Battling the Food Conspiracy

You are what you eat.... Old saying, but I think it has a lot of meaning.

Before I start : I'm not going to pretend I'm one of these people that eats nothing but perfect food. In fact, I just ate some pretty crappy food before starting to make this post, but I am trying to cut down on it as much as I can, and at the same time learn more about food in general and the numerous problems we face with it.

Also, I don't know exactly why our food is so filled with gunk and harmful things, other than people trying to make more profit and being greedy. There's maybe several other reasons, but I'm not going into any of that because I don't want to make sensationalist claims that will probably derail the thread.

Mainly though, I just think many people in the food industry are greedy, selfish, and don't seem to care about their customers health very much at all, and I hope they all get their karma for it.




So here's a few things that can help those who don't know much about the many problems we have :



Acid/Alkaline Balance

Have you ever wondered if many of the diseases raging through our society have a common cause?

Many doctors, herbalists and nutritionists believe that the explanation may come down to these simple words: pH Imbalance

Restoring pH Balance in the Body

If you scroll down to the bottom of that page you'll see a chart that can help a lot. It separates the foods into Most Alkaline and Most Acid. Your body needs to maintain a balance between acid and alkaline for good health, and many of our modern day foods are too acidic.

This type of thing is really important and can help a lot if researched. Basically what many of us need to at least be doing for better health is finding those alkaline foods and eating more of them for balance. Meat for instance is supposed to be very acidic, vegetables alkaline.



Omega 6/3 Balance


Again, hugely important. Western diets have things badly imbalanced towards Omega 6. Vegetable oils play a big part in this, and they're crammed into tons of different foods. In this case finding good sources of Omega 3 is essential for some type of balance here.

This really freaked me out when I first read about it, mainly because there's a lot of seriously bad things that can happen if this balance is thrown out for too long.

Here's a couple of links that should help, but if you're bothered about this it's good to have a search around various sites for a bit to get a decent understanding of how the lack of balance here causes big problems.

Omega 3/6 Chart (notice the Flax Seeds here! ) : Omega 3 - Omega 6 Chart

Omega-3 - Alpha-Linolenic Acid (LNA) - is the essential fatty acid in shortest supply. According to experts, our current consumption of this fatty acid has shrunk to one sixth of 1850 levels. By comparison, our intake of omega 6 fatty acids has doubled since 1940. Excess intake of omega 6 can cause increased water retention, raised blood pressure and raised blood clotting.

Omega 6 and Omega 3 essential fatty acids are best consumed in a ratio of about 3:1 - three omega 6 for one omega 3. Most Western diets range between 10 and 20 to 1 in favor of omega 6, which is not good for health. Although we need more omega 6, we eat too much of it and not enough omega 3 fat.

Omega 3 Fats & Oils

Finally :



Omega-3 and Omega-6 Content of Various Oils


Vitamins and Minerals


Vitamins, fairly easy to keep track of, minerals I think is more difficult because there's a lot of them, and to be honest this is something I need to research a decent bit more. One thing that can help here though is to use a site like this : The World's Healthiest Foods

If you really get interested in what you're eating, especially things like vegetables, you can just type "whfoods [food name]" in a decent search engine as you wonder about various foods, and you'll have a page for it. Then you can scroll down to a chart the site has for each food and see the list of its vitamins and minerals.

The other great thing about this site is that it usually has a lot of other written info as well as the charts. So to give a few examples, here's the charts of a few great vegetables. Check the amount of vitamins and minerals here :





Broccoli





Carrots





Asparagus



And for you sprout haters, check this!



Brussel Sprouts


Honestly though, have a good research into this if you're interested, it'll help a lot.



More next post :

Things you should probably avoid + extra info :



Modified Foods


Well this shouldn't be hard, right? The effects of these modified foods on people haven't even been tested properly over generations, because they've not been around that long! So I really shouldn't have to add anything else at all here.

One thing I will add though is a simple thing : if you check your tinned/canned foods for "Modified Starch" you'll see that crap all over the place. In fact you'll probably have a hard time finding a tin where's it's NOT in it. When I started becoming aware of this it really badly wound me up, and I still regularly swear to myself when checking the ingredients of several tinned foods.

So sorry, onto the simple thing : if you eat baked beans a lot, (the ones coated in "juice" but what I simply call "gunk." A mixture of refined sugar, modified starch, and other disgusting stuff.) get yourself a sieve, pour the whole tin into it, then run some water over it for a while until you've washed the "gunk" away. Then get yourself some canned/tinned tomatoes, put them in a jug/container/whatever and pour all the beans in. Then you simply have some "real" tomato "juice" to eat your beans with.

Of course, it's not rocket science, but it's quick and you save your body the hassle of dealing with the "gunk" each time you have tinned/canned beans.



Refined Sugar, Fructose, Aspartame, etc.


Well this stuff is just messed up. In many cases it shouldn't even be allowed really because it's just basically nasty, harmful, horrible stuff. Yeah you can enjoy your sweet foods, but you can be assured your body isn't enjoying dealing with it when you're done.

You should really research this because it can't be pointed out enough how many problems it causes your body, and how often it's put into all types of foods and drinks. In fact here's a quote from the first link :

Refined sugar is void of all nutrients, consequently it causes the body to deplete its own stores of various vitamins, minerals and enzymes. If sugar consumption is continued, an over-acid condition results, and more minerals are needed from deep in the body to correct the imbalance. If the body is lacking the nutrients used to metabolize sugar, it will not be able to properly handle and rid itself of the poisonous residues.

These wastes accumulate through the brain and nervous system, which speeds up cellular death. The bloodstream becomes over-loaded with waste products and symptoms of carbonic poisoning result.

