, margarine, cheese, lard, salt, sugar and other poor quality foods. These too would be considered a part of the vegetable food group. 

If someone really wants to be truely heathy they would need to consume more than 3 to 5 servings of vegetables and also to consume them as close to the way nature presents them to us, which is raw, organic and fresh from the plant. If they are cooked and covered with sauces, dressings made with toxic ingredients, sugar, cheese, butter or other fats such as vegetable oils they become much less healthy and more pathogenic than anything else.

The fruit group doesn’t specify if the fruits are cooked, canned, dried or covered with candy or other sugars. These would all be considered as fruits according to the pyramid. The number of servings recommended is only 2 to 4. Most natural hygienists will consume this amount of fruit in less than one meal. The amount suggested is much less than is required for good health and there is nothing indicating that fruits should be eaten as close to the way they come from nature, that is in a raw, ripe, organic and fresh state. There is a huge difference between a baked apple covered with sugar and a fresh ripe raw apple right off of the tree.

The milk yogurt and cheese group is an absolute joke. Nature in no way had any plans for humans to consume the milk or milk products of other animal species. Even the milk that is suitable for humans which comes from human mothers is only suitable for a new born baby for the first several years of it’s life and not for any other age group person. This milk should also only be served from it’s original container, the human breast and not processed in any way. The products shown on the food pyramid are there for one reason only and that is to sell these terribly dangerous and toxic products so that the dairy corporations can earn millions and millions of dollars.

The meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts group should be changed to the raw, fresh and in season nuts group. This group should be at the very top of the pyramid with the smallest recommended servings. The other products are not compatible with a human digestion system and always cause health problems. They all contain little amounts of vitamins, minerals and have no fiber or phytonutrients. They all have high levels of fat and protein, which contrary to popular belief is actually not a health food except in very small quantities if it is part of the fruits, vegetables and small amount of nuts and seeds. This food group needs to be removed from the pyramid.

Finally the fats oils and sweets group is at the top of the pyramid. Usually things at the top are the most important. In this case they are not recommended to be used except sparingly. These are not even foods and should not be used at all. All the sweets, oils and fats humans will ever need to consume are available in the fruit and vegetable groups.

There was a new food pyramid developed in 2005. It is not much different from this one as most of the same blunders exist in it’s recommendations. I will go into more details on that one in a future post.

Which is correct? Is all sugar the same? Is all fat the same? There are really two communities who have an opinion on these. One is the popular gourmet, sprouting, green smoothies and nut milk community who use toxic condiments and attempt to reproduce every type of cooked food in it’s raw equivalent form. The other is the natural hygiene community who prefer to eat ripe, raw, fresh, organic and whole foods as close to the original way they were found in nature as possible.

I will call the first community the gourmet raw group and the second the natural hygiene group. The gourmet raw group believe in the first part of the title, they believe that sugar is sugar. They feel that the man made refined table sugar that was over-processed and heated as well as bleached and polished is exactly the same as the sugars found in a ripe, raw, fresh and organic whole fruit.

Ok, I have to agree that both are sugars. They both do taste similar to each other. Both are definitely sweet to the tongue. Both of them are carbohydrates and are high in energy or more specifically, calories.

That’s about the end of the similarities of these two sugars. The refined sugar contains just one chemical substance which is also known as sucrose. It is about 99.8% sucrose. Sucrose is a disaccharide (a fancy word meaning composed of 2 sugars) made up of fructose and glucose. Glucose is the exact kind of sugar that is found floating around in our blood stream. It is the fuel for our body. Fructose on the other hand needs to go into the liver for further processing before it can be used as fuel.

Fruit has several types of sugars depending on the kind of fruit. Some contain mainly sucrose, some mainly fructose, some mainly glucose, some have galactose and some have maltose. These are the sugars that are found in nearly all fruits. Besides the sugars, fruits all contain water when in their fresh and ripe state as well as a large number of vitamins, minerals, and fiber.

