Namaste Saturday: The Most Powerful Thing...

The most powerful tool you have to transform your health or keep your health is your fork! Use it well and you will thrive. Choose poorly and you will suffer.  This principle starts at a very young age but it can also turn things around mid-stream if you’ve been using your fork in a harmful way.  Actually, I find that the less a person uses their fork, usually the more a person is consuming foods that are high in fat, sugar, and preservatives, in the form of fast foods, chips, baked goods, and processed foods.  What your fork needs to find are foods that are “whole” or real.


The varied components of a whole foods diet not only taste better, make you feel better and prevent disease, but they are literally medicine. Mounds of scientific evidence point to the power of food as medicine. These "medicinal" foods are simply what our body's need-what we are evolved to require. They include fresh, unadulterated, slow-burning, high-fiber, vitamin- and mineral-rich, omega-3 plentiful, and phytonutrient-dense plant foods.


That is why we can treat and prevent most chronic illnesses with a whole, organic, real, unprocessed diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, small omega-3 containing fish like sardines and herring, and lean animal protein. It is a one-stop shopping method for dealing with everything.

1. Eat whole real, fresh, organic (when you can), unprocessed food
2. Eat a lot of fruit and vegetables full of colorful phytonutrients
3. Eat foods with plenty of fiber
4. Eat food containing omega-3 fats

Foods to Avoid Forever

There are certain foods that should be avoided forever. They are not real food. They are not meant for human consumption and lead to ADD, ADHD, learning disabilities, behavior problems, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. There are many whole or real food alternatives. If you want something easy or a treat, then search out real food substitutes for these Frankenfoods created by food scientists that benefit the food industry, but harm your health.

In the meantime, go into your kitchen, look through your cabinets and throw away anything that contains the following. When you go to the grocery store, make sure to read the labels of any foods you purchase to avoid reintroducing these substances into your diet.

1. High-fructose corn syrup (and corn syrup) This is a manufactured byproduct of corn which is a marker of poor-quality food, and may have more harmful effects on your health than regular sugar. Some high-fructose corn syrup contains mercury as a byproduct of the manufacturing process.  Take a look at your Wheat Thins, Breakfast bars, Cereals.
2. Trans Fats.(aka as hydrogenated or hydrogenated oil)  Do not be fooled by packaging that state there are zero trans fats or the nutrition label that says zero trans fats.  You must read the ingredient label to see if there is hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in the product.  These fats are good for keeping cookies on the shelf for long periods of time without going stale, but these fats have been proven to cause heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. New York City has banned trans fats, and you should too.  Read your Skippy and Jiff peanut butter ingredients.  Take a look at your Mission Flour Tortillas.
3. Processed food, food additives, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners:  Yes, I said artificial sweeteners, such as aspartame and Splenda. The average person consumes pounds of these compounds every year. Aside from being harmful themselves, they bring with them many other poor quality ingredients. Stay away from the following:

• Artificial Sweeteners
• Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet n'Low), sucralose (Splenda), acesulfame-K (Sunette, Sweet-n-Safe, Sweet One) What can you do instead?  How about using a little bit of Stevia which is a natural herb or even a little bit of Inulin which is a mildly sweet powder that Good bacteria in your gut feeds on.
• Sugar Alcohols
• Poly-ols such as mannitol, sorbitol, lactitol, malitol, etc. These can cause significant gas and bloating.
• Fat substitutes (Olean & Salatrim/Benefat)
• Many foods in a box, can, or package-
• Artificial colorings
• Any food additives
• Potassium bromate, propyl gallate, sodium nitrite, sodium nitrate, monosodium glutamate, etc.

Even if you do nothing else, simply eliminating these foods will take you a long way toward improving your health and the health of your children.