To many of us are eating ourselves to death and don't even know it. Every day the food we eat could very well be killing us at a slow pace, little by little without us even knowing we are doing it. It all starts with us believing the USDA, the FDA and the food industry have been protecting us from what grocery stores sell us under the guise of food.
Most of what grocery stores sell us today isn't safe for consumption, some 80% of what is in the modern grocery store is un-healthy for human consumption and are loaded with things that are taking our health away from us a little at a time, in fact so slowly that we don't even notice. Many of the ingredients in theses foods that make them taste so good like sugar, salt and corn syrup are dangerous to us in high amounts and most of us are un-aware that these foods are leaving us over weight tired and sick. As well as bringing us closer to death because we consume them every day. Unfortunately many of us have become unhealthy eaters thinking we are doing the right thing for our health. The USDA food pyramid is something many of us grew up with, but its recommended daily allowance is more a government advertisement to sell what the nations farmers ware producing. Science is coming to know that the idea of consuming lots of pasta, deep fried foods, pastries, white breads and pizza. Has done little for our health but added huge amounts of calories into our diets.
The very nature of our modern diet hasn't done anything to rescue anyone from our number one killers, diabetes and heart disease. We know that something has to change. But do enough of us have the will to change the way we eat? Most of us know we have to do something regarding how we eat, not to be the barer of bad news but we need to really start reading the ingredients in the food we are buying. You may have never given thought to making yourself and your family spaghetti and meatballs as such a bad thing, but spaghetti is loaded with refined flours that are high in Carbs, yes I know you're topping it off with tomato sauce you bought in the store. Now, read the label on the sauce, it more than likely has high fructose corn syrup in it, one of the biggest contributors to obesity, diabetes, coronary artery disease and dental decay. Be sure to read your labels, you can buy tomato puree and paste without added sugars and with a few other ingredients to make a tomato sauce that has little sugar and salt which is much healthier. The best way would be to grow your own tomatoes or find a pick your own farm and put up your own sauce, our canned sauce has only tomatoes and a touch of vinegar in it, nothing more.
More and more studies have linked the low and zero calorie foods and drinks to high blood pressure, type two diabetes, weight gain and cardiovascular disease, even your artificial sweeteners are considered by science to be one the most dangerous things to put into your body. If you're type two diabetic and honey or maple syrup is out of the question then your best bet is stevia. Even if what you are buying is FDA approved doesn't mean it is safe for you or your family to consume.
We have all heard the warning on trans fats or saturated hydrogenated oils. I understand they are plant based oils, but they have been so highly refined they aren't even a food any longer the reason being these fasts lead to the worse kind of cholesterol that can lead to heart problems and even stroke. Even nutritionists give the big thumbs down to highly refined hydrogenated oils as well as margarine because of their high trans fat content. You are better off using butter. Yes I know Doctors today still tell us to drop the butter and use margarine and I know this because I was recently told to do so by a doctor. One needs to remember doctors are not trained in nutrition nor are there many that practice preventive medicine, but instead treat illness as it comes.
White breads, white rice, white pasta, pre-packaged chips and crackers, cookies, cakes, breakfast cereals, and every single snack food on the market all have one thing in common-enriched wheat flour. That’s why I watch the type of carbohydrates (complex carbs vs. starchy carbs) that largely make up your diet, and how your body metabolizes food and your level of energy.
Not only are modern refined grains stripped of most nutrients; they also digest quickly into simple sugars, causing blood-sugar levels to spike and come quickly crashing down in a wave of snack attacks. Ultimately, a starchy addition is linked to weight gain, inflammation (i.e., arthritis), type 2 diabetes, as well as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure. Even fruit juices which many of us think as healthy are loaded with sugars and refined masking what was once a health carb into a simple carb also causing sugar spikes.
In the last 100 years or so, people have increased their consumption of added fats. This consumption comes from the use of refined oils like vegetable oils, soybean oil, corn oil, cottonseed oil and canola oil. Health concerns related to these industrial vegetable oils which includes causing increased "oxidative stress" in the body and a link to increased risk of cancer.
It is commonly known that fast food isn't good for us, all these deep fried foods are plunged into highly refined oil loaded with trans fats and cooked in it making these foods bad to consume, now if you are at home making a vegetable stir fry and you are using extra virgin olive oil or coconut oil there isn't anything wrong with that.
Now let's get to the; you have been diagnosed with a heart problem, your going to be told to stay away from butter, eggs, bacon, cheese, meat, dairy and basically anything that has saturated fats or cholesterol. That one notion has dominated the thinking of medical science for the past 60 plus years. This brings us to the ‘Diet-Heart Hypothesis’ an over-arching belief that has dictated Americans dietary recommendation for decades and delivered more bad facts and lies about fats. Avoid saturated fats and anything cholesterol because it plugs our arteries and chokes them off, this advice has been given for so long now that it is believed to be true. The old saying of if you tell the lie often enough for long enough people will accept it as the truth. In a nutshell, ditch your butter, lard, eggs, cream, bacon, red meat and switch to low-fat and vegetable oils if you want to maintain your health and live a longer life.
