Toxic Food in Your Diet
In this New York Times article,and in his book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, journalist Michael Pollan shares a simple manifesto: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Why should we be advised to “eat food?” Because, he says, most of what we consume today is not food. Instead, we are consuming “edible foodlike substances” - no longer the product of nature but of food science. These toxic food substances contain many ingredients that are known carcinogens (cancer causing) and neurotoxins (toxic to the brain). It’s interesting to note that many of these additives, which are popular in colorful kids’ foods and convenient packaged foods, have been banned in European countries.
The Modern Industrial Food SupplyDo you find it hard to believe that any western government, including those in the US and Canada, would allow this toxic food into our food supply and encourage us to feed it to our children? As hard as it is to believe, it’s true. Powerful corporate interests and food industry lobbyists have gone so far as to rewrite nutritional findings and the resulting governmental recommendations – you can read about this in the New York Times article, in Pollan's book, and other news sources such as NaturalNews.com.To protect your health and prevent diseases, it’s essential that you take responsibility for your own health by being an informed consumer. Of course, this may not be as easy as it sounds. Companies who market toxic food offer a wide array of fake foods touting health claims on their packaging. Pollan suggests that if a food product is labeled with a health claim (all-natural, healthy, low fat) it’s a good indication that it’s not real food. Shelf life can be another indication of fake food. The World Famous Burger Museum, inspiration for the Bionic Burger movie, reveals the true story of a man who created a burger museum after accidently leaving a Big Mac in his coat pocket for one year. His collection of burgers has lasted two decades retaining their original look and smell. What did he do to preserve them? Nothing – they are already made of immortal chemicals – “chemicals that create the illusion of food." You may also be surprised to find out that many of the popular foodlike items on supermarket shelves include petroleum based ingredients. When author Steve Ettlinger’s daughter asked him “Where does Polysorbate 60 come from, Daddy?” he decided to find out. He discovered that Polysorbate 60 is a gooey mix made of corn, palm oil and petroleum that can’t spoil and now replaces dairy products in Twinkies and other processed foods. To discover the true origins of each ingredient on the Twinkie label and take a peek into the major industrial complex that supports our food supply, read his book Twinkie, Deconstructed.
Fake Foods are not meant for Real People…Here is a list of the cocktail soup we can commonly find in processed toxic food:
Go Organic for your organs…Pesticides are designed to kill living things. They do this job very well in the fields and in your body. Ingesting these toxic chemicals in your daily diet can lead to many forms of cancer and neurological damage.“More than 20% of the pesticides currently registered in the U.S. are linked to cancer, birth defects, developmental harm, or central nervous system damage.” Gabriel Cousens, M.D., Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine Since the industrialization of agriculture in the 1950s, U.S. Farmers have been steadily increasing their pesticide usage year after year. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, as quoted by ABC News, about 1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the United States every year. And scientists with the Environmental Working Group Study have documented nearly 300 industrial chemicals in U.S. babies at birth. The neurotoxins in pesticides have a huge impact on learning ability and behavior in children. Try replacing your child’s conventional toxic food diet with organic foods and you will see a dramatic improvement in behavior, attention and comprehension. Or try it on yourself and notice your memory improve and your concentration come back.
Animal foods deliver an added punch…If you eat animal products (like meat, eggs, milk, ice cream, butter and cheese) you may want to know what comes along with them. Conventional livestock comes into contact with many chemicals to become toxic food on your plate. Administered hormones and antibiotics as well as non organic feed and contaminated grazing ground feeds them high doses of their own toxic food. In order to protect themselves, animals store those chemicals in their fat, increasing their concentration. When you eat the meat, eggs, milk, and cheese that come from those animals you consume a highly concentrated dose of that animal’s accumulated toxins.Animals raised for milk and meat production are given high doses of powerful growth hormones to make them grow bigger and produce more than they could naturally. These hormones are strong drugs and are illegal for people to buy over-the-counter. Yet every time you eat conventional animal products you get a generous dose of these drugs that weren’t prescribed to you. Consuming hormone-laced animal products disturbs the delicate balance of hormones in your body that control your endocrine system, sex organs and brain. Some of the most aggressive and deadly forms of cancer (such as breast, prostate and ovarian) are driven by these elevated hormone levels. Other abnormal hormonal conditions, such as the early onset of menstruation in young girls, PMS, fertility issues, and menopause symptoms may also be caused by hormones from toxic food. “The hormones in meat-based diets are also blamed for the early sexual development of young girls in the Western world - nearly half of all African-American girls and 15 percent of their white peers now enter puberty at the age of 8.”
Becky Gillette, Premature puberty... The toxins that make you sick don't just come from your food. Read on to learn about the toxins in your environment and how you can reduce your exposure to them. Your customized detox diet will help you gently clear out these toxins and get you going on the path of good clean health.
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What do we mean by toxic food?