The Hidden Story of Big Sugar

Still want that "chocolate" bar? Or even that can of Coke or Pepsi, maybe?


For Fructose there's already a thread here : High Fructose Corn Syrup is killing all of us

For Aspartame : Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener

There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption. It seems surreal, but true. How can one chemical create such chaos?

Aspartame dissolves into solution and can therefore travel throughout the body and deposit within any tissue. The body digests aspartame unlike saccharin, which does not break down within humans.

The multitude of aspartame side effects are indicative to your genetic individuality and physical weaknesses. It is important to put two and two together, nonetheless, and identify which side effects aspartame is creating within you.

Aspartame Side Effects



Polluted Meat


Personally I'm trying to cut down on meat. I don't think it's good for you if eaten too much, or maybe even at all. Especially with the amounts of fat and acidic content it usually has. Mainly though I just don't like eating Animals and never properly enjoy meat any more. But I'm not stoking the meat vs veggie people war in here, so I'm just adding this :

In 2005, 32.5 million cattle were slaughtered to provide beef for US consumers. Scientists believe about two-thirds of American cattle raised in for slaughter today are injected with hormones to make them grow faster, and America’s dairy cows are given a genetically-engineered hormone called rBGH to increase milk production. These measures mean higher profits for the beef and dairy industries, but what does it mean for consumers? Although the USDA and FDA claim these hormones are safe, there is growing concern that hormone residues in meat and milk might be harmful to human health and the environment.

What's in the Beef?

According to the European Union’s Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures Relating to Public Health, the use of six natural and artificial growth hormones in beef production poses a potential risk to human health. These six hormones include three which are naturally occurring—Oestradiol, Progesterone and Testosterone—and three which are synthetic—Zeranol, Trenbolone, and Melengestrol. The Committee also questioned whether hormone residues in the meat of "growth enhanced" animals and can disrupt human hormone balance, causing developmental problems, interfering with the reproductive system, and even leading to the development of breast, prostate or colon cancer.

Artificial Hormones



A few more things to finish :

Vitamin B17 :

Vitamin B17 appears in abundance in untamed nature. Because B17 is bitter to the taste, in man's attempt to improve tastes and flavors for his own pleasure, he has eliminated bitter substances like B17 by selection and cross-breeding. It can be stated as a general rule that many of the foods that have been domesticated still contain the vitamin B17 in that part not eaten by modem man, such as the seeds in apricots. Listed below is an evaluation of some of the more common foods.

Foods Containing B17 (Nitrilosides)


Vitamin B12 for Vegans and Vegetarians (especially those new to not eating meat/eating less meat.) :

Vitamin B12 is needed for cell division and blood formation. Neither plants nor animals make vitamin B12. Bacteria are responsible for producing vitamin B12. Animals get their vitamin B12 from eating foods contaminated with vitamin B12 and then the animal becomes a source of vitamin B12. Plant foods do not contain vitamin B12 except when they are contaminated by microorganisms or have vitamin B12 added to them. Thus, vegans need to look to fortified foods or supplements to get vitamin B12 in their diet. Although recommendations for vitamin B12 are very small, a vitamin B12 deficiency is a very serious problem leading ultimately to anemia and irreversible nerve damage.

Vitamin B12 in the Vegan Diet

Vitamin B12 for the Vegetarian


Energy :

Like fuel for a car, the energy we need has to be blended. The blend that we require is as follows:

57% Carbohydrates (sugar, sweets, bread, cakes)
30% Fats (dairy products, oil)
13% Protein (eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish)

The energy yield per gram is as follows: Carbohydrate - 4 Calories, Fats - 9 Calories and Protein - 4 Calories.

Nutrition - Fat, Protein and Carbohydrates


Enzymes :

All things living require enzymes. The human body contains 1,300 different enzymes, which carry out a wide variety of functions such as breaking down food and fats, rebuilding cells, blood purification, colon cleansing, cholesterol management and protecting the body from disease. Enzymes are often the unsung heroes in protecting the body from disease and poor health. Many health problems which are attributed to other causes can be traced back to digestive problems and food which is improperly digested.

The Health Benefits of Enzymes


Raw Foods and Enzymes :

Once enzymes are exposed to heat, they are no longer able to provide the function for which they were designed. Cooked foods contribute to chronic illness, because their enzyme content is damaged and thus requires us to make our own enzymes to process the food. The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. In general, raw food is so much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.

Raw Foods and Enzymes

reply to post by robhines


Nice thread, I was considering making one about food and medicine

Originally posted by SonofLeod
reply to post by robhines

 

Nice thread, I was considering making one about food and medicine

Awesome, hope you do!

For those that don't know about it, Spirulina is truly amazing. Heard about it recently and have just got some. Here's some info, but check the page if you want to know more, because there's a lot more to it :

The blue-green algae, and Spirulina in particular, have a primitive structure with few starch storage cells and cell membrane proliferation, but rich amounts of ribosomes, the cellular bodies that manufacture protein. This particular arrangement of cellular components allows for rapid photosynthesis and formation of proteins. The lack of hard cellular walls assures that Spirulina protein is rapidly and easily assimilated by consuming organisms.

Spirulina is approximately 65 to 71 percent protein, depending on growing conditions. These proteins are biologically complete, which means they provide all eight essential amino acids in the proper ratios. Furthermore, spirulina provides all the required amino acids in a form that is easier to digest than meat or soy protein.

Spirulina's Nutritional Analysis

Edit : one more quick note for Veggies/Vegans.

B12 : The most difficult of all vitamins to obtain from vegetable sources. Spirulina is extremely rich in this rare vitamin, containing 250 percent more than beef liver, previously thought to be nature's richest source