The sugars in fruit are always attached to the vitamins, minerals and fibers in such a way that when the body breaks down the sugars these vitamins, minerals and fibers become available to the body. The sugars work synergistically with the fiber and other nutrients to help with digestion and intake of the sugars. Nature has created these wonderful foods to keep us in the best possible state of health. They feed us while we spread their seed to allow them to expand their growth area.

In a healthy person the body will be able to use all of these vitamins, minerals, and sugars to increase vitality. The sugars will be absorbed along with the vitamins and minerals. The fiber is there to slow the absorbtion of the sugars so that there is no spike in insulin which can cause some people problems. This fiber is also useful to help carry waste through the digestive system after it has served it’s buffering duty.

So the answer to the first part of the question, contrary to the gourmet raw group’s opinion is that sugar is not sugar as the sugar in fruit is used very differently by the body as the refined table sugar.

The second part of the question is whether fat is fat? What this means is if all fat is alike? The gourmet raw food group wants people to believe that not all fat is alike. It is very interesting that they believe that all sugar is alike even if it is in a form that allows a smooth ingestion such as in fruit but refuse to believe that all fat is alike.

These gourmet raw fooders believe that cooked fats are different from raw fats. To a certain extent this is correct. Cooked fats in nearly all cases have carcinogenic and mutagenic properties. Cooked fats generally have trans-fat properties, which means that they are not recognized even as fats by the body and are therefore not able to be assimilated into the tissues of the body.

Other than the above two differences, all of the other properties of fats are equal whether cooked or raw. Fat will still be very difficult to digest, especially when it is digested with certain foods such as sweet fruits. Fat will always coat everything it comes in contact with no matter whether it is cooked or raw. Fat will never mix with water based liquids and will always float on water, when cooked or when raw. Fat is always an insulator when cooked or raw. Fat will always be stored in the body when it is digested until the level of sugar in the blood is so low that the body is forced to convert fat to sugar, even as a raw fat.

What is so special about raw fats that they can be eaten as often and as much as is wanted but sugars from fruits are extremely dangerous? The raw fat is the cause of the inability of the body to digest and absorb fruit sugars. It is not due to the fruit at all. This is similar to blaming the cars for automobile accidents and not seeing that there are other factors involved such as the driver, the driving conditions, etc.

In summary the real answers to both questions are yes, sugar is sugar but the sugar in fruit is bonded with nutrients and fibers that allows these sugars to digest easily and become absorbed readily as well as supply critical nutrients to the body and fat is fat no matter whether it is cooked or raw, it still can cause serious damage to the body when used in excess. It is actually nearly impossible to eat an excess amount of sugar when eating only raw, ripe, fresh, whole and organic fruits, but it sure is easy to eat an excess of fats even if it is eaten in the raw, ripe, fresh, whole and organic form.

When someone brags that they can drink more alcohol than someone else, do they really have something to brag about? I hear people say that they can drink more than somebody else quite often. They seem to be bragging that this is something to be proud of. They seem to think like they have acheived something ‘good’.

What really have they ‘acheived’? What is alcohol anyway? The usual alcohol that is in most of the common beverages is also known as ethyl alcohol or ethanol.

When the blood alcohol level reaches 0.4% it is usually fatal. Ethanol is an extremely dangerous poison. When consumed in lower amounts it will cause many health problems. Ethanol breaks down into acetaldehyde after it is ingested which is more toxic than ethanol itself. It can cause liver cirrhosis, cancer and other health problems.

A healthy person who has never tasted alcohol before will have severe reactions to the ingestion of alcohol. They will find the taste revolting and after swallowing their body will react to the poison by causing nausea, headaches, trembling, vomiting, and possibly other severe reactions.

After someone forces their body to accept alcohol over a long period of time the body will no longer react to the poison with the same intensity. This change in reaction is called tolerance. The body accomodates the poison by accepting it without creating the obvious symptoms. Internally the same destruction is occuring as was on the first time the person consumed alcohol but the body just tolerates it by not causing the same reactions.

