If You’re Confused Don’t Worry
If you’re confused about what to eat and what not to eat you’re not alone. From my perspective everyone is an “expert in nutrition.” Most of the information you see on television and especially the Internet is from an “expert” with an agenda. The agenda is either selling you some nutritional supplement or the new hot antioxidant or they have a gripe they want to express. Their goal is to change your mind about a health issue, not about your health.
You can imagine I get a lot of questions about cholesterol, gluten, dairy, high carbohydrate diet, high-protein diet it’s a merry-go-round. Same questions caused by disinformation. Or should I say take news. These are great questions. It’s the foundation of a healthy life, and is the basis of functional medicine. All of our chronic diseases develop from an un-healthy lifestyle. Consideration should not only be on what you eat, but also how well you eliminate, exercise, rest, sleep, and dealing with stress in a positive way. The quality of your social interactions, your community and family are also part of health.
I’d like to go through a few common questions. In the future I will try to add 1 or 2 of these questions at the end of the main topic.
- Whole wheat bread is better than white bread. Not true. Because of the high refinement of the whole wheat flour, your blood sugar increases as quickly as white bread. As far as the extra vitamins whole wheat contains most of it is destroyed during refinement. Have you ever noticed enriched on the label of breads? Enriched means they add vitamins that have been destroyed during refinement of the flour.
- Food that are advertised as being sugar-free are good for you. Absolutely not true. Foods that don’t contain natural sugars or added sugars often have artificial sweeteners and fats to enhance the flavor. Often these fats are unhealthy fats.
- Oranges are the best source of vitamin C. This is also a false statement. There is more vitamin C in broccoli, bell peppers, kale and Kiwi.
- All fish have the same health benefit. False. Some fish are actually harmful to eat. For instance Tilapia should be avoided. Tilapia is a farm raised fish. Farm raised fish are known to be toxic from the food they are fed and environment there farmed. Also tilapia has a higher amount of omega 6 that omega 3. Omega 3 is the fish oil that is anti-inflammatory omega 6 is an inflammatory.
- Diet soda has 0 calories and will not cause you to gain weight. Absolutely false. Diet soda is known to increase obesity, diabetes and heart disease. They also contain artificial sweeteners which are known to be toxic to the nervous system.
- Sea salt is better to use than common table salt. True. Common table salt is refined the refinement process leaves behind some of the chemicals used in the refining process. Sea salt is unrefined and in a natural state. Some may argue that sea salt does not have iodine which is important for the thyroid. This was an issue in what was called the goiter belt of the United States. A goiter is the enlargement of the thyroid gland because of the lack of dietary iodine. The lack of iodine resulted from not being near salt water. Because of the availability of fish and seafood across the United States this is no longer an issue.
I’m sure there are a lot of other questions that need to be answered. I’ll be more than happy to answer all questions you may have. You can either email me. You could find my email address at the bottom of this article. Or you can go to my website. This article will be my blog. At the end of the article there is an opportunity for you to make a comment or ask a question.
