I.      THE DIGESTIVE SYSTEM

A.    POINT ONE: When you eat, put anything in your mouth, your body attempts to identify and classify the substance into categories: protein, fiber, carbohydrate, fat, etc. If it can’t identify the substance as a necessary helpful nutrient, it sees it as poison or harmful to the body and seeks to contain it and eliminate it from the body. Unfortunately, in the Standard American Diet (SAD), most of our food is processed (canned, jarred, chemically altered, etc.) to the point that it is no longer recognizable to the body as food and is then treated as poison, something potentially harmful to the body requiring isolation and immediate elimination. Below is a discussion of what some these harmful substances show up as in our grocery carts:

1)     PRESERVATIVES: Preservatives are a type of additive used to help stop food from spoiling. Nitrates and nitrites are used to preserve meats such as ham and bacon, but are known to cause asthma, nausea, vomiting, and headaches in some people. In addition to allergic reactions, the same is true for sulfites (sulfur dioxide, metabisulfites, and others), which are commonly used to prevent fungal spoilage, as well as the browning of peeled fruits and vegetables.  Sodium nitrite in some foods is capable of being converted to nitrous acid when ingested by humans. While animal testing showed that nitrous acid caused high rates of cancer, it is still in use. Benzoic acid aka sodium benzoate is added to margarine, fruit juices, and carbonated beverages. It can produce severe allergic reaction and even death in some people. Sulfur dioxide is a toxin used in dried fruits and molasses as well as to prevent brown spots on peeled fresh foods such as potatoes and apples. Sulfur dioxide bleaches out rot, hiding inferior fruits and vegetables. In the process, it destroys the vitamin B contained in produce.

2)     PROCESSED, JUNK, AND FAKE FOODS: Processed food is made from real food that has been put through devitalizing chemical processes and is infused with chemicals and preservatives. Beef jerky, canned tea, jam, hot dogs, and low-fat yogurt with sugar or aspartame are a few examples of processed food. Junk foods contain very little real food. They're made of devitalized processed food, hydrogenated fats, chemicals, and preservatives, and include anything made with refined white flour. Canned breakfast drinks, cold/sugary cereals, doughnuts, drive-through foods, and soda are examples of junk foods. Fake foods are made primarily of chemicals, and often contain gums and sugar fillers. Examples include bacon bits, bottled salad dressing, dehydrated soups, and instant coffee. These are not real food! All of these have something in common: Energy Output > Exceeds Nutritional Input: These non-foods have one thing in common; it costs your body a great deal more to digest, absorb, and eliminate them than they offer your body in nutritional value – an extremely poor return on your investment that leaves your body sluggish and depleted.

3)     COLORING: Each year, the American food industry uses three thousand tons of food color. Many coloring agents are derived from coal tar, and nearly all coloring is synthetic. Norway has a total ban on all products containing coal tar. Though some artificial food dyes have been banned because they are believed to cause cancer, most dyes used today are of the artificial variety. They are also linked to allergies, asthmas, and hyperactivity. The long list of foods and beverages in which color is altered includes butter, margarine, the skins of oranges, lemons and potatoes, popcorn, maraschino cherries, hot dogs, jellies, jellybeans, carbonated beverages, canned strawberries and peas. Even the chicken feed on large-scale egg farms is colored so that chickens will lay golden-yolked eggs similar to those laid by free-range chickens. Talk about the goose that laid the golden egg!

4)     SWEETENERS: Most processed foods contain sweeteners, many of which are artificial sugar substitutes containing no natural sugars, such as saccharine and aspartame. Artificial sweeteners are linked to behavioral problems, hyperactivity, and allergies. Because saccharin was shown to increase the incidence of bladder cancer in animal testing, all foods containing this sugar substitute are required to carry a warning label. Try this experiment: sprinkle an ant trail with an artificial sweetener and see what happens.

5)     EMULSIFIERS, STABILIZERS, AND THICKENERS: These additives alter the texture of foods. Emulsifiers, for example, prevent ingredients from separating into unappealing globs in food such as mayonnaise and ice cream. A first cousin to anti-freeze, propylene glycol is a synthetic solvent used as an emulsifier in foods. Although it is recognized as toxic to the skin and other senses, and is considered a neurological toxicant, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has deemed it generally recognized as safe (GRAS).

6)     FLAVORINGS: The most common food additive, flavorings – of which there are over 2000 in use – may be natural or artificial, and are usually comprised of a large number of chemicals. Artificial flavors are linked to allergic and behavioral reactions, yet these ingredients are not required to be listed in detail as they're generally recognized as safe. So check your labels for the catch all “Artificial or Natural Flavoring(s)”. MSG (monosodium glutamate) is another popular flavor enhancer. Found to cause damage in laboratory mice, it has been banned from use in baby foods, but is still used in numerous others. It causes common allergic and behavioral reactions including headaches, dizziness, chest pains, depression, and mood swings, and is also a possible neurotoxin. Also for all you Accent seasoning users, this is 100% MSG – it’s the ONLY ingredient on the label.

7)     AVOID THE WHITE DEATH: The term “White Death” originally referred to refined, white sugar but is now widely applied to all refined, bleached foods. Refining Destroys and Devitalizes Most of Foods' Goodness: Refined flour has had the brown husk of the grain stripped away, leaving the white, refined starch found in white bread, white rice, pasta, cookies, and numerous other junk foods. Without the fibrous husk, refined starches are broken down quickly into sugar and absorbed immediately into the bloodstream causing glucose levels to rise, and increasing the risk of obesity.  In contrast, whole grains – such as whole grain bread and cereals, brown rice, and barley – retain the bran surrounding the starch, so they're absorbed more slowly into the bloodstream than refined starches. This slows sugar absorption from the intestine, and reduces the risk of obesity. Healthy unsaturated fatty acids – high in food value – are lost during the milling process. Half the vitamin E is destroyed when the wheat germ and bran are removed. Refining wheat into white flour removes between 50 and 93 percent of wheat's magnesium, zinc, chromium, manganese, and cobalt. Additionally, approximately 50 percent of calcium, 70 percent of phosphorus, 80 percent iron, 50 percent potassium, 65 percent of copper, 80 percent thiamin, 60 percent of riboflavin, 75 percent of niacin, 50 percent of pantothenic acid, and about 50 percent of pyridoxine is lost. Refining sugar cane into white sugar depletes it of 99 percent of its magnesium and 93 percent of its chromium. Polishing rice removes 75 percent of its zinc and chromium. Refined table salt has had most of the trace minerals removed during processing. It contains no sodium chloride, sugar as filler, and may even contain aluminum.

Bleaching: Part of the process wheat undergoes to become the white flour in popular baked goods involves bleaching. Various chemical bleaching agents are used including oxide of nitrogen, chlorine, chloride, nitrosyl, and benzoyl peroxide mixed with a variety of chemical salts. Chloride oxide – which catalyzes a chemical reaction that destroys beta cells in the pancreas – is now being linked to diabetes. This toxic effect is common scientific knowledge in the research community. In spite of this, the FDA still allows companies to use chloride oxide in processed food.

B.    TIP ONE: As much as possible, stop putting anything in your mouth that your body (minus our taste buds which think everything tasty is groovy!) treats as poison.

1)     The Stop List: It goes without saying to avoid the items listed above as much as possible.  Become a label reader! As a general rule, if you don't recognize – or can't pronounce – the words on a label, don't buy it, or eat it. Avoid products with a long shelf life – the better they do on the shelf, the worse they are for your body. Avoid products that have been enriched. They have been completely devitalized during processing. Avoid food that has been genetically modified or engineered (this includes nearly all processed food).

2)     The Do List: So, in addition to the “stop” list just mentioned, work on the “do” list. This means eating as much fresh, organically grown fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes (a simple dry fruit often referred to as a pod including alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, and peanuts), raw nuts and seeds, sea algae (green food) and good oils (especially essential fatty acids: seed, nut, and fish oils) as possible.

3)     Baby Steps: The important thing to remember (and I will repeat this time and again) is that this is a journey which is walked one step at a time. Don’t try to tackle/change every bad habit all at once. Maybe start with one item on the stop list and try one item on the do list. It might take some time to master whatever one thing you choose but that’s OK! After a month/week/day – however long it takes you – you may feel comfortable attempting more.

4)     Supplement: One step you can incorporate immediately that will go a long way is taking a good multi vitamin/mineral supplement. This will help your body get what it needs as you work on increasing the foods that will nourish you without supplementation.

5)     Enzymes: Another step to try if you haven’t switched completely to eating only live foods (foods that can still be planted and will grow) is to take food enzymes. This is the live portion of many foods that is stripped away in processing or destroyed in over cooking. Enzymes are widely available at general grocery and health food stores.