An analogy of this is someone who has no nerves or nerve damage in their hand. If they put their hand on a hot stove they can leave it there for a while and not even know that something is wrong. A normal person who puts her hand on a hot stove will immediately get a signal from her nerves that there is damage occuring to their hand and will in turn remove the hand from the hot stove. The person with the nerve damage’s body tolerates the damage but their hand still will get burned.

Would the former person with the nerve damage be considered healthier than the later one? Is it something to be proud of when your body tolerates damage? Why would someone want to turn off the warning mechanisms that we have that are there to prevent us from damaging ourselves?

The same is true for all of the toxic and tissue damaging foods and beverages that people consume every day. People eat many foods that are so toxic to their body that many of their internal organs are covered in hardened tissues that can no longer assimilate nutrients. A short list of these kinds of foods are vinegar, salt, spices, garlic, onions, all bitter tasting foods, and of course alcohol.

There is nothing to be proud of when your body tolerates poisons and toxins. It is never healthy to no longer have the appropriate responses to these damaging substances. The only way to maintain health is to remove these from your diet and allow your body to guage what foods and environmental toxins are harmful. This way you will avoid them when you come across them and maintain your health integrity.

So you are interested in natural hygiene but you are in love with that recipe for raw lasagna that mister or miss super-raw has written. There must be more recipe books on the market than there are people in New York City. Why is this so?

For some reason the foods that are derived directly from nature are too boring or do not have enough texture, flavor, nutrition or ‘je ne sais pas’. One of the funniest jokes I heard as a teenager was the old one: “No ice? What happened? Lost the recipe?”

Even ice needs a recipe! It’s quite pathetic to see that most people can’t just sit down and have a meal of food that is exactly as it is created in nature. We always need to add the secret sauce, salt, pepper, sweeteners, thickeners, stabilizers, combinations of two or more tastes.

Out of the thousands and thousands of species on the planet we are the only ones who require these recipes. I have never heard of any animal finding food and then combining it with another food so that it wasn’t so boring, or to make it taste better. It seems to me that the animal actually relishes the food as it is derived from nature. They love it plain and simple as they should.

Obviously when humans first arrived here on planet earth they did the same as all other animal species and ate the food that was provided by nature in it’s original state. There were no recipes made. People probably relished their food as much as animals do today. Why then does almost every human on earth live on food that has been made from a recipe instead of from nature’s recipe?

This is an international phenomenon, it’s almost impossible to get away from. Go to any country in any part of the world and see if you can find a native food or dish that is as it is supplied by nature. Even if the food is uncooked or served raw such as gazpacho, a Spanish raw soup, there is a very complex recipe involved in making it.

The main reason why this is so is because food is no longer our fuel or subsistence, it is our entertainment. We are so addicted to being entertained that we require it even for our basic necessities such as eating. In fact most of the first world not only consumes food for entertainment, they often are being entertained while they eat.

There are televison sets in most every dining room. If the television is not in the dining room the room where the television is quickly and often becomes the dining room. Most restaurants have some sort of entertainment, McDonald’s have a playroom for the kids, as do many of it’s competitors, many have televisions, there are dinner shows with every sort of spectacle available from a play to a murder mystery to a medieval knight jousting competition.

What ever happened to the nutrition value of food? Have we as a society forgotten about the real reason why we are eating in the first place? Why does everything we do in life need to have a script, actors, and processed or commercial products included with it? In the case of a recipe the script includes the recipe, the chef and the servers with the bottles of processed condiments on the table in case the recipe is not according to the patron’s taste.

Even the popular ‘raw’ food enthusiasts who are so opposed to the ways of the average person’s diet almost never will sit down and enjoy a meal made exclusively from items directly from nature. This is hypocritical to me, they shun the so called processed and cooked foods just to try to emulate every single food that is included in their diet with raw food recipes.

It is close to impossible for someone to enjoy the true flavors of natural food when they never experience anything that is made without flavorings like salt, spices, vinegar, herbs, sweeteners and sauces.

