Get these Five Things out of your Diet in 2012

This is the precursor to my Five Most Important Things in your Diet in 2012.  This is my list of the Five Worst Things in your Diet for 2012.  If you can get these things out and make a switch, you will be doing better than most!

Inorganic Protein  Inorganic meat and dairy are very bad for you and could do damage to your body which you won’t necessarily see.  Full of hormones and antibiotics and other things that even I don’t know about, I just refuse to eat it.  And I certainly don’t feed my family proteins which come from conventional or poor sources.  (IE, the grocery store and most restaurants).  We buy from local farmers, Whole Foods, and a company called Beyond Organic.  We frequent restaurants like Nashville favorite, Burger Up, and national brand, Chipotle, where care is taken to include only the best meat and dairy.   I would love to hear about other restaurants which offer quality choices like these!

Packaged Foods  Packaged foods like energy and cereal bars, cheese crackers and fruit strips, even the ones labeled organic, should be eliminated in favor of a more “real food.” And I am on a quest to completely get rid of these processed sugar loaders from my family’s diet.  Products like energy bars and most cereals are full of chemicals and sugar.  Every time I cave in and let my children choose a cereal bar from the kid wagon at Whole Foods I cringe because I know that they are just eating sugar.  These products at Whole Foods are at best only marginally better than the ones at conventional grocery stores because they do not contain preservatives, high fructose corn syrup or food dyes. But these empty calories are not feeding my kids’ cells.  I was almost jumping up and down the other day when my three year old chose a bottle of water out of that wagon!!

In place of these nightmare packages of sweets labeled health food, choose something like a small organic apple with almond butter or celery with hummus. And while you are eating these small finger convenience foods which you have portioned out to one serving, imagine how your choices (and those that affect your family) are feeding your body on the cellular level.  (And if you do “enjoy” your cereal bar, I want you to start being aware of how your choices will affect your waistline, energy levels, and overall health).  And imagine my not letting my kids choose those cereal bars or bags of “organic cheese CRACKer chemicals.”  Because I won’t be!

Fake Fats  (ie, trans fats, hydrogenated anything, margarine).  These disgusting fats (think Country Crock) stay solid and intact for days outside.  They don’t rot. Because they are not food and they don’t register as food in your body.  Dr. Andrew Weil, one of my most trusted health sources says this about margarine (in reference to the more supposed healthful kinds which claim to have no trans fats)

It is still fat, mostly unhealthy fat, and a highly processed food. The less processed food you eat, the better. If your bread requires a spread, consider switching to some delicious, fresh bread that needs no help from added fat. Or try a little seasoned, mashed avocado or a light dribble of olive oil. Create low-fat toppings for your potatoes and other vegetables. And when you crave a bit of butter, use the real thing.

Just eat the real thing.  Not too much.  Trade out these fake, man made or processed fats with coconut oil, real organic butter, and high quality olive oil.  (Don’t heat the olive oil; eat it on salads or toasts).  Increase your omega 3 consumption from fish and add avocado to your diet when it’s available.

Chemicals and Preservatives  If the label has anything you cannot pronounce then don’t eat it.  Buy from the perimeter of the store and buy as locally and organically as possible.  Do not use food colorings (Red Dye 40, etc) or things with MSG or autolyzed yeast extract (another name for MSG) or carageenan (in all conventional milk alternatives).  Don’t buy anything with surcralose.  There is much that is known and probably even more that is not known about food chemicals added to food to increase shelf life, to make food prettier or to make food “taste better.”  Eat whole, living, fresh and organic foods.

Is this marshmallow really a food?  What is in here that isn’t man made?  This disgusts me.  It should disgust you, too. And why is there blue dye in it?

Canned foods, especially tomatoes, with BPA (bisphenol-A) linings.  It is now common to see new water bottles and plastic containers labeled BPA FREE. This is great because BPA is thought to cause an increase in heart disease and other potentially serious endocrine problems and was formerly found in almost all plastic containers including baby bottles.  Because of public demand, more and more things are BPA Free.  But did you know that canned foods are some of the worst sources of BPA?  To date the only canned foods that I know which are safe are the ones from Eden Foods labeled BPA Free.  Those come at a cost of sometimes double what the same items from another manufacturer would be but it is a cost I will pay. (IE, a can of Whole Foods Organic Black Beans is $0.99 and a can of Eden Foods is $1.99).