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Let's Talk: American Illness

If you grew up in America, even eating a diet that was striving to be more healthful (like avoiding fast food but indulging once in a while), your body is most likely in need of attention and repair. You may not know that you are sick, but common problems among Americans are:

• Adrenal Fatigue
• Chronic Exhaustion
• Depression
• Mental Illness
• Acne
• Auto Immune Diseases
• Cancer
• Poor Dental Health
• Heart Disease
• Weight Trouble
• Leaky Gut
• Mineral Imbalance and Dehydration

You see, most people recognize they are sick when they have something as serious as cancer or heart disease, but many of the other illnesses that consume us are so common and "normal" that we don't understand that they are a signal that your body is struggling. 

Cameron Diaz talks about this is her book The Body Book. She talks about how she could eat all the fast food she wanted (and she wanted lots) and she never gained weight. She didn't have cancer or heart disease and people told her she was so lucky that she could eat whatever she wanted and never get fat. 

She talks about having severe acne that caused serious self image issues. She continued to have acne long after her teenage years and well into her modeling career. People would spend a lot of time and energy covering it up for her modeling shoots and clearly it was humiliating. 

I love that she talks about how not everyone gets cancer from how they treat their bodies, but that doesn't change the fact that many of us are sick. It's not a game of luck. 

I think I partly loved that story because I could relate to it. I never had weight trouble until I was put on mind altering medications for my Bipolar, and have since gotten both in check. However, I was always fatigued even though I had a hard time sleeping. My skin was terrible (acne, dry, and dull). My hair was growing in dull and gray and it was completely normal for me to color it to add some life to my face. And my adrenals were dependent on caffeine or else they would crash and burn and I could be bed ridden for weeks at a time. 

By transitioning to real food, you will give your body nourishment from real sources. Highly processed vegetable oils, preservatives, colorants, and sugars wreak havoc on your body, so the first step is to cut the crap. Literally. Life happens and it may be hard to follow sometimes, and I've been known to go outside of my regular standards when traveling and I don't have another option, but remember that every time you sacrifice quality because of a craving or convenience, it compromises your body's ability to heal and it makes it easier to continue making poor choices. 

The goal isn't to "get better" so you can go back to living the way you did before. At least, it shouldn't be. If it is, then maybe this isn't the right blog for you to be following. 

I want my body to be in good condition on its own. I don't want to be in a perpetual state of detoxing or fasting or to chronically need western medical care. Yes, someday I will die, but why would I torment myself to get there? I have a lot of incentive since part of the reason I am so rigid with my standards is because if I don't follow them, I risk the necessity of starting up my pharmaceutical medications again. While I think those medications were beneficial for me in the beginning, I feel I thrive more without them so long as my illness is kept in check. This is especially important since what keeps my mental issues at bay is my lifestyle habits, but eating well allows me to feel good enough to continue my lifestyle arrangements. 

Because if I feel fatigued from junk food, I'm less likely to do yoga or run, which have a calming effect on the brain and regulate brain activity and release endorphins which are proven to be near equally as therapeutic as pharmaceutical drugs for people who suffer with depression. 

If I am on my medication, I am less likely to play my violin, which is therapeutic in preventing manic and depressive swings, and in turn makes me more dependent on the drug.

If my home and body is filled with synthetic fragrances, aromatherapy methods with essential oils are less effective for me and this raises the chances of me using an anti anxiety medication in times of high stress. 

That's barely a snap shot, but you get the idea. 

I encourage you to look at your life and the things you struggle with. Even if it is considered "normal," but it bothers you and you feel like it compromises your quality of life, confidence, energy, or health. Try making some real food changes and just see what happens. It takes your body a few weeks to adjust and detox, and a few weeks more for your mind to create a new habit, but by this point most people see some changes, and if you don't? Was it really so terrible to push yourself and try something new? You can always edit down the road and adjust your path (I know I did), but that initial choice is the hardest hurdle to cross. 

"Holistic health practices are not about adding years to your life, but about adding life to your years."

What is Real Food?

I know I have been throwing out this term "real food" for you all week and you are probably wondering what the heck I am talking about.

What are the rules?