If you have ever been to a typical buffet, take a look at what the majority of people have on their plates. Do you see mounds and mounds of salad without dressings? I doubt that there will be many plates with plain salads on them and nearly every plate will have the recipe foods on them. The beef stews, the roasted marinaded chicken, the cakes, cookies, pastas drenched in sauces, and the like.

These recipes might be great entertainment and excellent for discussions and theatrics but the quality and taste of them is so much lower than a good quality natural food. The problem is that most people never have the opportunity to even try a good natural food since they are so hard to find. All we ever see on television, on billboards, in magazines are compicated recipes of processed food.

Who are we to take the most perfect foods which are the very reason for our existence on this planet and turn them into recipes which in all cases are worse tasting and have lower nutritional value than the original components of the recipe? Try this for yourself, stop eating the most common taste bud destroying foods for a period of time. Probably 3 months would be a good start.

These foods are the ones listed above such as salt, spices, black and white pepper, vinegar, sweeteners, sauces, onions, garlic, etc. Remember to use the best quality natural foods that you can find to replace these recipes. You will find that after about 3 months of natural foods that your taste buds start to reverse the damage from the recipes and you will enjoy the distinct differences in tastes in natural foods.

Besides the new palate pleasing foods that you will start to enjoy once again you will see the tremendous positive changes to your health. Natural foods are the foods that our body was designed to consume and therefore give it the nutrients in the ratios and in the form that is most beneficial to our health.

You will be wondering what did nature do with the recipe for that wonderful fig. Nothing man can ever come up with will ever trump these foods in taste and nutrition, no matter how hard you try.

I decided to post something that is close to my heart but a little off of the main topic of natural hygiene. It is related to natural hygiene however since the results of this behavior will inevitably produce a terrible environment in which we all live and therefore create negative effects to our health.

Forget weapons of mass destruction, foods of mass destruction are much more dangerous to us and the future of human’s existence on this planet. I am quite certain that all the weapons of mass destruction that have been used since the beginning of time do not add up to the damage that has been done to the people and the earth by foods of mass destruction.

You might be asking what am I talking about by now? The actual farming methods, types of foods as well as the secondary effects that are caused by these choices are extremely devastating to both humans and to every other living creature on the planet. For example most of the land used in the USA is for the production of corn. Nearly all of this corn is not meant for human consumption (it is not even fit for human consumption). About 75% of the corn grown in the USA is used to feed animals in feedlots.

The corn is usually a GMO (genetically modified organism) plant which is sold by Monsanto Corporation so that they can have a complete monopoly on the food of the world. These corn seeds are genetically modified to produce the highest possible yield per acre. Besides that they are only able to produce one crop and their seeds are infertile so that the farmer must return to Monsanto the next year to buy more seed.

These corn seeds are also resistent to certain very dangerous pesticides and herbicides that very conveniently are also only sold by Monsanto. These pesticides and herbicides kill everything that is alive except for the corn.

Since the corn was genetically modified to be a high yielding plant there was no modification to make it nutricious. In fact there is almost no nutrition in the corn whatsoever. It is basically a plant that produces pure starch and little else. The land that it is grown on becomes so void of any minerals or vitamins due to the spraying of the herbicides and pesticides that nothing can possibly grow on the land except this very poor quality corn.

The main recipient of the corn are the cows that are raised on factory farms. These cows are born and live their entire life in a space so compressed that they can not even turn around. There are cows on either side of them who are also next to 2 other cows. Cows native food is grasses but it costs too much to have these cows graze on grasses so they are fed this low quality corn. Due to the acid forming nature of starches these cows get very sick and are near death even before they are ready for slaughter.

Most humans who eat meat would not want to eat the meat of a very sick animal. This is exactly what they are doing when they buy meat from fast food restaurants or from the grocery store.

