What will you strive for in 2018? How about reducing environmental and food allergies, fatigue, colds, maybe shed a few pounds, and decrease the inflammation in your body that is the precursor to disease?
What can you do differently without a Herculean effort and without setting your wallet on fire?
The great thing about the journey towards health is that it’s…a journey. You don’t have to change everything overnight. No one is judging you (except me 😂). Just commit to slow and steady progress towards improving your diet and reducing your toxic exposure. Little by little you’ll tweak how you shop and the products you use, trying new things here and there and saying goodbye to some evil staples. Be proud of every step that you take, and just for being conscious about what you’re buying and eating. This is valuable and life-changing work: cleaning up your pantry, your fridge, your toiletries and cleaners, even your kitchen equipment.
Top 5 Goals
Here’s the shortlist–the most bang for your buck and effort!
1. Stop eating cereal. Most are loaded with sugar and dangerous preservatives. Even the ones with no added sugar are unhealthy: the grains are basically tortured into fun shapes in a process that depletes most valuable nutrients. And many cereal crops are sprayed with the carcinogen glyphosate just before harvesting. None of this information is on the box, which is why I have such a big job, telling you what you are really eating.
2. Don’t buy Canola oil and ask for better alternatives (like olive, avocado, coconut) at restaurants. Canola is a cheap, genetically modified oil that’s bleached, degummed and deodorized and treated with hexane. Stay away from the other toxic vegetable oils, too: corn, soybean, safflower, sunflower, cottonseed.
3. Keep juice away from your kids. Many parents think that packaged (bottle or cartoned) juice is healthy because it comes from fruit. The reality is that the juice is cooked (unless it’s fresh and unpasteurized) so it’s basically a nutrient-dead food, and unlike whole fruit, it’s lacking fiber. Fiber is what slows down the absorption of sugar into your bloodstream. Juice is the quickest way to spike your blood sugar—you might as well inject it into your bloodstream. If you keep it up, this sugar overload can damage your pancreas and lead to diabetes. It also causes obesity. You won’t believe how “all-natural” orange juice is made.
4. Check for preservatives in your packaged food. most of them are not great for your body and many are actually dangerous and known to cause hyperactivity, nausea, asthma, cancer, even food allergies. Some common ones are TBHQ, BHT, and BHA.
5. Say no to conventional meat in grocery stores. Unless otherwise specified, it comes from factory farms. Animals live in 24-hour confinement behind metal bars and are gorged on pharmaceutical feed and overmilked. Cows are actually sprayed down with ammonia after slaughter to control the rampant pathogens in meat-packing plants. It turns out that what is bad for these animals is actually bad for you. Look for grass fed beef (not free range, which is a non-specific term), pastured chicken (not pasteurized–that’s something different but sounds similar!), and sustainably farmed fish or wild fish from clean waters (Check out this blogpost for how to buy fish).
And one bonus challenge:
6. Follow the Dirty Dozen. If it’s on this list, it means that it’s very heavily sprayed with pesticides, and you are consuming lots of chemicals, some dangerous, with your fruit and veggies. Also pay attention to the Clean Fifteen. You can buy these conventionally without worrying too much about pesticide residue.
Make 2018 the Year of Health.
The Good Food Fighter will be there every step of the way, providing nourishing tips and life-saving guidance!
Share your comments: