Cha-Cha-Cha-Changes… (oh, that was the 70’s – and you had to be there...oh, never mind)


The Big Three Major Diet Changes that will Alter Your Body and Probably make you Loose Weight, Too.

I really believe that God designed our bodies to protect us from disease, create all the energy we need, and even store reserves for emergencies. If we eat well and our environments are clean, our immune systems usually do a pretty good job of protecting us from diseases as well as systematically work toward self-healing, replenishing and rebuilding.


Rule of thumb - if you can’t understand the “laboratory tech-talk” on the label it is probably not good for your body.

Lets Get Real - The main mission of most large food corporations is not your health and healing; it is the bottom line - profit. Most food corporations assign a primary mandate to their food development departments that their products have 1. maximum shelf life and 2. maximum taste thrill in order to achieve the greatest profit margin. They accomplish this with long lasting product and repeat purchases. Many companies justify peddling their health damaging fun foods by telling themselves they are "just giving the public what it wants". Few have the goal of your optimum health and healing in mind.

Our friend, Dr. Josh Axe of Maximized Living here in Nashville, Tennessee advises us to make three major healthy changes in our diets.

They are:

1. Replace the bad fats with good fats
2. Change the meat we eat
3. Remove refined Sugars

1. Replacing the bad fats with good fats – Why? Good fats are essential to hormone production, cancer prevention, brain development, weight loss, cellular healing and anti-inflammation. Hydrogenated, partially hydrogenated oils, trans-fats, and rancid vegetable oils are connected with inflammation which is the root cause of heart disease, cancer, and stroke, as well as other inflammatory health issues.

No-No’s – Hydrogenated and Partially Hydrogenated oils like cottonseed oil, soybean oil, and vegetable oils (yes, vegetable oil like canola which quickly turns rancid. This really surprised me because I always thought it was a “healthy oil”! ) – This change alone will help you loose weight because almost every bread, cracker, cookie, and boxed food on the market is filled with this stuff.

Good Fats: Cold Water fish, olive oil (not heated), olives, avocado, coconut milk, unrefined coconut oil, coconut flakes, grape seed oil, full fat plain yogurt, cod-liver oil, krill oil, canned sardines, flax seed oil, butter, hemp oil, almond butter, raw (unpasteurized) cheese, eggs, cashew butter.

I cook in a taste-less, cold pressed coconut oil or grape seed oil (cheapest at Trader Joe’s Grocery Store). Good fats can become bad when you cook with them so when cooking with high heat – use only coconut oil or grape seed oil. Olive oil becomes a bad fat when heated above 120°.

2. Changing the meats you eat – Why? When an animal that was designed to eat grass is given a grain diet to fatten it up for the market, (remember the “This little piggy” toe song?) it changes the fatty acid ratios and denatures the good fats which when eaten causes imbalances in our bodies. Also the commercial pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and hormones in meats are higher than any vegetable we eat.

Replace with: grass fed, free range meats. Also, eat more veggies than meat – sorry guys and Dr. Atkins – that diet is not healthy. A good rule of thumb for meats is to buy locally raised organic meats when possible. You can find a local farmer through Local Harvest - www.localharvest.org - plus buying locally will help support community agriculture and keep farmers (your neighbors) in business.

3. The Biggie – Replacing Refined sugars - Notice the key word in the article title is change - not eliminate. If you tell a chocoholic like me or the ordinary American sugar addict that we can no longer have sugar – well we just can’t/won’t do it. That is what an addiction is – something that we became a slave to. Some of us can’t shake it even if threatened by a miserable disease.

Why replace the sugar? You know most of the reasons, but some important ones are sugar:

• Suppress the immune system-this means you are more prone to all kinds of nasty energy and quality of life stealing diseases because your body’s ability to fight them off is weakened
  
  
• Makes your body acidic- Your body needs to be balanced or on the alkaline side because cancer grows in an acidic environments not alkaline ones.


• Causes a loss of tissue elasticity – that means it makes you start to look older than Granny Clampett.
  
  
• Stresses out your (Irreplaceable) pancreas
  
  
• Spikes your insulin production – so what? I can handle the highs and lows. Well…that’s not all…
• Raises Insulin levels:
  
  
• Causes rapid weight gain – (The good news is we no longer have to buy a ticket to see the fat lady at the freak show)
  
  
• Depletes you vitamin and mineral storage- Refined Sugar is an anti-nutrient it contains no vitamins or minerals (empty calorie) so in order for sugar to be metabolized it must tap the body’s reserve of vitamins and minerals. That means “five-a-day” turns into fifteen-a-day to make up for the sugar that is taxing your supply
  
  
• Increases bad cholesterol - A depletion of vitamins and minerals impairs the metabolization of cholesterol and fatty acids, contributing to higher blood serum triglycerides, cholesterol – translation: Doctors tell us this increases chances of heart problems and stoke
  And on and on and on...

So, what’s an addict to do?

Stevia is a 100% natural, Calorie Free, Sugar Free, sweetener – and a lot of people like it. It is also suitable to bake with. I don’t care for it because it has a bitter after taste to me. Trader Joe’s Grocery store has a brand they sell in packets that is a blend of Stevia and maltodextrin (a product derived from starch) which is the best I have tried. If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s and are desperate enough to pay for packing and shipping I will buy some from my Trader Joe's and mail it to you. NuNaturals Stevia is another good brand available at most Whole Foods markets.

*Maple Syrup- Grade A- light, mild, and more delicate maple flavor. This is the best grade for making maple candy and maple cream. It is the most popular grade sold because it’s closest to the artificial supermarket pancake syrup we grew up with.
Grade B- is sometimes called Cooking Syrup, is made later in the season. It is darker, with a strong maple and caramel flavor. Although some people use this for table syrup it's often used for cooking, baking and as a flavoring agent. Grade B less-widely-available but many enjoy more pronounced maple taste and use it as a part of a seasonal cleansing fast.

*Honey- Local and raw is the best. It is thought that honey derived from local flowers helps reduce seasonal allergies.

Fruit sugars like date sugar – watch out for the calories.

*Warning: High GI foods such as refined sugar, honey, maple syrup and corn syrup require little processing by your digestive system so if the body does not hand an immediate need for the energy, it stores that energy as fat.

Drum roll please…
My all time favorite sweetener and healthy sugar substitute is….and I love it so much that I sell it on my web site…

Agave – pronounced (Uh-gah-vay) is an all natural, low glycemic, plant juice that is sweeter than sugar. It looks like bottled honey, except not as thick. It is organic and kosher. It is even diabetic user friendly because it is low glycemic.

To be continued… Tomorrow, I will tell you more about this wonderful product, Agave.