Another problem with the meat industry is the runoff which contains many bacteria and dangerous chemicals which is dumped directly into the waterways. Some of this runoff ends up contaminating other crops such as tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, and many other foods. There have been many outbreaks of infections over the last couple of years due to these uncontrolled runoffs. Outbreaks from bacteria on tomatoes, spinach and chilli peppers are three that I remember just happened recently.

Many people are concerned with global warming but the main culprit for most of the greenhouse gases is the raising of animals for food. Cows and most other animals produce tons and tons of methane gases due to their digestive system and the poor quality food that they are being forced to eat. Ammonia gas is also produced in massive amounts from the defacation of farm animals. 

Obviously the water where the runoff is dumped to is polluted as well as most of the other rivers, streams and lakes that the runoff is carried to by these waterways.

Another great crime that human’s are doing to the planet is growing grains. As was already mentioned above, most of the USA’s midwest is covered in corn farms that do not even feed humans but animals. The rest of the poor quality corn is used to make high fructose corn syrup or regular corn syrup to make all of the wonderful packaged and processed foods that most everybody eats daily. The majority of these sweeteners are used in sodas or soft drinks. Still more is used in danishes, cakes, doughnuts, bread, cereal, artificial flavorings, and even hot dogs and other smoked or processed meats.

Besides corn, all of the other grains including wheat, rye, barley, oats, rice and so on are planted on soil that could be used to plant large fruit orchards. Acre for acre fruit feeds more people than grains. Fruit trees also do not remove nutrients from the soil as grains do. After about 5 or 6 years of planting a farm with grains the land is infertile and needs to be given minerals and nutrients to even be able to grow any kind of grain again.

Once the grains have been harvested the plants are destroyed but fruit trees will continue to produce fruit year after year. Animals such as birds and others can use trees to build their nests but they can not use grain plants. Fruit does not require heat to make it palatable for humans to eat. In fact ripe raw fruit is one of the only natural foods that humans would even recognize as food had we maintained our natural diet.

All grains need to be further processed in order to be consumed. Most often they are cooked. Cooking requires fire or other forms of energy. These forms of energy consume oxygen and all produce greenhouse gases. Besides the cooking most people will add flavors or condiments to grains because most do not have a pleasant taste to the palate. I don’t know if anyone has ever tried to eat plain oatmeal but without sugar, spices, or fruit it tastes very bland. Rice also has little flavor without condiments.

These grains are not only contributing to the loss of natural plant cover for the planet because massive amounts of rainforest and other forests are destroyed daily to make room for a field of grains but they are also contributing to the poor physical health of humans since they cause many problems. See the post on grains and bread (The French Don’t Call it Pain for Nothing) for more information on this.

The only foods that actually work symbiotically with the world’s natural setting are the ones that our biological and physiological makeup were designed for. These are fruits, leafy greens and shoots. When we eat these in their raw, ripe, fresh and organic (natural) state we get a double bonus. We maintain our precious health and virility as well our home, the planet earth stays healthy and able to sustain itself for now and future generations. Let’s wake the world up and be an example of doing the right thing!

Due diligence is a business term that means to perform a complete and thorough investigation before committing to a deal or a transaction. Any successful business person will always do their due diligence before going into any relationship or accepting any proposal.

If this is true why do so many people do nothing when they are told something about health and then believe it to be the sacred truth. Nutrition and health are two of the most important subjects when it comes to information, they can make the difference between life and death in many cases.

Unfortunately these two subjects are the source of more misinformation than most any other topic known. A simple stroll through any bookstore or health food store will prove this. There are thousands upon thousands of books and magazines that have ’scientific’ information on health and nutrition.

The problem is that nearly every single book or article has another book or article that claims that the exact opposite is the actual truth. For example there are the low carbohydrate diet books that show without a doubt that we humans must eat a low carbohydrate diet.  Then there are the books that align with people like Dr. McDougall that say we must eat a lot of carbohydrates to stay healthy.

