Most food experts agree about one thing -- that our modern diet is extremely unhealthy.
We don't realize how many of our staple foods, like grains, dairy, refined sugars and oils were introduced during the agricultural and industrial revolutions. They have displaced a healthier pre-agricultural revolution diet that consisted of nutrient dense lean meats, seafood, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
As a consequence, many modern people are yet to discover the joy of clean eating.
It is important to understand at the outset that no fitness goal can be achieved without eating clean. Healthy eating is the key to great health.
If you eat junk, you invite diseases.
On the other hand healthy, whole and fresh food is your passport to life better health and a long life.
What's in modern processed foods that is killing us?
Most modern foods are ultra processed.
Such foods are not only poor quality but they could be killing you by removing the nutrients that your body needs.
According to Professor Carlos Monteiro, a food expert at the University of Sao Paulo, the issue at core with food is that modern food processing kills the nutrients in the foods we eat.
He uses the term ultra-processing to explain why modern processed foods are so dangerous.
The dramatic change in our eating habits in modern times has led to overfeeding at the cost of undernourishment. Current farming and food processing methods severely impact nutrition due to additives, preservatives, and pesticides.
Fruits picked unripe for processing do not offer complete nutritional value. Vegetables lack nutrition because the over worked land they are grown in lacks minerals that cannot be replenished.
Additives Instead of Nutrients
The average person not only intakes less nutrition but also consumes excessive harmful ingredients including refined sugars and additives. Processed foods combined with chemical additives have upset our body chemistry.
The chemicals present in them can cause allergic symptoms while adversely impacting our skin and respiratory system.
Conditions like arthritis, eczema and asthma can be directly traced to processed food.
It is evident that sugar can lead to several disorders, both emotional and physical such as diabetes, heart disease, lack of concentration, confused thinking, aggression and violence.
Most often hyperactivity in adults and children can be attributed to processed food like soft drink. Similarly, white flour can raise the level of acidity in the body -- adversely impacting muscles, organs, joints and tissues.
Salt, which is routinely added to processed foods to give them some flavor and it is implicated in conditions such as strokes, heart attacks, kidney disease and even dementia.
Since salt helps retain water in the body, it results in weight gain.
While some fats are good, others found in dairy products and meat are saturated fats implicated in raising blood cholesterol levels.
Ideally, food should nourish the body, provide growth and energy to it and replace lost tissues. However, modern processed food is altered into another nutritionally deficient state.
Although, it is possible to live with processed food to an extent, the ability of your body to resist viruses and infections can be highly compromised.
Processed food is directly responsible for the global diabetes epidemic.
It invariably removes essential nutrients including fiber that nature intended to provide us.
Manufacturers need to add extra ingredients to give their processed foods longer shelf life, to do that they resort to things like corn syrup that are proven to be harmful to our health.
Dr Keith, an integrative physician who owns "Naturally Fortified", a health and wellness company, explains the harm from processed foods with the example of log and paper.
It takes time to burn a log, but paper, a product processed from a log, burns quickly.
The same happens with corn syrup which burns or breaks down quickly releasing all energy when consumed, but corn in its whole form breaks down slowly.
The processed food, therefore, spikes the cycles of blood glucose level raising the insulin level as well, eventually leading to insulin resistance or Type 2 diabetes.
So, a clear link exists between processed food and the enhanced risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
Key additives and their medical effects
It is estimated that the average person consumes more than four pounds of food additives each year. Several of these additives are yet to be tested by the FDA.
Hormones and antibiotics fed to the meat animals persist in their flesh.
Guess the number of artificial additives used in the average American diet.
Believe it or not, artificial additives used to maintain freshness, look or taste of food number 5000 or more.
Many additives have not yet undergone sufficient studies to determine their safety. For instance, monosodium glutamate (MSG) and aspartame are used without warnings but may likely lead to diarrhea, bloating and gastrointestinal upset among several more problems.
Other additives like cyclamate and saccharine were deemed safe earlier, but later banned or are now only allowed with proper warnings.
Some additives like butylated hydroxyanisole (BHA) and butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) are currently under further investigation for their suspicious role in causing cancer while interfering with human genetic material.
Among the artificial sweeteners, aspartame is quite controversial especially because of the suggested evidence in animal trials that its consumption may cause accumulation of formaldehyde and methanol known for its toxicity.
There are many reported cases of aggravated asthma among children and adults due to sulfites. Artificial colorings can play havoc with the health of people who are sensitive to hypersensitivity reactions.