Well, that's kind of the secret. There aren't any cut and dry ones, because this is a lifestyle of learning how to identify nourishment for yourself, recognize what makes you feel better, adjust as needed, and become as detailed or vague as you want.

All of the "real food" dedicated enthusiasts I follow are dedicated to different things and each path is a little different.

• Some are focused on chronic illness control.
• Some are focused on family nourishment and child development. 
• Some are focused on saving money. 
• Some are focused on fertility. 
• Some are focused on cosmetic things like skin and weight. 

Because all paths are a little different, some people make everything from scratch, some supplement with natural cosmetic alternatives like shampoo, and some people will just buy whatever works for them in a grocery store so long as their intuition can identify it as a real food.

REAL FOOD

Think of some of the things you eat on a regular basis. Now, imagine eating nothing but what you could pick off of trees or hunt for your whole life and then being offered an air filled grain puff covered in orange dust for the first time. Would you identify that as a "real" food? Probably not.

(In case you missed what I was talking about. Cheese Puffs. They are not food.)

Real food is food that obviously offers nourishment to the body.

Some things get a little trickier when you've become accustomed to how normal they look. Like pretzels! If you are buying food products, not ingredients, be sure to read every ingredient. My own personal rule is that if I don't recognize or wouldn't eat an ingredient on the list individually, I won't buy the product either. This let's my intuition be the boss again because while cumin on its own may not taste delicious, it would not concern me to ingest alone. Xanthan gum, natural flavors, ascorbic acid, and carmel color on the other hand would make me think a little before putting it in my mouth. 

Save yourself the stress and if you are unsure of an individual ingredient, just put it back and find an alternative. And you will start to find that sometimes there are no alternatives. Your tastes will need to adjust to new things and you will need to get used to making more of the things you like in your own kitchen. 

Getting rid of things in your house that you wouldn't buy in the store currently under your new mindset is important. At the very least, set them aside in their own bin/cupboard/shelf and out of sight so that your kitchen is free from the distraction. 

Digging around items you don't want in your food creates stress and eating them to "use them up first" is discouraging mentally. Just give yourself a break and remove them from the picture.

Ultimately, follow your gut. You have a lot more skills in identifying what is real than you think you do. 

The the real secret is that the food industry needs you, but you don't need them.

Just start eating things that your instincts can identify as nourishment, and if you don't start feeling better or your progress stalls, you can always adjust down the road. I had to adjust my system many times and I am still learning a lot about the food system and the state of human health. 

If your wanting some more information (besides this blog of course) on real food and how to identify it, as well as big problems with the food system today, you need to pick up the book Eat the Yolks. Even if you don't think you care that much, you should read it. This is the book that put me in a tailspin toward my dedication to real food. It's written very well and it gave me the confidence to recognize what food is on my own. I've read it three times. You couldn't pay me to do that with most health focused books. 

Whether it's a book, keeping an illness in check, keeping your family healthy, curing a cavity, or loosing weight and feeling better, I encourage you to find what makes you passionate about real food. 

Fear Factor: Sugar

At the risk of sounding redundant, I'll try not to ramble too much about the damaging effects of sugar. Odds are, if you care a whit about health or have bothered listening to any health practitioner, you know that the health effects can be devastating.

In fact, the dangers of refined sugar are one of the things that pretty much all health practitioners, western doctors, diet systems, and real food advocates all agree on.

Run far, far away.

Fed Up is a film that I'm sure you've heard about, and although I've never seen it (it's on the list), I've heard great things about it. I know it goes into some detail about the dangerous addiction levels of sugar, and about how companies don't seem to care that consumers do not want this added to everything they eat.

Brain activity of rats on sugar and cocaine, without the labels they could be interchangable!

The image above should concern you. I know when I saw it I stood up, walked to my kitchen, and tossed all the condiments in my refrigerator that had sugar or corn syrup or high fructose corn syrup anywhere in the ingredient list. Yes, all of them. The ketchup, BBQ sauce, jam, pancake syrup--GONE!

What concerns me is that when people struggle with changing their diet, it feels like we have no will power or desire to make a change in our life. It makes me want to scream because it's not entirely your fault.

You are addicted to a mind altering substance that effects your brain the same way as cocaine. People get medical intervention and rehabilitation to recover from cocaine when they quit. The withdrawal symptoms are intense. They can be unbearable. Relapses are terrifyingly common.