It is a very confusing and dangerous situation out there if you really want to get to the real scientific facts about human health. Most people give up shortly after they start off due to this confusion. Some will simply follow the diet or health plan that is in fashion for that month or that week. Once there is a new fasionable diet plan they will switch to the new one.

Could this be a healthy way of life? Certainly not. We have only one life and playing with it by following a poor diet can only lead to serious problems. It sure makes the book authors rich but not a lot more is accomplished by this.

How does one find the truth in diet, nutrition and lifestyle? What should a layman do to find the truth from all of the tabloid diets and fashionable suggestions? First of all, if you really are interested in your health then you need to at least understand basics. What do I mean by basics? At least understand the difference between protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients.

I will not define these here as that is out of the scope of this posting but these terms are defined in most any school biology textbook. Go to your local library and read at least 2 or 3 books that describe these.

Once you have mastered these basics then learn something about how the body uses food and nutrition (nutrition also comes from air, sunshine, emotions and other sources besides food). Read about the way the blood carries nutrients to the many cells of the body. Try to understand how this can be done in an efficient or inefficient way.

Once you have these basics understood then go out and read some of the health, diet and nutrition books. This time read them with a skeptical eye. Ask yourself if the author is just making the information up in his mind to sell more books or if he or she is really intelligent and knows about biology and metabolism.

After reading one book then go out and read another one that is in contrast to the first one and ask yourself the same questions while you read it. See which story seems to be more realistic with respect to the scientific knowledge that you have acquired.

They can not both be correct in all respects, you need to decide for yourself which one makes sense and which one is an attempt to convince the ignorant to buy products, supplements, foods, books, etc.

Do some further research in libraries, in bookstores, online. Read several pages of information and always be skeptical of everything especially if it is not consistent with the biological way that a human body functions.

Try to see if there are any inconsistencies in the information. One example that I recently saw was a book by a very popular raw food leader that had said that some of the references on the book might not have credits due to the chaos research magic that created the book. I would have some extreme doubts about a book that starts out with something like that.

Again, there are many deceiving and confusing stories about diet, health and nutrition out in the world. Do your due diligence to get the most realistic information that makes biological and logical sense. Get all sides of the story and make sure it fits in with the scientific and biological facts. If the information is not jiving then throw the book away and find a new one.

Surprise! Most people find it unbelievable that what they do to themselves during their life will result in their good or bad health. It’s a shocking concept to actually think that living healthfully can prevent negative consequences later on in life. They also do not believe that living a poor lifestyle will result in poor health.

I wonder why this idea is so pervasive? If you spend all of your money you earn and then you need to make the mortgage payment you won’t be able to pay it. That seems to make sense to most people but if you tell these same people if they save their health then they will have good health they won’t believe that for a second.

Why is health such a mystery to most of the world? Is it because the media, medical establishment and most of the rest of the world intentionally try to confuse us? If they are trying to confuse us they sure are doing a good job since most people are very confused.

I do believe that most people prefer to do the right thing for themselves to maintain health but are so confused by the misinformation. We are bombarded with so much misinformation daily that it’s a wonder that anyone knows the truth about health.

I hear very often of food that is labeled as healthy but plainly is not even compatible with a human body. Just walk into any popular grocery store and there are posters of most any product and the word healthy is often used to describe it. With so many healthy foods to buy it’s a wonder there are even any unhealthy people around.

If you look for the real ways to become healthy and live a healthy lifestyle while ignoring all of the misinformation you will be working towards health. It’s really simple. Health accumulates with consistent healthy practices thus avoiding unhealthy practices.

I kind of see it like this, if someone continuously drops a heavy weight on their foot every day, the foot that receives the heavy weight will get swollen, bruised, bloody and throb. If it is stopped these symptoms will eventually go away and the foot will recover. With time the symptoms that were produced due to the heavy weight will become less and less since the body will defend itself from this damage by creating possibly a thicker skin over the area that takes the weight.

