Good Diet, Bad Diet

The reality is that most people who think they eat a fairly healthy diet, don’t. The rapid acceleration of heart disease and diabetes in the U.S. is acknowledged evidence of this.  One estimate suggests 90% of the U.S. population eats a “bad” diet right now.

And if you are looking to the USDA for guidance, its policy today for Americans is simply to “eat more” – more dairy, meat, grains and sugar – because it is grounded in the mindset of the 1930’s when people were literally starving from the lack of calories.  Americans don’t need to eat more; they need to eat less.  Especially less highly toxic, disease promoting food.  It’s a matter of learning what healthy food really is and creating a lifestyle around it.  Good nutrition not only gives you energy but can help prevent and defeat the scourge in America today attributed to the rapid advance of heart disease, diabetes and certain cancers.

Here are the characteristics of a bad diet:

• Dead Food (cooked, microwaved, etc.)
• Processed Foods (milled, bleached, etc.)
• Little or no fresh, living fruits and vegetables.
• Inadequate water hydration (or drinking only manufactured beverages).
• Foods very high in processed sugars and processed carbohydrates.
• Foods derived from genetically modified (GM) corn, soy or sugar from GM sugar beets.
• Large amounts of processed, pasteurized dairy products such as cow’s milk.
• Foods containing any number of chemical food additives, including MSG, aspartame and chemical preservatives.
• Food packaged in toxic containers, including plastics and epoxy resins that contaminate food with BPA (Bisphenol A). BPA is found in polycarbonate plastic food containers often marked on the bottom with the letters “PC” recycling label #7.
• Non-Organic, primarily conventionally-grown, pesticide-contaminated foods.
• Foods containing a large quantity of unhealthy oils derived from corn, soy, or partially-hydrogenated oil.
• A diet largely consisting of fried foods or foods cooked at very high temperatures that destroy nutrients while creating carcinogenic compounds.
• Foods made or modified with unnatural ingredients, such as hydrogenated oils (preservatives), refined sugar (which removes the minerals), or homogenized milk fats (which can trigger an auto-immune disease response).
• Animal products like milk or non-animal products such as wheat or peanuts that can cause allergic reactions.

Are any of the above part of your diet and lifestyle?  We all owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to be better informed and totally empowered.  I also believe we have a duty to rebuild and educate our children about nutrition so they can start now to make healthier choices.

Advances in medicine through the first two thirds of the last century have helped improve the quality and length of our modern lives but now it seems that each generation is plagued with increasingly more disease and health issues than the previous generation.  One of the root causes of this new reversal is now widely acknowledged as the result of a change in diet.  Therefore, it is imperative to understand the powerful impact food has on everything that matters to us as individuals and our society, like health, happiness, employment, productivity, education and even freedom.

Fortunately, there is a solution to all this.  Any individual and any nation that wishes to remain strong and successful must follow a “good” diet.

Let’s see what that looks like:

• Daily consuming fresh, unprocessed plants (fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds) which can be made into variety of delicious recipes (raw food chefs are especially good at this craft).
• Minimizing consumption of meat or animal products (including dairy).
• Avoiding virtually all processed, manufactured foods and beverages, or only using them sparingly.
• Consuming a wide variety of phytonutrients – fruit and plant-based foods rich in vitamins, nutrients and natural medicines that help prevent disease.
• Spending substantial time outdoors, in nature, where vitamin D can be created and stored in the body.
• Minimizing or eliminating refined sugars and carbohydrates  (like white flour)
• Eliminating GMOs (Genetically Modified Organisms) from the food supply … too little is still known and most of it is not good.
• Minimizing consumption of foods sprayed with chemical pesticides or fungicides.  This not only helps prevent disease caused by such chemicals; it also protects the environment from chemical contamination.  Buy organic.
• Hydrating adequately with clean water (avoiding sodas and sports/vitamin drinks).
• Including nutritional supplementation to correct nutritional imbalance or deficiencies. (This can also be accomplished through super-foods or food-based vitamins, etc.)

If you feel this healthy approach to eating is a challenge, I have two words for you to consider: “preventable disease.”  My suggestion is to “flip the switch” in your head.  Delete the negative and embrace the positive power that good nutrition will give you in mind, body and heart.  Not only can we defeat type 2 diabetes but we can go a long way to avoiding heart disease and even preventing and/or defeating certain cancers; just through creating a healthy lifestyle!

I wish all of you a healthier life, full of laughter and love.