It is also scary because refined sugars are added to so much food we eat, and the food industry doesn't seem to care, despite the never ending proof that sugar is dangerous.

Other than the fact that it is addicting, why is sugar so terrible?

Well, one reasons is because refined sugar (usually from sugar beets) is just empty calories that spike your blood sugar. Empty calories are a sure path to unnecessary weight gain and fatigue (since your body uses energy to deal with the sugar but doesn't receive anything for it's effort). Un ending blood sugar spikes put you at risk for insulin resistance which in turn, puts you at risk for diabetes.

Because your body uses energy and minerals and nutrients to deal with the sugar in your system via insulin, you can also become deficient in lots of necessary nutrients that your body should be able to use to do things like make your skin naturally glow so you don't need makeup or fight off that virus that is going around. Instead, it's just perpetually dealing with sugar and your brain isn't any help because it thinks it's on drugs. (Because it pretty much is).

It's like a bank that is constantly has withdrawals made without any deposits; eventually you will run out of what your body actually needs because you just keep depleting it by eating sugar.

Additctive. Causes weight gain. Contributes to diabetes. Depletes you of necessary nutrients. 

Now, go throw away your ketchup.

Myth Buster: Milk

COMMON MILK MYTHS

Milk is bad for you. Casein is a cancer protein. You need milk for strong bones! Pasteurization is for your safety and the safety of your children.

When you bring up the topic of milk, almost every health advocate of any kind has some pretty strong opinions about it. They all tend to disagree on the most basic points though, making it hard for the rest of us to decide.

Is it good for me? Is it going to give me cancer? Good god, if I quit drinking it aren't my bones going to be in terrible shape?

First off. Milk is not inherently bad for you. Like all foods, not all people can consume milk--even in its raw, whole food form. But that doesn't mean it should be condemned for everyone, when in fact, it can be a wonderfully nutrient dense option for the rest of us.

Most of the digestive problems people have with milk have to do with the extensive pasteurization, homogenization, and further processing which damages the integrity and nutritional value of the milk.

Pasteurization is the heat treatment of milk to kill bacteria to reduce the risk of food-borne illness. Milk is pasteurized at 161°F for 15 seconds for high temp pasteurization, and 145°F for 30 minutes for low temp pasteurization, and 280°F for 2 seconds for ultra-high temp pasteurization. 
Homogenization is the extraction of the fat content of the milk to then break down and replace what was removed with levels of zero fat (skim milk), 1%, 2%, and 3.5% (whole milk). This process is difficult to do for an individual in their home kitchen, and the basic reason for it is to sell/use the cream for things like butter. It is also used to create a more consistent taste and texture for the sales of milk and milk products. (Real milk or raw milk collects the fat on the top in a layer of fat and cream and should be shaken before using). 

Pasteurization is used today as a prevention against food-borne illness. This isn't so much out of protection for you as a consumer as it is to protect the food industry and the production of cheap, poor quality milk. 

The modern dairy cow is a freak of nature. It was inbred to produce more milk to produce more cash, and they are quite literally milked to death (by infection or slaughter). The milk is often contaminated with antibiotics given to the cow due to its poor health, and even puss from udder infections from things like severe mastitis from over milking and growth hormones. A lot of companies stopped using the growth hormone bGH, rbGH, or bST, but that doesn't mean that the cows producing that milk are more healthy because of it. Many companies have stopped using this product on their cows because the consumer cares. Labeling that they don't use this growth hormone is a marketing feature for the producer because the consumer purchases it. 

Pasteurization is a way of protecting the food industry from the poor treatment of these cows. Raw milk is not dangerous, but raw milk from abused animals that have been bred for unreasonably high milk production is full of nasties that you would not want to consume. It could make you very ill. 

Even with pasteurization, milk does still make people ill with food-borne illness. More people have become fatally ill from pasteurized milk than raw milk in the last 20 years. (Keeping in mind part of that has to do with the laws of numbers, more people drink pasteurized milk). An incident very recently was a listeria outbreak from certain Blue Bell Ice Cream flavors. 