Maybe even the person doing this will stop feeling pain completely and will continue to drop the weight on their foot because they feel there is no more damage being done to the foot. The damage continues of course but the symptoms of it are less. This is a basic survival mechanism, the pharmaceutical companies understand this reaction very well and create medicine that mimics the same toxins that people use to make the body stop producing symptoms.

The user of these medicines is sure the illness is gone because they don’t feel the pain any longer. They immediately recognize the medicine as the solution to their self-inflicted problem. Now they are hooked on medication and the pharmaceutical company executives smile all the way to the bank.

There are no mysteries to health. If you obey the laws of nature you get rewarded, if you do not then you’re playing Russian roulette with only 1 chamber empty. 

Yesterday was a “pizza celebration” day at work because we hit a milestone on a big project that is very important to the company. Obviously I turned down the lunch invitation since I have stopped eating pizza more than 7 or 8 years ago when I started eating more whole foods and more raw foods.

I noticed that there were 9 large pizza boxes piled up on the garbage can after lunch was over and there were 3 or 4 more still with partial pizzas in the meeting room. There were many varieties of pizzas. They had the usual all dressed or works pizza, there were pepperoni pizzas, there were a couple of vegetarian pizzas for the small minority of vegetarians,  and some with chicken.

After lunch was over I was speaking to one of my coworkers. This particular coworker seemed to be very interested in my personal diet in the past. He even told me one time that he tried to eat one meal of only fruit but it caused him severe diarrhea. I asked him how his pizza lunch was. We then discussed my daily food intake and I told him that on average my meals contain about 2 to 3 pounds of fruit. An entire day’s food would amount to close to 9 pounds (some days a little lower and some a little higher).

He seemed shocked and surprised saying that is a lot of food. This got me thinking as the amount of food people on the standard western diet is probably smaller due to the concentrated foods that are void of water. Then I thought about the toxins in all the standard foods and how most people drink with their food. Besides the pizza there was also about 5 or 6 large 2 liter bottles of soda. They had the usual Coke, Sprite, and a couple other flavors.

 Just to make a comparison, I decided to calculate the weight of the food and drink that a typical standard western diet meal would weigh and compare it to a whole food mono fruit meal that I would eat.

The pizzas were from Papa Johns and fortunately for me Papa Johns has a web site that contains the nutritional information of their pizzas. Most of the diners were eating at least 2 slices of pizza (some had more and some less). Also along with the pizza most every diner was drinking soda. A few preferred to have water, coffee or tea but most chose to drink the soda.

Here is my calculation for an average person:

2 slices of Papa John’s works pizza contains 740 calories. 220 of those calories are from fat.  This is about 30% of the nutrients are fat, which is about the standard for the typical western diet. The weight of 1 slice of pizza is about 6 ounces, 2 slices are 12 ounces or 3/4 of a pound.

If that was the end of it then my coworker was correct as the standard western meal is less than a pound and contains enough calories for a single meal at 740 calories. A typical meal for me is about 2.5 pounds of grapes. This amount of grapes is about 760 calories (just 20 more than the pizza meal). The grapes meal is a pure whole food that contains nearly no toxins and doesn’t make me thirsty at all. There is no salt, spices, onions, garlic or other condiments on my food. The food is full of water and tastes fresh and sweet without adding anything.

The pizza eaters were consuming on average about 2 glasses of soda to ‘wash’ down the pizza. This amounts to about 16 ounces of liquid. 16 ounces of liquid weighs around 1 pound. In all the standard western dieters or pizza eaters were consuming 1.75 pounds of food and drink. I was consuming 2.5 pounds.

There really is not much difference between the amount of food that I ate versus the amount of food the standard western diet or pizza dieters were eating. If you also add the amount of calories that they consumed in the soda (16 ounces) they ate way too many calories as well. 16 ounces of regular soda contains about 200 calories. Their total calories consumed was now 940, my meal was 760 calories. Since the soda is fat free their actual percentage of fat is now down to 23%.