Now what if you're told that this is and has been a scientific error and you have been told wrong your whole life? What if you were told that saturated fats doesn't increase your chance of heart attack or stroke? What if the opposite of what you have been told your whole life is true? The American diet with it's pre processed foods is largely to blame for obesity, diabetes, and heart disease, and your doctor, nutritionist, cardiologist as well as your family and friends will all tell you that consuming saturated fat will clog you up. You would think that with the consumption of saturated fat at an all time low for several decades that these health problems would have gone away, but instead heart attacks are still the number one killer in America and still on the rise. It all started when a scientist at the university of Minnesota named Ancel Keys published a paper saying the consumption of saturated fats raised your cholesterol levels and lined your arteries with a layer of cholesterol and gave rise to heart disease. Thus the traditional heart healthy diet was born telling us to replace saturated fats with vegetable oils to lower cholesterol thus slowing the process of cholesterol accumulation in our arteries. The theory was lapped up by the governments health\authorities, the media as well as the public. Never to that point in mans history was the way we eat transformed in such a way. The sad part is it was all comprised and acted upon and the science was bad.
We must understand the the heart diet model has never been proven in a random controlled trial. The relationship of saturated fats and heart disease has never been proven and overwhelming evidence says otherwise. The science that lowering our saturated fat intake may very well contributed to our heart problems. Newer studies show that saturated fats are protective, actually lower blood cholesterol levels and help with weight loss.
A 2016 study showed that people that consumed corn oil had lower levels of cholesterol than people that had a diet rich in saturated fats but didn't improve survival, older people that had a lower serum cholesterol had a higher risk of death. more shocking was the observation that people consuming lots of vegetable oil were more likely to show signs of a heart attack upon autopsy than those eating more saturated fat.
The Re-evaluation of the traditional diet-heart hypothesis: analysis of recovered data from Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968-73)
Concluded. “Available evidence from randomized controlled trials shows that replacement of saturated fat in the diet with linoleic acid effectively lowers serum cholesterol but does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes. Findings from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid.”
Despite the evidence the unproven theory of cutting saturated fat out of your diet has been aggressively pushed for more than 50 years and in all this time we have been assured it was the fat that the saturated fats that man has consumed for thousands of years is what was killing us. When all this time sugar and not fat that has been the culprit. According to the best science, we put ourselves at great risk for the health conditions that plague us today no matter what kind of carbohydrates we eat (even unrefined carbs.) Too much whole-grain oatmeal for breakfast and whole-grain pasta for dinner, with fruit snacks in between, add up to a less healthy diet than one of eggs and bacon, followed by fish. The reality is that fat doesn't make you fat or diabetic. Scientific going back to the 1950s suggest that actually, carbs do.”
When I had my esophagectomy in 2017 and was able to start eating again my Nutritionist told me that my meals would have to be small and eaten 6 times a day, She also said I was to eat no low fat foods because they were loaded with sugar. What I was to look for in food was fat, protein and calories. Sugar or anything in the refined carbohydrates would cause dumping syndrome. This Nutritionist knew what she was talking about and she was right, I'm not saying I don't eat some of those great deserts during the holidays or special occasions because I do, however I feel bloated with low energy for several days until my system returns to it's normal state after resuming my regular diet. I know there are so many diets that claim they are the one, but despite all the controversy I had to choose the diet that allows me to consume low carbs and supply me with the fuel I need to get the work done on the homestead. After a couple years of trying different approaches to eating I put myself on the Keto diet. Once a couple of weeks passed I felt great, I wasn't tired I was eating less often and I had the energy I hadn't had in a while. In three months my A1C went from 8.1 to 6.3, my cholesterol went from 180 to 136 and I lost 36 pounds. I know folks that have tried this diet and plan said they couldn't continue to afford it, I can't disagree with them because they grow nothing of their own. The homestead on the other hand grows so much of what the Keto diet allows I'm saying 85% with ease.
I remember watching my own Father struggle with heart disease when I was a teenager, My mother tried relentlessly to prepare meals and feed him just how the doctors told her to, she followed their guidelines to the letter and he struggled with weight from that point on and his health just went down hill. He died at the age of 55, and everyone thought he wasn't doing what he should have been, that was 41 years ago and to this day they recommend the same diet to me as they did to him. How many of us over the years have followed the nutrition guidelines recommended by the USDA and have fought with our weight and our energy levels? I know I have, and it just doesn't make sense to continue on a path that isn't working anymore.
Fat Fiction the movie is well worth your time to watch.
The Ultimate High-Fat, Low-Carb Food List
I realize many people will disagree with me on this, but I am now 61 years old have eaten the carb rich diet recommended by the USDA and have struggled with weight, type 2 diabetes and now coronary heart disease though my cardiologist doesn't feel I am even close to having a heart attack my last stress test showed a change so they went in to take a look at my request and ended up putting in a stent. So I am at the cross road and it's time to take a turn and commit to eating what I produce on our homestead and keep diligent in not partaking in the high carb diet the USDA keeps recommending.
Looking at the high fat low carb list we see most of what is there can be produced on your own homestead, why not return to the traditional life before the days of highly refined sugars, grains, and high fructose corn syrup. It seems the government food guidelines are an advertisement for the modern food industry instead of a guideline for health. Some 80% of the so called food in the grocery stores today wasn't even heard of or available 100 years ago. That alone should be a huge red flag for us when it honestly comes to healthy eating.
I hope this post has been informative enough for you to look for yourself and end the struggle. It's past time that we all look at what we eat because the diet high in grain and carbohydrate consumption just isn't working.
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