(Guide to a Healthy Lifestyle)

Week of October 14, 2007

Table of Contents

* Fake Food Blocks Weight Loss *

History: When Food Was Real

Back in my father's time (he was born in 1898) whole, natural food was plentiful, and processed food was a rarity. My father ate meat from healthy, outdoor raised chickens, pigs, and cattle. (Factory-farming would not be invented until approximately 70 years later.) He ate fish that was wild (as opposed to much today that is factory-farmed), and relatively free of mercury, PCBs, and dioxin.

Meat and fish were raised the way God intended. They freely grazed outdoors and the fish swam wild, and ate what they were designed to eat. When the animals were slaughtered or fish caught, they were healthy, low in fat, and chock full of nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids and conjugated linoleic acid (CLA, See...)

My father ate garden-fresh vegetables and fruits, and whole-grain bread and rice. He ate plenty of butter and lard, and drank fresh milk. There was plenty of saturated fat in the meat, butter, lard, and milk that my father and his brothers and sisters consumed. Yet heart disease did not run rampant as it does today. And there was no unfounded hysteria about cholesterol levels as there is today (See...)

Table sugar was the sweetener in use back then. There was no aspartame (also known as NutraSweet and Equal), sucralose (Splenda), or Sweet'N Low. Neither was high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) in existence in those days.

Whole, organic food was the standard American diet in those days. And because of it, there was no obesity crisis, and no one was dying of heart disease. That's because those early Americans ate real food as opposed to fake food.

The Food Industry Married Technology

However, as time progressed, technology was not only applied to transporation and labor-saving devices, it was married to the food industry too. And along with technology came faster and better methods of doing things. One of the most revolutionary of all innovations was mass production through the assembly line.

Even when technology and the assembly line were married to food and food processing, everything that came from it wasn't good. In the years 1947 through 1977, meat, especially cattle, was given DES, a synthetic form of estrogen, to increase weight. Then in the mid 1970s factory-farming was introduced to the meat industry.

Factory-farming brought the assembly line methods of the manufacturing plant to the meat industry. As a consequence, animals were no longer treated as living, feeling creatures, but rather as inanimate objects. The days of Elsie the 'contented cow' had come to an end.

Cows were crammed into pens and fed pesticide-laced grain and dead animal products. To combat sickness they were given a daily regimen of antibiotics. Factory-farming produces needless suffering, and the animals live a tortured life before they are slaughtered and put out of their misery.

The average dairy cow produced 12 pounds (about one and one-half gallons) of milk a day in 1930. That amount increased to 39 pounds a day in 1988. Today cows produce up to 50 pounds (over 6 gallons) a day. To produce this much milk they are given bovine growth hormone (See...) It is completely unnatural for cows to produce this much milk!

Fake Food Causes Obesity

Modern food technology has given the world artificial or fake food, genetically modified food (See...), and chemically-enhanced food. These foods not only contribute to the world's escalating obesity crisis, but to chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease.

I refer to the complete packaged meals you find in the freezers of your local supermarket as artificial or fake food. In the 1970s I ignorantly ate these fake foods. Back then they were known as TV dinners. TV dinners were developed in 1953 for C.A. Swanson and Sons.

Genetically-modified foods are the hundreds of products which contain genetically-modified soybean or corn derivatives. The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) does not mandate that manufacturers label that their products contain GMOs (genetically-modified organisms.) Another term to describe these foods is frankenfood. To avoid them, buy only organic products.

Chemically-enhanced foods are products which contain artificial coloring, artificial preservatives, artificial flavoring, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, monosodium glutamate, trans fat, etc. These foods include but are not limited to breads, rolls, crackers, cookies and other baked goods, ice cream, and mayonnaise. Non-organic meat can be included because it is loaded with pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones.

These unwholesome foods thwart any attempt at weight loss. When technology was wed to food, it changed the nature of the food by (a) adding substances such as artificial preservatives, colors, and flavors (b) changing the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids (c) processing which includes the removal of fiber, vitamins, and minerals (d) adding artificial sweeteners such as high fructose corn syrup or aspartame (e) the use of pesticides and herbicides (f) the use of antibiotics and hormones in animals and (g) substituting grain for the natural diet of animals and fish.

Many of the chemicals used in food production introduce excessive amounts of estrogen into the body. They are known as endocrine disruptors. These chemicals block hormones, the body's chemical messengers, or otherwise disrupt normal body functions. Vegetable oils, soybean products and derivatives, and pesticides fall into this category.

