By Bishara
Wilson, L.Ac., MSTOM
You cannot
be healthy thinking like a sick person.
In modern times that are ruled by the almighty dollar, we are inundated
with companies looking to sell us their various products. Unfortunately, most companies are looking to
maximize their profits by giving the lowest possible quality that they can and
still make a sale. As a consumer, both
physically and financially, we have to navigate through the mountains of empty
calorie, poor quality, nutritionally deficient junk posing as food. Having the mind to do this is vital for
health, strength and vitality.
Here are
the Top Five Ways to Have A Healthy Mindset by picking the healthiest food
possible.
1)
Read
Labels
When you
look at the ingredients of a food product, those ingredients should look like
something that you would actually eat! The
list of ingredients should close to what it would look like if you made it
yourself.
For example,
fresh homemade bread at home has flour, salt, yeast, and water. Fresh homemade bread also lasts about a day
before it gets dry and stale. Store
bought bread has lines of ingredients, most of which you cannot even
pronounce. These chemicals in bread are
used as dough conditioners and preservatives that prevent the dough from
hardening and increases the shelf life.
They are not digestible by your body and are stored in the body’s fat. Accumulation of chemicals in the fat is slowly
released into your bloodstream and is a cause of premature aging, diseases like
cancer and heart disease, fatigue, weakening of the immune system and allergies.
2)
Make
Your Food from Scratch
Instead
of eating out at restaurants all of the time, or cooking commercially prepared
foods from the box, try cooking from scratch.
Yes, this means actually putting on the apron and doing it all yourself.
If you
are a novice, there are tons of great cookbooks and free recipes online that
suit every palate. Recipes are easy to
follow and you will find your way around the kitchen in a snap.
Cooking
from scratch is great because you know exactly what goes into each meal. You can control how much salt and oil is
used. This is a added benefit if you are
on a special low sodium or low fat lifestyle change. I say lifestyle change because “dieting” is
usually a temporary change in the way you eat, while lifestyle change is a more
permanent goal.
If you
have known food allergies, you will obviously not have any worries with food
that you prepared yourself.
Best of
all, you save money. For the price of
dinner at a restaurant, you can get three or four full meals when you buy and
make food from scratch.
3)
Avoid
High Fructose Corn Syrup
When you
read labels, high fructose corn syrup seems to be in everything. It is in sodas and juice drinks, bread and crackers,
soup and breakfast cereal, cookies, candy and chips.
About
three decades ago, food manufacturers began using high fructose corn syrup to
sweeten foods because it is a cheap alternative to sugar. White sugar was already bad for your health
and has been linked to diabetes, obesity, rotten teeth and other health issues,
but high fructose corn syrup is even worse.
On a
societal level, the increased rate of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and
fatty liver has been linked to the over consumption of high fructose syrup. New York City has even banned the sale of
beverages of soft drinks larger than 16 fl.oz at restaurants, street carts and
movie theaters to combat obesity and diseases linked to soft drink consumption.
My
suggestion is to avoid high fructose syrup like the plague. You have to be diligent because it is in a
lot of mass produced products on the shelves that you may be used to eating. Expect a complete overhaul on the brands you
buy.
Your
best bet is to just go to the health food store. For snacks, I will usually try what is on
sale for the week to save money at the health food store.
4)
Avoid
GMO Foods
GMO’s
are genetically-modified-organisms. Also
known as Frankenfoods! They are foods
that would normally grow in nature, but have been manipulated in a laboratory
to have certain effects.
Some have
been manipulated to resist plant diseases and insects, to grow faster or even
to produce nutrients. Sounds good at
face value, but we do not know the long term effects of how genetically
modified foods may genetically modify people who consume these foods.
Foods
that are predominantly produced in GMO form on the market are corn, soybeans,
canola, and cottonseed. These GMO
vegetables are usually sold to food corporations and appear in food stores as
vegetable oil, corn oil, soybean oil, canola oil, cottonseed oil. If you look at
most chips on the market, the ingredients will say that it contains one or more
of those specific oils. Other GMO vegetable products on the shelves
includes high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and the flour used to make corn
syrup, breakfast cereal and other products.
Research
is still being done on the effects of gmo foods on the body, but it is best to
avoid these foods if possible.
5)
Eat
Organic
As stated
earlier in this article, food corporations are looking to produce as much crop
or livestock that they can to maximize profit.
This can often be at the cost of the health of the consumer. In fact, many money saving processes for the
corporations has a negative effect on your body. These processes include herbicides and
pesticides on crops, and antibiotics and growth hormones in animals.
Residue
from chemical fertilizers and herbicide in food have been linked to ADHD (attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder) and lower IQ in children. Other dangers include increased risk of
cancer. Herbicides also contaminates the
soil and eventually ends up in the ground water that we drink. Organic foods are grown without chemical
fertilizer, whose harmful nitrates can end up in conventionally grown foods.
Organic
foods tend to have a higher Vitamin C and mineral content than conventionally
grown foods. But, recent studies have shown that this is not a hard rule that
all organic foods are always more nutritionally dense than conventionally grown
foods.
I eat
organic or locally grown as much as possible to avoid chemical residue from
pesticides and herbicides in my food, and also to support and promote a
chemical free environment. In my
opinion, many organic foods look richer and tastes better than their
conventional counterpart too.
These
are just a few tips to get you on the health track. I hope it sparked some thoughts and you do
some further research to cultivate a health conscious mindset.
References
Effects on
uric acid, body mass index and blood pressure in adolescents of consuming
beverages sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup.Lin WT, Huang HL, Huang MC, Chan TF, Ciou SY, Lee CY, Chiu YW, Duh TH, Lin PL, Wang TN, Liu TY, Lee CH. Int J Obes (Lond). 2012
Aug 14
Long term
toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize.
Ethical
acceptability, health policy and foods biotechnology based foods:
is there a third way between the precaution principle and an overly
enthusiastic dissemination of GMO?
Organic
food: buying more safety or just peace of mind? A critical review of the
literature.
Organic
food: nutritious food or food for thought? A review of the
evidence.
Pesticide exposure and child neurodevelopment: summary and implications.
The
influence of organic and conventional cultivation systems on the
nutritional value and content of bioactive compounds in selected tomato types. Hallmann E. J Sci Food Agric. 2012
Nov;92(14):2840-8.