The problem for those who chose the soda instead of water to dilute the toxins have  eaten 200 extra empty calories that contains no nutrients at all. This is excess calories since the average person only needs to eat about 700 or so calories per meal (assuming they eat 3 meals a day).

In conclusion, I do have to agree that the sheer weight of my meals are slightly higher than standard western diet meals but they do not contain excess empty calories and do not require any liquid to wash down the toxins. I think I’ll stick with fruit.

One of the biggest barriers to switching to a whole food and raw diet which is the original diet of humans is the psychological effects of addictions. The standard western diet that the vast majority of people choose to consume is full of addictive substances. These foods are not only addictive by their smells and tastes but they also contain chemicals known as opioids which are highly addictive.

What are opioids? They are as the name suggests similar to opium, one of the most addictive drugs known. Opioids are defined as anything that is non opium derived but causes similar effects on the brain as morphine (which is opium derived). Opioids are known to create positive feelings, reduce pain, cause sedation, and just generally produce a feeling of pleasure.

When something you eat contains these opioid substances they will be very difficult to discontinue consuming. People will get cravings and urges to keep on using these foods since they give a false sense of well being that lasts just long enough to get the next hit (or meal).

Which foods have these addictive substances? The most common are the grains such as wheat and all products made from wheat, dairy products that were derived from milk, and meats which can be from most any animal or even from fish.

Grains

The grains that contain the most opioids are the ones that contain gluten. This topic was covered in another blog entry called The French Don’t Call it Pain for Nothing. Gluten is found in wheat, rye, oats and barley. The other grains also have addictive substances but are not as dangerous as the ones that contain gluten. Gluten is known to create many health problems besides addictions, one of which is celiac disease. An example of an opioid found in many grains is gliadinomorphine which as the name suggests is similar to morphine to our brain and nervous system.

Dairy

Milk and all of the products that are made from milk including cream, ice cream, cheese, and many other products that contain covert dairy products such as many breads, cereals, meats, and many processed foods contain opioids. Cow’s milk contains casein which after digestion breaks down to casomorphine. Two other opioids found in dairy are beta-casomorphine-7 and alpha-casein. Antibodies of these opioids have been found in the brain stems of humans which indicates that they can cross the blood-brain barrier.

Besides the opioid problems with dairy there are many other serious problems with dairy as a large percentage of the population is lactose intolerant. They do not have the ability to digest the milk sugar known as lactose. Many people also are allergic to the milk proteins.

Meat

Hemoglobin is a protein found in blood. Every kind of meat contains blood since meat is the flesh of animals. Hemoglobin is known to be an opioid. Most every animal raised for food has been fed a high grain diet. Resdiue of the grain diet will be in the flesh of every animal and therefore these meats will also contain the opioids from grains.

Due to the standard procedures of modern factory farming most animals are given anti-biotics and hormones. Both of these additives can cause cravings and opioid type of reactions in the consumer of the meat.

What do opioids do? Opioids will bind to opioid receptors in the brain, central nervous system and gastrointestinal tract. Once they attach to these receptors, their chemicals are released and they will cause pain to stop and feelings of euphoria. Some of these cause sedation and feelings of relaxation.

One of the reasons why people feel tired or sleepy after a big meal is due to these opioids. These foods are causing a numbing of the real world and makes us feel happy and reduces pain. These are the same reactions to all of the usual addictive drugs such as morphine, heroin and cocaine.

People consuming the foods mentioned in this post or derivatives of them are experiencing the addictive properties of these foods. Often I hear people tell me that they would rather die than change their diets to exclude meat, dairy or grains. This is the addiction speaking and not the person. These foods can be more addictive than illegal drugs as society shuns illegal drugs but nobody ever shuns food, even the most dangerous ones mentioned here.

If you are addicted to any of these unhealthy and dangerous foods, I hope that this post will help you understand why. Maybe with this knowledge you can plan a withdrawal strategy from these foods. It can never be easy to stop consuming an addictive substance so keep that in mind if you decide to discontinue eating them. Often professional help is needed to stop using an addictive substance.