Some of the commonly reported conditions from artificial colorings include ADHD, asthma and skin conditions like eczema, urticaria and dermatitis.
The artificial coloring not only camouflages stale food lacking phytonutrients but it causes additional harm -- since coloring agents are the byproducts of coal tar.
Although there is currently no direct evidence against BHT in humans within the permissible dose, experts are still concerned that BHT may likely induce tumors as shown in animals, when consumed over the permissible level.
Since this compound is present in many processed foods, we might already be consuming it beyond the limit.
Additionally BHA and BHT are strongly suspected of causing damage to the genetic material.
The FDA banned the use of sulfites in fruit and vegetables in 1986 because it can destroy vitamin B1. However, its other uses are not banned, even as it is shown to aggravate asthma.
Just like additives, pesticides are also abundant in our diet although they are used to control pests and weeds.
They are found in every food from meat, poultry and fish to fruit, vegetables, and dairy products.
There is no way to avoid them unless you rely completely on organic food grown in pesticide free soil. A number of herbicides and pesticides are known to be carcinogenic and neurotoxins.
Although the FDA has approved steroid hormone in animals for growth since 1950s, the recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) administered to increase milk production in cows has become quite controversial.
The FDA approved this drug developed by the multinational giant Monsanto in 1993. While this drug became hugely popular by the year 2000, it was never approved in Canada or the EU due to animal and health concerns. Scientific evidence suggests certain types of cancers are possibly linked to consumption of rBGH treated milk.
It is only in recent years that the impacts of consumption of cloned products on human health are beginning to be studied seriously.
There is concern over the safety of this technology. Some of the safety issues include how it boosts allergens and its implied transfer of antibiotic resistance markers.
Genetically Modified Foods
Many dominant food companies today continue to use genetically modified food products, although they claim that they have restrained GM food in nations where consumers show strong aversion against GM food.
Some of these companies do not sell GM products in Europe because of low consumer acceptance.
However, it is also evident that these companies continue to use GM food in nations where consumers do not resist.
The first genetically modified food product "Tomato" was released in the market by food company Calgene in 1994 and soon the GM foods were to glut the market world over.
Public resistance to the GM food was very swift and severe in a short span of time.
There was immediate suspicion that there must be something seriously wrong with inter-species transfer of genes and public opinion was harsh.
Several GM foods related accidents make the safety of GM food suspect.
They included Brazil nut genes (1996), death of dozens of Americans and injuries to thousands others (1989) when Showa Denko, Japan's third largest chemical company paid a $2 billion settlement, the most serious genetic contamination ever in Australia (2005) and several others.
Why it is important to change your eating habits
According to a disease prevention survey based on advice from doctors trained in preventive medicine, the two best ways to avoid illness are to fit more exercise in your daily schedule and to eat healthier food.
These experts were clear on the ingredients that go into a healthy diet - plenty of fruit, vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats, especially the Omega-3 fatty acids found in many types of fish.
Eating is important but what to eat is even more important. Changing eating habits can be very difficult for many people. Some habits have been in practice for such a long time that they become a part of the lifestyle difficult to change. Yet, most of us who have been ritually eating unhealthy foods need to change eating habits. Although we developed many of our eating habits in childhood, it is still not too late to change them. All it requires is thoughtful planning, replacement of poor food habits with healthy habits and reinforcement of the new habits.
Some of the good food habits would include drinking low fat milk, choosing fruit instead of cookies for dessert, eating on time, planning and preparing healthy foods, keeping healthy snacks, learning to know the difference between physical hunger and habitual eating.
It is important to change unhealthy eating habits to lead a healthy and active life free of illness. So, it is important to replace unhealthy food with more nutritious food. Eating a diet that contains adequate amounts of fruit and vegetables reduces the risk of several life threatening conditions. More specifically, fruit and vegetable rich diet reduces the risk of stroke, cardiovascular diseases, coronary artery diseases, Type 2 diabetes, certain forms of cancers such as colon-rectum, stomach and mouth cancers. It also prevents bone loss and reduces the risk of developing kidney stones.
Fruit and vegetables are low in calories and fat, and do not have cholesterol. They are rich in dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins. Potassium found in vegetables may help maintain healthy blood pressure, and dietary fiber supports maintenance of low cholesterol levels. Folic acid helps formation of red blood cells in the body. Vitamins and micro nutrients found mostly in fruit and vegetables are essential to the proper biological functioning of the body.
