I get frustrated when I put time or money into any investment that turns out to be a bad one. But something that truly upsets me is the “health food,” that’s been sold to the American people for decades by “experts.” Often, it’s not only a worthless investment, it can be downright detrimental. Industrial food processing destroys the nutritional value of food, even organically grown foods. Want to know which “healthy” items are the biggest impostors? Read on!
Organic Salad Dressing: You’d expect to find olive oil (the only health vegetable oil) in all the healthy dressings, but you’d be disappointed. Due to olive oil’s expense, highly refined canola, soybean, or safflower oils are used. What’s more, heat from processing turns them into peroxides, trans fats, and other toxic compounds. Choose dressings that do not include these oils or make some at home yourself – it’s easy!
Organic Yogurt: Live bacterial cultures in yogurt are beneficial. However, most yogurts are high in sugar, leading to insulin spikes that damage the blood vessel linings. In addition, heat pasteurizing of organic milk destroys vitamins as well as denature lactase, the enzyme that helps digest lactose.Instead, choose raw milk products – even people who cannot properly digest pasteurized milk can consume raw dairy, as raw dairy has active enzymes!
Organic Pasteurized Fruit Juices: Freshly squeezed fruit juice will provide you with some vitamins, but it is not a health food. Heating juice (in the processing) depletes nutrition, leaving only fructose. Consuming fructose leads to insulin resistance, heart disease, and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, plus it converts directly to fat. Eat whole, organic, fresh fruits to get the fiber that dramatically decreases the impact fructose has on the body.
Organic Soy Milk: “Organic” soy indicates it is not a GMO (genetically modified organism) and contains no pesticides. However, the soy in the milk is non-fermented soy, which contains isoflavones and other anti-nutrients that disrupt thyroid and other hormone functions, as well as menstruation, and promote fibrocystic breasts, among other health issues. Instead, choose fermented, organic soy in moderation.
Organic Whole Grain Cereals: These are essentially highly refined flours and sugars – a root cause of metabolic syndromes such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and strokes. Cereals also contain a lot of phytic acid, an anti-nutrient that binds minerals in the gut, preventing absorption. Furthermore, cereal makers add antioxidant vitamin fractions to try preserve delicate, polyunsaturated fatty acids in the grain, but they turn rancid as soon as the seeds are cracked in processing. “Additional antioxidants” looks appealing on the box, but they’re actually worse than useless. Swap the cereal for eggs – more nourishing and the protein will sustain you longer!
Are you surprised by any of the items on the list? Stay tuned for next month’s newsletter, where I will share the other five items on my “top” 10 list! I hope you put this new-found information into action! Food can be the best medicine or a poison that can slowly, sometimes painfully, kill us. I challenge you to “take your medicine” this month!
