Download Food—some information

Food—some information
There are some basic rules of what to eat and what not to eat. There’s a lot
of information out there but it is often fragmented and, even worse,
contradictory.
Sugars
Avoid all sugars, including alternative sweeteners, such as raw cane sugar,
glucose, dextrose, molasses, caramel, fructose, corn syrup, date syrup, rice
syrup, wheat syrup, etc. Sugars will raise your blood sugar causing your
pancreas to produce a hormone called insulin to bring it back down. Too
much insulin is also sickening and your body will develop insulin resistance
as a result. Although in this way, you are creating a panic inside your body
on a daily basis, a kind of balance is created and for the longest time you
will hardly notice this internal battle taking place.
However, you will develop all sorts of pre-diabetic conditions, such as
candida, hypoglycemia, poor circulation, excessive thirst, excessive hunger,
excessive urination, constipation, windiness, allergies, skin problems, high
blood pressure, irregular heart rhythm, bad cholesterol, obesity, etc. Most
people will still not relate their symptoms to their foods and the doctor’s
cures will only cause side effects which, in turn, will cause more problems
and worsen the original ones.
Too much sugar intake causes your glucose and insulin levels to go up. To
make matters worse, insulin resistance creates a vicious circle in which the
insulin will increasingly be less effective. The pancreas which has to
produce too much insulin for too long will eventually gets used up and
gives out. Further, sugar sickens much more so than you might think;
viruses, yeast fungi and cancer cells love sugar and feed on it.
We often come across the ‘sugar-is-good-for-your-muscles’ myth
popularized by the sugar industry. This is a clever half truth. Any food is
basically foreign to the body. Your body has to convert food into glucose
to use it as energy. Glucose is essential for muscle development. ‘Thus
www.healthoracle.org
1
sugar is good for you,’ say the sugar manufacturers. They do not
distinguish between the indirect sugars made internally by your body,
which are slowly released into the bloodstream, and the very harmful
external, ‘fast sugars’ which directly drive up your blood glucose and
actually attack your muscles. Our body does indeed need sugar, but only
the kind the body makes itself based on whole foods.
There is also the persistent myth that raw cane sugar and molasses are
healthy because they contain minerals. Though this is not entirely untrue,
the negative effects raw cane sugar and molasses have on your blood sugar
far outweighed the benefits.
Bread, pasta, potatoes and rice
Sugar is not just the white stuff people put in their coffee or tea. It includes
all refined products such as white bread, white pasta, white flour, white
rice, in short any grain with the bran removed. The starch which is left is
no longer slowed down by the fiber in the bran, making it a fast sugar
which also causes a rise in blood sugar and a subsequent insulin response.
A good alternative is whole-grain products such as brown bread, brown
pasta, brown flour, brown rice, etc. Eat sourdough bread particularly
because the sugars in the starch have been eaten by the milk bacteria in the
bread as a result of natural fermentation. All naturally fermented products
are good: live yogurt, sauerkraut, natural vinegar, etc.
We humans are not designed to consume that many sugars. People on a
low-fat diet who eat many carbohydrates in the form of bread, pasta, and
other starchy products, even if they are whole-grain and sourdough, will
only gain weight. Thus you should not eat more than two slices of bread a
day and have pasta, rice, or potatoes only twice a week. The best bread is
sprouted grain bread.
Caffeine and alcohol
Caffeine and alcohol are also part of the sugar family as they too will raise
www.healthoracle.org
2
your glucose level. Do not drink more than two cups of black coffee a day.
You may want to put raw, unpasteurized milk in your coffee, but sugar is
out. The sugars in raw milk are slow; the ones in pasteurized milk (known
as beta glucose) are fast. The so called milk allergy or lactose intolerance is
really an intolerance or allergy to pasteurization.
Green tea also contains caffeine but this is released slowly into the blood,
giving you all the advantages of caffeine and not the disadvantages.
Caffeine is not the bad guy here. It is known to positively stimulate your
immune system and can be good for the heart. Because of the speed with
which it is released into the blood, the caffeine in coffee needs to be
regarded as a fast sugar, however. It is better to drink green tea, though.