Whole grains provide essential nutrients such as dietary fibers, B-vitamins and minerals to the body and prevents or reduces the risk of diseases like constipation and coronary artery disease. It helps you maintain your healthy weight and reduce blood cholesterol level. B-vitamins found in whole grains help you sustain healthy metabolism, while magnesium helps you maintain healthy bones and muscles.
At some point in life you will need to make a decision in favor of healthy eating if you do not want to face the prospects of being obese or overweight. With unhealthy eating habits you run the risk of depression, cancer, heart ailments, diabetes, and several other complications. On the other hand a longer, healthier and more enjoyable life awaits you if you choose to go with healthy eating habits.
How making healthier choices can have a profound effect on our bodies
The reason you make healthier choices is that it is your health that is at stake if you do not make the choice. The choice anyway is yours, whether you want to lead a healthy life or ruin your body. There is one and only one reason we eat - we need to nourish our body with nutrients for growth, energy and sustenance. The carbohydrates, protein, fat, minerals and vitamins are needed to supply your body with energy to perform the tasks of tissue growth and repair, metabolic functions, and chemical reactions essentially going on from birth to death. In other words you want to keep your muscles working, heart beating and organs functioning. You want strong bones, muscles, nerves and tendons. You want body processes such as blood pressure regulated optimally. While eating healthy food can help sustain these body processes efficiently, unhealthy food choices will disrupt the systems in the body.
Healthy foods offer complete and uncontaminated nutrients to your body so it can keep functioning optimally for life. On the other hand, unhealthy foods devoid of nutrients supply incomplete and toxic nutrients to your body that interferes with the normal functioning of the body causing illness and critical health conditions. Good nutrition including fruit, vegetables, whole grain, less saturated fat, farm fed animals, and skimmed milk can lower your risk against a range of diseases. Organic foods in their rich variety and moderation come closest to our optimal nutritional requirements along with safety.
What foods to buy and eat
Here are some of the foods to buy and eat:
1. Eggs: While whole eggs are linked to heart disease risk, those without the heart disease can have one whole egg a day. Egg yolks contain choline which reduces breast cancer. The anti-oxidants found in egg yolks help prevent macular degeneration and cataracts.
2. Yogurt: Fat free varieties are the best. Yogurt is a great source of calcium and good bacteria helpful in building immunity.
3. Fat free milk: Rich in calcium and vitamin D. A recent University of Tennessee research found calcium helps fight obesity. Adequate levels of vitamin D can prevent depression, and reduce the risk of heart disease and cancers.
4. Salmon: Rich in Vitamin D and Omega3s, the essential fatty acids. They offer a range of health benefits including prevention of heart diseases, supporting weight loss and healthy skin.
5. Lean Beef: It helps prevent anemia for it is rich in iron. It is also rich in zinc, B-vitamins, Vitamin E and Omega3-fatty acids. Grass fed beef has more nutritional advantages.
6. Beans: Rich in fiber, protein and key nutrients like calcium, potassium and magnesium, they are known to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and certain forms of cancers like breast and colon cancers.
7. Nuts: According to USDA, daily consumption of nuts reduces the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Some of the nutrients found in nuts include omega-3s (walnuts), arginine (hazelnuts) that can lower blood pressure, polyphenols (almonds).
8. Edamame and Tofu: They are rich in fiber, vitamins and polyunsaturated fats. They help fight heart disease and may prevent breast cancer. However, whole soy foods rather than processed food is recommended.
9. Oatmeal: Rich in fiber, FDA recognizes its efficacy against heart diseases. New research evidences its role in reducing the risk of Type2 diabetes.
10. Flaxseed: It is a rich source of Omega-3 fats. It reduces the risk of heart disease as it prevents red blood cells from forming clots, as well as breast cancer.
The list above is indicative. In fact the list of healthy foods to buy can expand endlessly because there are more healthy foods to cater to our taste as well as nutrition than we may have thought of. When shopping for healthy food, the organic section of the store is the best place to approach. Also, before purchasing the food items, it is recommended that you read the labels.
Now what can you do to pick up from here? Find more tips and help with eating clean, clean eating recipes, over at my blog - EatingCleanToday. Jump right in and discuss clean eating grocery list ideas, healthy shopping plans, snacks and meal recipes. Ask questions and get other help over at Facebook - EatingCleanToday. And head over to Amazon to take a look at my best selling book Eating Clean to Stay Young: enjoy youthful energy, ideal weight and disease-free health.
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