Next there are chemicals which mimic estrogen and are responsible for a large part of the obesity crisis. These chemicals mimic estrogen when they are ingested into the body. Because they are foreign, they have been labelled xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are found in cleaning products, lotions, shampoos, plastic containers, and many other sources.

Parabens, synthetic chemicals used as preservatives in personal care products, are also classified as xenoestrogens. They are used in food products too. Parabens can be found in candy, mayonnaise, mustard, and salad dressings.

Unfermented soy products promote estrogen. Soy as well as corn are heavily subsidized by the United States government. Because of this fact, both are used extensively in the food industry. Grains such as sunflower, safflower, soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, and peanut are primarily composed of omega-6 fatty acid. Omega-6 fatty acid promotes estrogen.

Soybean oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in America. Soybean derivatives are used in pharmaceutical drugs, salad dressings, margarine, veggie burgers, baked goods, frozen desserts, protein mixes, infant formula, and of course soy milk. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Soy isoflavones (plant compounds) in the soybean are highly estrogenic. When used excessively as it currently is in America, estrogen promotes fat storage. This fat is very stubborn, and difficult to burn off.

Excess estrogen provides a never ending cycle of fat production. Too much estrogen promotes the storage of fat while the increase in fat cell size produces more estrogen. A typical catch-22 situation.

This is one reason many overweight and obese people find it almost impossible to lose weight. The fat itself generates estrogen. The only way to end this vicious cycle is to cut off the supply of excess estrogen.

Not only are Americans getting estrogen producing soy in fake food and chemically-enhanced food, but they are getting it in their meat and fish too. Animals which are slaughtered for America's lunch and dinner plates are fed grain such as corn and soy. Even your factory-farmed fish are fed soy.

Soy isoflavones interfere with the normal operation of the body's hormones. It causes them to miscommunicate. When your body should be burning fat, it instead stores it. And as long as your diet is on estrogen overload, it will continue to do so. No matter how much you exercise, or reduce your calories, the fat is there to not only stay, but actually increase!

Other vegetable oils such as safflower, corn, and canola also contain omega-6 fatty acid. These oils place more estrogen in the body. And even though these vegetable oils contain polyunsaturated omega-6 fatty acid, it is too much and winds up being stored as fat. God created a perfect balance of omega-6 to omega-3 in nature of 1:1. Today's diet regimen introduces a ratio of anywhere from 20:1 to 50:1!

It is extremely difficult to avoid excess vegetable oil. Almost all baked goods contain one of these oils. Crackers, cookies, cakes, potato chips, etc. are all made with processed vegetable oil.

America's non-organic fruits and vegetables are literally saturated with estrogen producing pesticides (See...) Even meat is full of pesticides in addition to the antibiotics and hormones. Pesticides are introduced through the grain that animals are fed.

Xenoestrogenic substances (xeno means foreign) aren't the only seemingly ubiquitous fat-producing chemicals in our food supply. Monosodium glutamate (MSG) shares that distinction too (See...)

Modern processing techniques often render food tasteless. Enter monosodium glutamate. MSG does a fantastic job of making bland food taste exceptional. Remember the seasoning Accent which was introduced to the American consumer in the 1960s? MSG was its major ingredient.

Monosodium glutamate can be found in many processed foods. It is also the flavor enhancer of choice in the restaurant industry. Remember the last time you bragged to your friends about that great meal you had at You Name It restaurant? It was the monosodium glutamate which gave the food its distinctive flavor.

The Fake Food Fix (How To Lose Those Unwanted Pounds)

You are having a hard time losing weight because of your fake food diet. Replace the fake food with real food and the excess weight will melt off. Fat due to excess estrogen accumulates in the stomach and chest of men, and in the stomach, lower buttocks, upper thighs, and back of the upper arms in women.

The only remedy for fat-producing excess estrogen is a completely all-natural, whole food, organic diet. Estrogen promoting substances and xenoestrogenic chemicals are so entrenched in the food supply that nothing short of complete avoidance will work.

Try to eliminate as much fake food as possible. Read food labels before purchasing a product. And don't assume that just because you bought a product at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's means that it is okay.

Drastically reducing your intake of excess estrogen means cutting out all fast and processed foods. Your meals should be home-made using whole, natural ingredients only. Remember, restaurants, even your up-scale expensive eateries, use forbidden ingredients in food preparation that promote fat storage.

In summary, here is a list of food ingredients to avoid: