After reading a dozen books on health and health topics I realized I needed to make some changes. In no specific order here is a listing of things I have changed. To a lot of people this will look crazy. I used to be a meat and potatoes guy (better yet-chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy).
| Fluoride toothpase | Still has fluoride (haven't found any good ones without it) |
| 2% skim milk | Vanilla flavored or plain soy milk |
| Ate dairy products | Stopped eating dairy (except yogurt with a lot of fruit)and a little cheese once in a while |
| Name brand laundry detergent | Biodegradable laundry detergent |
| Name brand deoderant | Still has aluminum compounds (haven't found any good ones without it) |
| Wife’s hair color and makeup | Checked out safety of her brands and she made changes (she stopped coloring her hair altogether) |
| Copenhagen snuff | Skruf (Swedish - low in nitrosamines) (I know I need to quit) |
| Ate red meat a lot | Very seldom and only if organic (without sodium nitrate) |
| Ate hotdogs sometimes | Only if they don't have sodium nitrate |
| Ate hamburgers often | Ocasionally if free range clean (no hormones, etc) beef and pan cooked with canola oil |
| Ate chicken sometimes | Sometimes but only if organic (don't eat the skin) |
| Ate deep fried foods occasionally (fried chicken, chicken fried steak, french fries, etc | Reduced significantly |
| Ate fast foods occasionally | Even less now |
| Ate donuts, cookies, crakers, etc | Stopped eating if they have trans-fats or hydrogenated oils (most of the time they do) |
| Ate name brand food items | Stopped because of bad ingredients |
| Never ate raw vegetables | Eat organic brocolli, spinach, carrots |
| Never ate seeds and nuts | Eat organic-all kinds(pumpkin, walnuts, almonds, sunflower seads, etc.) daily |
| Stored food in plastic | Now store only in glass containers |
| Microwaved in plastic and stryofoma | Stopped |
| Microwaved often | Stopped all microwaving |
| Used room air fresheners | Stopped using |
| Ate very little fatty foods | Now try to eat only good fats-from olive oil, nuts, seeds, fish, etc |
| Ate prepackaged food | Eat nothing with trans-fat or hydrogenated oils, msg, dies, etc (the labels are tricky...if unsure don't eat it) |
| Drank soft drinks (full of high fructose)- never drank low calory kind | Stopped drinking soft drinks (high fructose & the phosphates leech calcium from the bone system) |
| Ate items make with high fructose | Stopped as much as possible |
| Drank tap and bottled water | Now only filtered water |
| Put regular flea shampoo and spray on dogs | Use DE and essential oils |
| Liberally used pesticides | Try to not use pestacides at all |
| Ate apples, peaches, strawberries | Eat only if organic (some fruit like bannanas are ok grown conventional |
| Never ate brown rice | Eat often-got a stainless steel rice cooker and it works great |
| Sometimes ate peas and beans (mostly canneds) | Eat often (organic)-got a pressure cooker and it works great (beans cook in 18 minutes) |
| Very seldom ate salad | Eat salad often-spinach, onions, carrots, black olives, mushrooms, artichoke hearts, etc. with balsamic dressing |
| Name brand vitamins | Alive whole food supplements, fish oil(to get animal based omega 3), Emergen-C Raspberry (for potassium) |
| Water bed heater always plugged in | Unplug while I sleep at night |
| Not on medications | If I ever need something will try all natural remedy first |
| Feel good most of the time | Feel great most of the time with more energy |
In making this jouney to better eating I give many thanks to my wife who is a great cook. She has tried many of the recepies in the books I have read.
After a whole lot of reading and studying I have developed the following paradigm on health:
God designed people and the world in wonderful but complex ways and we need to be good caretakers. There are numerous variables that can cause disease (from poor diet to pollution). Getting to the truth is sometimes fuzzy because of conflicting reports (results usually depend on who is funding the study), but there are some things we do know. There are definite cause and effects between disease and lifestyle (food, exercise, environment, etc). My approach is to stop doing the bad things and start doing the good.
We live in a polluted world (the Bible speaks about not being polluted by the things of this world-food, thoughts, spiritual, etc). Our skin absorbs, we eat, drink and inhale toxins and the foods that the majority of Americans eat is unhealthy. There is a lot of research that points out that 90% of disease is caused by our diet and environment. Society in America is getting sicker and sicker…what is all this about?
My plan is to stop putting the toxins in, start eating healthy foods and take quality vitamins, minerals and whole food supplements, get a little exercise and reduce the level of stress.
A lot of money is being made from selling poor quality food and people being sick.
Hopefully someday I will have a healthy experience when I eat fast food or just eat out. What I buy at the grocery store will be healthy food and I won’t have to worry about the safety and nutritional content of the food. America will be a nation of healthy people with very little heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, old age diseases, etc.
Some rules I have learned about food.
If you can’t pronounce the ingredients don’t eat it.
Eat food as close to the form as God designed it. Eat organic unprocessed fruits, vegatables, grains and nuts. They are fully of vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytonutrients.
Eat the right kinds of fats-olive oil, omega-3’s (plant and animal), etc.
Eat food God designed humans to eat. We are not baby cows so maybe we don’t need to drink cow's milk.
We don’t have claws, saber teeth and a short digestive tract like cats so maybe we don’t need to eat a lot of red meat. Our digestive tract is long (20+ feet) and designed to eat mostly plant foods. Very little of our diet should come from animals.
Finally, if man has alter it significantly or polluted it don’t eat it.
Since most of our soils are depleted and most people don’t get enough variety in their diet everyone needs to take (high quality natural) vitamins and minerals. Vitamins and mineral are needed by the body to function properly. If we are deficient the body goes downhill and whammo we get sick. Traditional medicine normally just treats the symptoms. We get a prescription or they cut something out to make us feel better but the underlying cause is still there. This means we will actually get much sicker down the road (not to mention a lot of medical bills). Don’t wait on the current system to find a magic cure. In the last 30 years billions of dollars have been spent on a cure for cancer. The cancer survival rate has improved less than 1%.
Also, since we are constantly exposed to toxins in our environment, plastics (plastic smell-guess what, you are breathing in plastic molecules), seran wrap and styrofoam touching food (leaches into food), room deoderizers, new carpet, particle board furniture (smell), auto and diesel exhause fumes, pesticides (think flea or roach bombs), tuna (mercury),etc, etc.
If our bodies are not working properly (lacking vitamins, minerals, and proper nutrition) these poisions accumulate creating all kinds of havoc at the molecular level eventually resulting in every kind of disease imaginable.