Alcohol works in a similar way as caffeine. There is, however, no product
with alcohol which releases the alcohol slowly into the blood. Because of
its direct influence on blood sugar, alcohol should therefore be seen as a
fast sugar. Limit yourself to two glasses if you are going to drink alcohol. In
small quantities, alcohol can have an equally positive effect on the immune
system as caffeine. Go over that limit, however, and it turns into poison.
The sudden rise in blood sugar will bring about an irresistible feeling of
hunger. Your body is in survival mode and needs food to replenish its
energy. The food choices you make under the influence of alcohol are
generally not very good.
Fruit juices
Fruit juices are often seen as healthy and certainly not a type of sugar. Yet
fructose (fruit sugar) is also a sugar. As with grains, the problem is not the
sugars themselves, but the refinement of the fruit. Commercial fruit juice
does not come from the whole fruit, but from the fruit stripped of its skin
and pulp. The skin and pulp once again slow down the release of sugars
into the bloodstream because they are fibers. Your best bet is to buy a
decent blender and make your own fruit juice fresh from the whole fruit,
including the seeds, pulp and the skin in whole or in part.
It also goes without saying that sweet fruits contain more sugars than bitter
www.healthoracle.org
3
and sour fruits. Go for lemon, lime, grapefruit, pomegranate, berries and
sour apples. Healthy sweeter fruits are, among others, all other citrus fruits,
cherries, papaya, coconut and pineapple.
Honey and maple syrup
Though honey and maple syrup are fast sugars, they nevertheless contain
very healthy substances such as large amounts of vitamin C. Taken in
moderation, they are not necessarily bad for you. Nature has provided her
own limit by making the stuff really sweet so you do not overdo it.
Artificial sweeteners
Chemical sweeteners are to be avoided at all cost! They cause cancer,
damage your liver and nervous system, and are not easily removed from
your body. They prefer to live in the back of your brain which they will
literally eat away. Just like sugar, the damage is slow and cumulative. But if
you have to make a choice between sugar and artificial sweeteners, I would
choose sugar! Make sure the products you buy do not contain aspartame,
sucralose, saccharine, cyclamate, acesulfame-k and other sweeteners. You
will most likely find them in so-called ‘light’ or ‘diet’ products. That sugarfree gum you have been chewing on probably contains aspartame or some
other sweetener.
Saturated fats
For thousands of years, mankind has been using saturated fats. Since the
early 1950’s we were told that these fats are bad for us. The scientific
backup for this came from only one single study carried out by Ancel Keys.
Keys selectively used the data he collected in six countries to prove the
foregone conclusion that saturated fats is unhealthy.
The saturated-fat myth was then picked up by the western food industry
and governments and is adhered to this day, despite many studies which
demonstrate the opposite effect. Generations of doctors and dietitians have
been taught this myth and unwittingly convey it to their clients. An entire
www.healthoracle.org
4
industry has been based on the avoidance of saturated fats. Oddly enough,
nobody seems to see the connection between the low-fat we have been
eating and the many health problems which have arisen since the 1950’s.
Which products contain saturated fats? All animal products, like meat and
dairy. There are also some saturated vegetable fats, like coconut and palm
oil. Once again, man has eaten saturated fats for ages. In fact, fat-soluble
vitamins such as vitamins A, D, E, K, and B12 are best absorbed by the
body in the form of saturated fats. Saturated fats are essential and your
body screams for them if it does not get them. Did you know your body
actually has the intelligence to make its own saturated fats from all that dry
food and store them as fat reserves?
Feel free to consume saturated fats in the form of whole, unpasteurized
dairy and you will lose weight. These saturated fats are converted by the
body into energy almost straight away and are not stored as fat. You can
consume these fats by adding them directly to hot food. Do not use them
for deep frying. They are also an excellent source of protein, so that
nutrient area is covered too.
An egg fried in butter or a sandwich with a thick layer of raw-milk cheese
or a large helping of full-fat yogurt actually causes you to lose weight. Try
telling generations of heavily propagandized women and men that butter is
not fattening and partially hydrogenated, unsaturated margarine is. A lowfat diet makes you fat, so do not fall for any of those low-fat gurus who
will often promote the use of cancer-causing, aspartame-laden ‘diet’
products. Weighing calories and checking the labels for caloric information
is a waste of time. Rather, check the label for such ingredients as sugar, salt,
flavor enhancers, artificial colorants and sweeteners, mono sodium
glutamate and other chemical junk.