Raw milk from a farmer taking care of traditional cow breeds (like Jersey cows) and using the appropriate sanitation methods can give you an unbelievably nutrient dense food whose nutritional makeup hasn't been compromised or destroyed by high heat levels and further processing. 

Real Milk is a great websight for finding raw milk from local farmers in your area if you are interested. The Untold Story of Milk is a book on the history of milk production in the modern world and while I haven't read it (yet), I have heard great things about it. 

Casein also isn't a "cancer causing protein." This is primarily quoted from the China Study due to an increased chance of cancer in rats who were given casein isolates. What not many people understand is that these rats were receiving an incredibly nutrient deficient and unbalanced diet for these tests, they were being fed synthetic isolates of these proteins which is harmful to any immune system no matter the type, and the integrity of it being true casein and not an entirely different or contaminated protein altogether is debatable. Also, the rats being given plant based proteins were not thriving and substantially healthier, they usually died only a few days later and were far more mentally unstable prior to death than the rats who ate casein. All the rats were sick. None were thriving. 

Oh. And casein is in breast milk. Meaning the optimal food for our health as infants when we are going through some of the most intense development of our life has this protein. I feel like this protein isn't out to get us but is maybe just being utilized poorly by unhealthy bodies. 

All the pro milk (real milk) cheering I've been doing doesn't mean milk is the only place to get these nutrients. It's just convenient and delicious. Calcium, vitamin D, magnesium, and other trace minerals can be found in other things like sunshine and green, leafy veggies. These are the nutrients that build strong bones. The reason milk can be so beneficial is because the cow has done the energy conversion for you from nutrient depleted soils (due to over working) which is useful if you have a compromised immune system, live in a cold climate, or just don't want to eat salad all the time. Milk is packaged with the nutrients that work together in your system. As someone who is a fan of convenience, it just works for me. That doesn't mean that if you don't drink milk you will suddenly break your ankle on your run from brittle bones. These nutrients are readily available in many foods and many diet options.

I buy raw milk from a farm. But I also sometimes buy yogurt made from pasteurized milk of grass fed cows and Kerrygold Butter (since raw milk sales are strict and limited). I used to buy Organic Valley's Grassmilk which is not homogenized but is pasteurized at low temp levels. After finding my system tolerated raw milk far better, I have (almost) entirely switched to only raw dairy. My dairy, pasteurized or raw, is always from healthy cows.

Ultimately, the decision is up to you. Drink milk. Or don't. Both can be food and both can be food-like products. 

Real Food Movement

I am passionate about real food, meaning food in its un-altered form--things that most people don't know what to look for anymore.

The obvious things to avoid are cookies, fair fries, and doughnuts, but what about organic chips and protein powder?

The food industry is a twisted mess that is trying to confuse us and the diet system isn't much better. Do you go vegan? Plant based? Paleo? Low carb? Atkins? WAPF?

Honestly, I don't adhere to a "diet" regime. Sure I love some plant based recipes and I find myself following a lot of Paleo and WAPF (Weston A. Price Foundation) standards, but I don't fall into anyone's legal system.

Why?

Because I believe in real food. I believe that consumed by a healthy digestive system, prepared correctly, eaten in reasonable amounts, with minimal processing, many foods can offer nourishment.

I believe in bread. Lard. Saturated fat. Dessert. Rice. Bacon. Kale. Coffee. Nuts. Sweet Potatoes. Beets. Collard greens.

The food system is so confusing that we have lost track of how to identify real foods. We've become so accustomed to purchasing our food in plastic bags that we have forgotten that the ingredients had to come from somewhere, and that that "somewhere" is less than ideal. The food industry wants you distanced from where your food comes from. They put health benefit advertisements on their packages, but most of them never want you to see where these products came from and how they were created.

Most of use have at some point or another been tired, fatigued, overweight, sluggish, caffeine dependent, sick, allergenic, and/or chronically ill.

This is simply because the cells your body reproduces are created from the nourishment you offer. You literally are what you eat.

I'll try to break down some myths about health and help with identification of what is real food and what is pretending to nourishment. I'll also talk about health outside of food, because I really do believe it is a lifestyle concept, not a diet plan.

Bottom line? Eat real food. Because you deserve the real thing. Not someone's science experiment in a box.