Saturday, April 5, 2008

Attack of the Killer Food

                             
                                             


    This versus this   Food Stock Photography: Little Boy Holding Colorful Sweet Peppers


Debbie Does Raw -- I was reading this blog this morning and this paragraph really made me think: 
There are 3 types of food consumers. The first one looks at the picture on the box or package and throws it in the cart. This is the person that will end up with chronic illness, early aging and other health problems. The second type carefully reads the back of the box, looks for good ingredients, then makes the healthiest choice they can. This person will also suffer illness and health issues, perhaps later in life or of less severity. The third consumer never buys anything that is in a box, can or package and only uses raw, living foods. This is the person that will suffer the least illness and have the longest natural life-span."

I've been all three people and I am happy to say that I eat very little out of a box, can or package these days -- though I will admit, I am not totally pure.  What really hit me was the wording on the second type -- who will carefully read the back of the box and then make the healthiest choice they can.  Which is exactly how it feels when you read the list of ingredients ... because deep down you KNOW it's not the best choice of food to eat, you KNOW that it's got stuff in it you don't want to be eating and yet ... it's the healthiest choice you can get at that moment.  ICK.

There should be no settling!

Last night we went out to eat and I ordered this shrimp with pasta with a vodka sauce.   I knew it would be fairly rich but my intent was to eat very little pasta, the shrimp and I had a salad with it.

But the food is just plain not good.  And when you eat beautiful food, organic, flavorful, healthy food, it just doesn't seem right to be eating blah.  I kept looking at the plate -- it was an orange (fake orange fake orange think macaroni and cheese out of a box orange!!!) sauce that kind of made my mouth turn down ... the shrimp were tiny little specimens, fairly tasteless, and while the pasta was fine, I didn't eat much of that because it's not really fine, it's bloat food.

And that is what happened.  My stomach just revolted at the whole thing.  In fact, we were out with a group of people (there were 11 of us) and I was home and in bed by 10:00.  Yes.  The food did me in!!!  I woke up this morning thinking I need beautiful food!  Green green juice and beet red juice and tangy ginger ... and wheatgrass to flush out the baddies that invaded my body!

I fall off the good food wagon periodically, and yesterday after a long hike where I felt fabulous and a shower which felt glorious, I was thinking WOW!  It feels good to feel good!  And several hours later I was in bed with a stomach ache and no will to live.

You know, like anything, I know what I put into my body will affect the way I look and feel, but in it still goes.  It is quite possible that on any given day I could murder someone if they had a bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and wouldn't share.  I am just saying.  I like bad food.  
But when you read things Food Kills - the slow poisoning of you and your children like our food source began to be chemically altered in 1912 when the FDA went from truly being an advocate for the people to a tool for corporate interests (come on, admit it, you see FDA-approved and think, it can't be bad!)

Since that time, and I actually thought that it didn't go back that far, enormous quantities of highly toxic chemical food additives, preservatives, pesticides, fungicides, dyes and packaging chemicals have been added to our food.  Chemically altered foods and those grown in soils depleted of minerals and enzymes are no longer being recognized or digested properly and they create problems in the body that make it impossible for it to heal itself and get well.  People have been eating so many dead and enzyme-lacking foods for so long that their bodies are no longer capable of producing the enzymes that they need.

Some of these additives are chemicals that are deliberately engineered i order to get you addicted to the specific food (DAMN THOSE POTATO CHIP PEOPLE) that contains them and to make you eat more.  (I always knew it wasn't my fault!)

Then, to add insult to injury, when you get sick you are given medications that frequently create serious side effects because when you suppress the body's warning systems (GALLBLADDER ATTACK GALLBLADDER ATTACK) it is forced to create more symptoms.  At least 250 of the more common medications also contribute to making it extremely hard for a body to heal itself.  This is because they bypass the autonomic nervous system and give the body new symptoms that it is now even more unable to recover from due to also not being given enough proper nourishment in food to do so.

What it boils down to (toxically of course) is that we are being continuously and slowly poisoned by not only toxic food but a toxic environment to the point where our bodies simply can't handle it and we eventually become chronically (or terminally) ill.  The lack of enzymes in our food overtaxes the body's own enzyme production process and causes its eventual breakdown.  Then we get treated with toxic medications that make us even more ill.  And if you end up in the hospital you get more toxic food and medications!

Food kills.  I'm getting a bumper sticker.







2 comments:

Tomasen said...

Sooo...then what is the answer? I live as though balance is the answer. I cannot be a purist at anything. I just don't have it in me and so, I see eeverything with many different sides and points of view.
When I read your blogs...I think, yes only raw superfoods for me, but the reality of the situation is getting them, having them and keeping them around so that is all that you actually eat! It is a full-time job and I already have a job.
I only hope that I am not slowly killing anyone...then what would have been the point of getting Emma well for heaven's sake?
Ultimately, though, it has to be about harmony and balance, in both the body and the mind. If the mind goes crazy trying to get and keep everything around, then the stress involved would almost seem to negate the positive effects of being "raw and organic" all of the time.
This is the third time this week that someone has put the idea of raw foods into my life...and it is making me wonder. The bottom line, I would LOVE to live this way, but I am just not enough of a purist to be able to follow through day after day after day...and yes, I love potato chips too!
Although I do know that once I get all of the processed "crap" and such OUT of my body that I no longer crave it and I FEEEEEL so much better. Right now though, I am stuck in the funky cycle of wanting sugar and carbs to make me feeeel better in the moment and afterall...living in the moment is what I am working on...isn't it?
ha ha ha
Keep writing I LOVE it!

Lisa said...

It is hard to tie all the things together -- living in the moment and planning a month's worth of menus seems to make no sense.

But then, without any pre-planning it is impossible to live HEALTHFULLY in the moment!

What I am seeing with much more clarity now is that feeling the vibrational energy of beautiful (pure!) food run through my bloodstream vs. the dead stuff which makes me feel blah is becoming far more necessary. I don't want to feel blah at all -- I want to wax poetic about the colors of everything before me!

It's funny, but my level of feeling "blah" is probably a good portion of society's norm ... you feel fine, certainly not bad, but not FABULOUS. When I read all the detox diets, there's not a whole lot I can change (well, except for the potato chips, but I haven't had a chip in weeks so I guess I have). I don't drink soda, eat processed foods or red meat, I eat almost strictly organic at home, I don't take synthetic vitamins, I use organic cleaning products, don't take things to the drycleaner ... and ultimately have a keen awareness of what is and isn't good for you. (Say unlike Peter who still doesn't understand why 45 grams of sugar in a beverage is a bad thing.)

As for eating raw, I don't know -- I get the concept, but there is still a lot of nutritional value in cooked foods. And eating raw is like eating salad day after day after day ... which I've done and then you wish you could eat anything but!

A body needs variety, and it's hard to find variety in raw foods unless you put a LOT OF TIME AND EFFORT creating something new.

This is where I am trying to find balance -- I don't want my life to be about food -- I don't want to spend half my life thinking about it! I think the cooking/freezing good foods in order to give myself a break is a great idea and I soooo love it when I can pull out a healthy meal and eat that, knowing that what is lost being frozen I've certainly gained in not eating junk food or another easy, processed meal.

But that's a ton of work and days of cooking.

FOOD KILLS! LOL