Last time we talked about what “root cause” actually is.
I mentioned toxic foods, which is quite the topic of its own.
There are the obvious toxic foods, such as:
• Processed / packaged
• GMO
• Non-organic
• Fake foods from the lab
• Foods with additives, colorings, fillers
• Partially hydrogenated oils
And then there are the toxic oils that get all sorts of jumbled up by calling them vegetable or seed oils…
The group of oils that are bad for us are:
• Canola oil
• Cottonseed
• Margarine
• Crisco
• Soybean oil
• Corn oil
• Rice Bran oil
• Sunflower oil
• Peanut oil
• Safflower oil
This matters because we need healthy fats for:
• brain function
• hormone production
• resolving inflammation
• forming healthy cell membranes
• absorbing fat soluble nutrients
This means if we don’t get the healthy fats, not only do the above functions not happen correctly, we also add in toxins and increase inflammation, making everything even worse.
Toxic foods get even more complicated when we look at the fact that not all “healthy” foods will work for each person.
For example, some people do great with tomatoes, bell peppers, and eggplants, other people can’t handle them and it can be harmful to their health to consume these.
Some people’s physiology does great with kale, others… no.
So the complication part comes in from the fact that we have to listen to our bodies in terms of foods that work (which means knowing the signals)…
… as well as understanding that season, food preparation, personal stress levels, toxin levels, etc are involved as well.
It does get trickier because it can be several foods messing with you, and unless you eliminate them all at once you won’t be able to tell a difference.
So for example, I use an “Inflammation Elimination Process” with some of my patients.
There are “yes” foods and “no” foods, and the closer we stick with it the better we can start sussing out what works and what doesn’t.
But leaving out just one food group or one specific food at a time typically tricks people into thinking they tried, it didn’t work, but the body never actually got the chance to calm down.
Also, food can be fine for you at one point, but not another.
You may do fantastic with tomatoes in the summertime when they are heirloom and vine ripened, but your body may hate any other tomato and especially outside of summer.
And if we eat the same food day in, day out, year round, the body can start having problems with it because that’s just too often.
Now let’s say you are eating the right foods for your physiology… but you:
• Store them in plastic
• Microwave it
• Don’t focus on organic
Microwaves destroy the nutrient value of our foods, and it changes foods differently than typical cooking does.
Especially acidic and fatty foods can take on toxins from plastic.
Non-organic foods are full of pesticides and herbicides that harm our bacteria and health just like they do the soil, bacteria, and bugs needed for healthy crops.
Additionally, if a food isn’t labeled as organic, they can irradiate that food (Fukushima / Hiroshima / Chernobyl type of radiation) without labeling it.
Some people try allergy testing, and in and of itself that’s fine.
But which food are they testing? For example, grass fed, grass finished beef raised without hormones and antibiotics is nothing like industrially raised beef.
This goes for all foods, making results of allergy testing iffy in my book.
I know the process of figuring out which foods can be tedious, especially because it can change, but it is so worth it!
At the very least, let’s consider getting rid of the obvious toxic foods.
Each step towards real food is going to help, since real food nourishes and heals.
