FOODS THAT HARM OR THAT HEAL
I remember being stunned to learn that 95% of all diseases are caused by toxicity! Chronic diseases, the majority of them are produced by our food choices, toxic food ingredients, nutritional deficiencies and lack of exercise. Health pioneers dating back to the 1940’s states that toxemia – is the primary cause.
Dr J.H, Tilden MD, Dr Henry G. Bieler, Dr George S. Weger, and Dr Bernard Jensen. Toxins in our world that are burdening and suppressing our bodies into disease and ill-health. These are abundantly around us and come in a wide variety of sources, some we eat, some we absorb, others are inhaled, and while we create others internally in our digestive system.
At Avena Originals, we believe in promoting a lifestyle with high raw and living whole foods, free from all those extra additives to support health and vitality instead of weighing you down!
We know that through this lifestyle there’s a noticeable difference in how we look, think and feel when we’re fueled by a premium, clean sources of food. Let’s break this down a bit and discuss a source of toxicity most of us are voluntarily consuming. Often without any idea of the severity of potential effects from these hidden dangers, also known as food additives.
WHAT ARE FOOD ADDITIVES?
These are ingredients added to food for processing and refining to achieve a wide variety of purposes. Some of these can be as simple as beets to colour pasta red; maybe it is Vitamin C to help the food spoil slower and prevent it from caking or separating. While other food additives far more dangerous, with the vast majority of these geared towards your food experience. Food manufacturers aim to provide the best encounter when consuming their foods; this has a higher priority than the quality of their food products. It’s greater because they want you to choose them the next time, and the time after that. Manufactures feel we won’t buy their products without the addition of some very questionable ingredients.
A typical example that you may recognise is emulsifiers; used in salad dressings, they prevent the oil from separating so you won’t have to shake it before using, or avoiding the oil in your peanut butter rising to the top. Others have processed food or invented it to the point it no longer is appealing to taste buds, so they add in flavour packs, vivid colours or MSG. You can find lubricants, chemicals, and a wide array of additives that may gross you right out.
The problem is being left uninformed, (somewhat intentionally by the manufacturers) of these additives prevents us from making the educated decisions on what is best for ourselves and our families. The blame doesn’t just rest on the food producer shoulders; after all, they are seeking to deliver what we as consumers want. Wax covered fruits are purchased 5:1 over unwaxed fruits. Just like packaged foods with future expiry dates are often chosen over products with close expiry dates.
By using food additives, manufacturers can speed up production, have their products last longer, and provide us with a greater “consumer experience” by giving us the desire for shiny and unblemished apples, flavour rich soups, and non-perishable foodstuff that lasts in our cupboards for many weeks or years. Sometimes the hidden cost of these items are prices we pay for these ‘experiences’, and unfortunately I believe with are sacrificing and paying with our health!
BLIND TRUST IN FOOD MANUFACTURING
I often ask the question, how did we get to this point? After several conversations with people, I concluded that when the radical industrialisation of our food supply came two primary viewpoints seemed to keep coming up.
1) That food manufacturer was still producing quality wholesome food, and they had our health at the highest priority. (Think of home cooking, fresh is best, then of Campbell’s ‘Homemade’ Soup.)
2) The convenience of supermarkets and foreign foods was a huge advantage, and the ability to get milk, apples, and everything else in one place quickly. After all, how bad could it be right?
YOU ARE VOTING WITH YOUR DOLLARS
I believe that food manufacturers might have started off with this philosophy, but we quickly watched that change. They prolonged shelf life, and as consumers, we kept demanding lower prices by almost always choosing the cheaper option when allowed to adopt. Each time we visit our local supermarket and purchase food from any country or manufacturer that has a lower standard of quality, instead of the healthier option, which may be sitting right next to it.
You are voting for the market to bring in more of these foods and less local and healthier opportunities. You and I need to be more aware of this when we shop. What price do we put on our health for the sake of appearance, habits, taste and cost? To quote Dr Clive McCoy of Cornell University “The over consumption of processed and refined foods is the only form of suicide tolerated by our customs, even though it is painful and torturous” As a society, we are slowly eating ourselves to death!
An analogy I often have used is a car and gasoline; If you took your favourite vehicle to a new gas station that was selling gas 20% less than everyone else, you would feel pretty good about the deal you got, right? What if afterwards it was slow to get up to speed, blew black smoke, and stalled at every stop?
Most of us would never buy that gas again, as it was not quality gas and not worth the savings or the hassle. We do this very thing with our bodies, we will buy poor fuel (food) enough though that will make us tired, slower, harder to concentrate, burp, fart, and fall asleep often. However, unlike with a car, we will go there again and repeat the process over and over again… WHY?
PROCESSED FOOD IS MADE TO BE ADDICTIVE
I’m of the belief that many food manufacturers and fast food establishments are no longer in the business of making quality food. Instead, they are in the business of selling as much food as possible. Through research and funding, they have established that you and I crave one of three keys properties, sugar, salt or fat.
Also by manipulating sugars, salts and fats down to levels where we achieve a sensational effect on them, our bodies crave and potentially become dependent on these food additives. It’s a huge factor in why I believe most of us will continue to eat this way even though our bodies perform so poorly when we do.
There are people whose job it is to ensure this success. These may be ‘naturally sourced ingredients’,
but that doesn’t make them healthy, especially at the levels and types that fast food and processed food manufacturers are using.
