Getting Started: Nutrition Baby Steps

Garbage In - Garbage Out

The biggest contributing factor to health is what you eat. I believe most of us are aware by now that the food industry does NOT have our best interest in mind.

 IF YOU WANT TO TRANSFORM YOUR HEALTH, TRANSFORM YOUR DIET!

 Excuses for not Eating Well and Rebuttals

1. Cost

·       Ounce for ounce, chips cost more than the most expensive organic fruit.

·       Choose to eat good food now with hopes of lower medical bills in the future,

increased quality of life and enjoying the taste of real food.

·       Eating healthy is not an expense.  It’s an investment!

2. Time and Convenience

·       As with any new habit, new routines emerge with practice.

·       Batch cook.  Sunday is a good day to prepare food for the week ahead.

·       Use a meal plan. “Fail to plan; plan to fail.”

3. Family Preference

·       Taste buds regenerate every 24 hours to 10 days.

·       If you don’t buy it, they probably won’t be able to eat it - or at least not as much!

 Baby Steps - Choose just one to work on this month.

 Use WHOLE FAT dairy. Stop buying “reduced fat” anything. Without fat your body

cannot properly digest vitamins and minerals.

 Reduce your consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Read labels, it is in

everything that is packaged. Use real maple syrup.

 Eliminate and avoid genetically modified organisms (GMOs, or engineered foods). As much as

95% of corn and soy is genetically modified, both grains are in practically everything.  If labeled organic, it cannot be a GMO.

 Eliminate soy (protein bars, shakes, Soy Milk)

- feminizes boys with phytoestrogens, diminishes sperm count, grow “man-boobs”

- phytic acid: blocks absorption of calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and especially zinc

- isoflavones: block thyroid function and cause endocrine disruption

- lectins: irritating to the gastrointestinal tract

- oxalates: high levels can cause kidney stones

Learn to make one new thing from scratch.

·       Make your own salad dressing: equal parts of olive oil and acid (flavored vinegar,

lemon, lime, or orange juice.) Add fresh or dried herbs, and honey, if needed.

 ·       Replace popcorn (made in coconut oil or butter) for chips. It is much cheaper!

 Use the whole chicken; not just the boneless, skinless breasts. It’s cheaper and the bones make a very nutritious broth.

- To roast a chicken: if thawed, place chicken in crock pot, naked, on high about 4

hours. Meat will fall off the bones. It’s that simple.

- To make broth: toss bones into crock pot, add 2 T any kind vinegar, cover with cold

water. Cook on low at least 8 hours, up to 48. Strain - then freeze in bags, 2 or 4 cup

quantities. Homemade broth is a superfood (trace minerals and healing).

 Start at the top of the food chain.

- Buy meat locally. Animals raised in confined settings, like feed lots, are given routine

antibiotics, whether they need it or not. These antibiotics are stored in their muscle

and fat. Animals in feed lots are given GMO corn and soy and would die in 6 months

on this diet. Animals are meant to be on pasture, not given grains exclusively.

- Switch to organic dairy (not ultra-pasteurized).

 Buy pastured eggs from a farmer.  If you don’t have access to farm-fresh eggs, buy organic.

 Buy natural, organic peanut butter or use organic Almond butter. Regular peanut butter is full of hydrogenated oils, which are horrible for health. There is no added sugar in natural nut butters.

 Limit or eliminate boxed cereal. There is no such thing as a “healthy” dry cereal.  Even those marketed as “natural” or “organic”. 

 In his book Fighting the Food Giants, Paul Stitt tells us that the extrusion process

used for these cereals destroys most of the nutrients in the grains. It destroys the

fatty acids; it even destroys the chemical vitamins that are added at the end. The amino

acids are rendered very toxic by this process. The amino acid lysine, a crucial nutrient,

is especially denatured by extrusion. This is how all the boxed cereals are made, even

the ones sold in the health food stores. They are all made in the same way and mostly

in the same factories. All dry cereals that come in boxes are extruded cereals.

 Use unrefined sea salt. Iodine in table salt is not readily assimilated into your blood

stream.

 Add a probiotic to your diet such as yogurt (full fat!), kefir, homemade sauerkraut,

kombucha. The presence of beneficial bacteria in your gut will protect you from a myriad

of ills.

 Watch the documentary, Food, Inc.