You Are What You Eat

You Are What You Eat!

continued from the post- My Freedom Inside Shows up on the Outside!

You are what you eat! I have heard that statement many times and thought that I believed and understood it. Then I experienced an example that helped me to remember it forever.
My husband has always experienced digestive problems and had gotten to the point where he took Tums or other antacids on a regular basis. I kept suggesting that something needed to change in his diet.

Whenever I read about digestive health and nutrition, pork was one of the first items that was suggested to be eliminated. My husband had been eating more and more pork over the last few years because he ate in a cafeteria setting for meals because of his job. He often had bacon, ham, pork chops, ribs and roasts. Unrelated to that (or so we thought), his body began to have a distinct odor that even the kids noticed. We teased him and told him he must be getting old!

His stomach was bothering him more and more and so he came to a point of being ready to try something new. He eliminated pork first. Within a week his weird body odor completely disappeared. It was amazing. His stomach felt much better too!

Somehow this experience encouraged him to look even further into what he was eating to see if he could totally eliminate his digestive and headache problems. My daughter had recently figured out that she was intolerant to wheat products. As soon as she eliminated wheat she went from daily throwing up to healthy. So, my husband tried this too. Within on week he was a new person. No more need for antacid tablets, and headaches are rare. Both my husband and daughter released about 10 pounds without trying.

These experiences have peaked our interest in reading more about food and nutrition. One thing that kept coming up was the MSG and High Fructose Corn Syrup that is in so many of our processed foods. I had heard about this for a long time and believed that these were not good. What I didn't realize is how many foods had these products in them and that they help make your body fat! We were eating them all the time without realizing it!

MSG is called an excito- toxin. It stimulates your taste buds so that the taste is extra good, but it also makes you want to eat more of the food, and later on more food again. So here is an ingredient that works against your attempts at eating nutritionally and maintaining your God Given body size. It also excites the brain cells until they die. Read about it in the book 'Excito Toxins, The Taste That Kills' by Russel Blaylock, MD. My favorite food that has MSG is Ranch Dressing. Our family loves this dressing and felt like we were eating something good for us when we ate it with raw vegetables. Now we know! Other favorites for us used to be flavored Doritos. MSG is in so many foods- read all labels.

High Fructose Corn Syrup is an artificial additive that is cheaper and easier for manufacturing. There is research that shows that because of its chemical makeup it goes directly to the liver, releasing enzymes that instruct the body to store fat! We eat enough calories as it is, we do not need the kind that doubles its efforts in our body to make us gain weight! This makes me mad. It is in pizzas, baked beans, candies, yeast breads, flavored yogurt, baby food, ketchup, cookies, beer, sodas,mayonnaise, juices and most manufactured foods.

We have read some books that have alerted us to what is in our food. We do not buy into everything that is in the books, nevertheless we have learned so much from them. They are:

1. Natural Cures That They Don't Want You to Know About by Kevin Trudeau
2. The Liver and Gallbladder Miracle Cleanse by Andreas Moritz
3. The Apple Cider Vinegar Book, by Bragg
4. The Makers Diet by Jordan S. Rubin

The most recent awareness that we have is about the antibiotics and hormones in our meat and dairy. Again, this is something that was added so the manufacturer could make more money.

Two major condiments that we (especially our son) use in our house are Ranch Dressing and Ketchup. I make my own ranch dressing w/o MSG and I buy organic Ketchup- without the high fructose corn syrup. There are ways around everything. We are finding we can make changes. I go to the internet continually for ideas.

So, what are we doing about it? We shop around the perimeter of the store and rarely go up and down the aisles where there are processed foods. We try to eat whole unprocessed food. We eat raw whenever possible. We eat very little meat. When possible we buy organic. If we want dessert, we make it ourselves. We haven't completely switched everything over, but are on a journey of improving how we eat.