Cholesterol
Fear of high cholesterol is totally unnecessary. In Japan, high cholesterol is
seen as a sign of health! Have you seen the health of these people? Why is
cholesterol okay in their book but not ours? Once again we need to turn to
www.healthoracle.org
5
that single one-sided study done by Ancel Keys in the early 1950’s. We
learned to measure cholesterol and divided it up into ‘good’ cholesterol
(HDL) and ‘bad’ cholesterol (LDL). Again an entire industry has been
based on this, not just the food industry but also the pharmaceutical
industry which tells us that their highly dangerous statins (cholesterollowering drugs) lower the ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol and up the 'good' HDL
cholesterol.
Hogwash! Another myth based on outdated and selective research. There is
no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ cholesterol. There is only one type of cholesterol and
that is cholesterol. What makes cholesterol good or bad in the eyes of
scientists? Due to bad food habits (sugars) our blood gets sticky and
syrupy. Cholesterol is a part of blood and when blood starts sticking to the
vascular walls so does the cholesterol in the blood (how come there is no
'LDL blood' and 'HDL blood'?). The cholesterol which sticks to the
vascular walls is called LDL and is therefore ‘bad’. The cholesterol which
keeps flowing through the veins is the ‘good’ HDL. As the cholesterol and
the blood get stickier, the medical diagnosis will be an increase of LDL.
Until you are completely clogged up and need a bypass operation.
This faulty LDL/HDL diagnosis has doctors looking at blood cholesterol
exclusively and offering a ‘solution’ in the form of statins. Since there is
really only one type of cholesterol these drugs do not lower the LDL but
the overall cholesterol. This is very dangerous. Side effects of these drugs
are rheumatoid complaints such as muscle cramps and impaired blood
flow. This result is obvious as cholesterol acts like a vacuum cleaner. That
is right, it is a blood cleanser. Did you know that your body needs
cholesterol to synthesize sunlight into vitamin D? No wonder the Japanese
see high cholesterol as a good thing.
Lower your cholesterol with these drugs and your blood will get polluted
more and more along with decreased blood circulation. The painful side
effects this has on your muscles and extremities (arms, legs, hands, feet,
head) are nothing compared to the heart hazards. Herbal medicines which
promote blood flow and have zero side effects, such as ginkgo biloba,
hawthorn, green tea, pine extract, cayenne, ginger, and garlic are often
www.healthoracle.org
6
dismissed as nonsense and are often contraindicated, i.e. they cannot be
used in combination with drugs. The choice is entirely yours.
Unsaturated fats
Since the 1950’s, plant-based unsaturated fats have become the answer of
the food industry and government to our health problems. Why then have
these problems only increased since that time? Let us first look at the
financial benefits to using unsaturated vegetable fats versus saturated fats
like butter. Take a biscuit, for example. Butter comes from cows and cows
cost money. More money than having a field of sun flowers or corn from
which you can press oil. Butter also has a shorter sell-by date. That is why
biscuits are no longer made from butter. You will often find the very vague
description ‘vegetable fats’ on the label, meaning they chose the cheapest
unsaturated fat available at the time.
So there is a clear commercial reason for using unsaturated vegetable fats.
If this had a positive effect on our health this of course would be no
problem. Trouble is; it does not. Did you know that margarine is inferior
butter which was originally used to fatten up animals for slaughter?
Margarine has a grayish color and needs to be dyed to give it the color of
butter. In fact, margarine is only one molecule removed from plastic! The
powerful food industry is selling us this just to save a buck. They do not
give a hoot about your health and your government will not protect you
either.
There is some confusion about monounsaturated and polyunsaturated
vegetable fats. Examples of monounsaturated fats are olive oil, sesame oil
and peanut oil. Polyunsaturated fats include sunflower oil, corn oil and
soya oil. You may recognize the polyunsaturated fats as ingredients in many
commercial food products. That is because they are very cheap and have
many applications, not just for the food industry but also the cosmetics and
pesticide industries, to name but a few. Polyunsaturated fats contain
inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids. Monounsaturated fats contain antiinflammatory omega-3 fatty acids.
www.healthoracle.org
7
There is a growing awareness about the health-giving effects of omega fatty
acids. The food industry cleverly plays on this awareness by putting slogans
like ‘contains omega fats’ on their labels. They would rather not distinguish
between omega-3 and omega-6, just like they talk about ‘vegetable oil’. The
omega-3 to omega-6 ratio we are supposed to consume should not exceed
1:4. Due to extensive use of the cheaper polyunsaturated fats our modern
foods have a ratio of 1:20, sometimes even 1:50 or more.
Something else is also going on. Most plant oils do not lend themselves to
be heated. The burning point of virtually all vegetable oils is much lower
than saturated fats, which makes these plant fats good for cold use only.
But bear in mind that the balance should be in favor of omega-3. Omega-6
fats are not necessarily bad, though, it is about balance. Healthy omega-3
rich oils are olive oil, walnut oil and flaxseed oil. Healthy omega-6 oils are
sesame oil and wheat germ oil.
Besides sugars, grains also contain lots of omega-6 fats. For this reason, a
salad (complex carbs) with green leafy vegetables and sprouts (omega-3) is
infinitely healthier for you than all this bread (sugars, omega-6). Deep
frying in vegetable oil results in the release of carcinogenic substances due
to burnt oil. Only olive oil, sesame oil and peanut oil allow themselves to
be heated.
Whatever you do, do not go over 175 degrees Celsius, preferably below
that. Use a low to medium flame when you are cooking. Low and slow is
best. Even the most heat-resistant fats will burn if you go over 175 Celsius.
For that reason a microwave oven, which heats food ultra fast on a
molecular level is a definite no-no. Viewed under a microscope,
microwaved food shows ruptured, broken and even exploded cells. This
has been known since World War Two. Pity you have to hear about it now.
Trans fats
The missing link between saturated and unsaturated fats is trans fats. A
trans fat is an unsaturated fat which is heated, causing the fluids to
evaporate and the fat to solidify. A hydrogen molecule is then added to the
www.healthoracle.org
8
fat. This hydrogenation process alters the chemical structure of the fat.
What was originally an unsaturated fat has now become a saturated fat.
These fats are man-made and do not exist in nature. What is their
advantage? Take that biscuit. Vegetable fats are cheaper and are used in
place of butter. They are liquid, however, and do not have the same semisolid structure as butter has naturally. By hydrogenating vegetable fats they
can be used as a direct replacement for butter. They also keep well. So what
if butter is a natural saturated fat and trans fats are unnatural saturated fats?
The consumer will not even know the difference, right?
Right? As it so happens, consumers are waking up to the dangers of trans
fats. New York City was the first to completely ban trans fats and other
cities will soon follow. Denmark is the most progressive European country
by imposing a trans fat limit of 2%. Together with sugars, trans fats are the
main cause of the dramatic increase of diseases like diabetes, high blood
pressure, cholesterol problems, cardiovascular disease, cancer, rheumatoid
arthritis, candidiasis, allergies, ADHD, depression, chronic fatigue
syndrome, etc. we have seen after the second World War. Trans fats are
alien to the body and are dangerous free radicals capable of causing cellular
(DNA) damage. As with sugar and artificial sweeteners the damage is
cumulative: the longer you consume these fats, the greater the damage.
How do you recognize trans fatty acids when shopping for food items?
Read the labels. Look for hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils or
fats. You will be amazed to see how many products contain trans fats
nowadays.
Trans-fats – where did it all go wrong? Let’s take a look at the rise and fall
of the bad fat. Trans-fats have become a hot topic of discussion in the
food-and-health agenda. It is now conclusively proven that trans-fats are
linked to coronary heart disease, and everyone from food manufacturers to
governments and consumers are keen to wipe their hands of it.
But it was not always this way. Let us take a look at the rise and fall of the
bad fat.
www.healthoracle.org
9
1890’s. In the 1890’s, French chemist Paul Sabatier develops the
hydrogenation process. A few years later in 1902, scientist Wilhelm
Normann discovers that liquid oils can be converted into solid fats, where
hydrogen was added to oil to solidify it. (In food manufacturing, solid fats
are more useful than oils). This hydrogenated fat became referred to as
trans-fatty acid, or trans-fat and it was the first man-made fat to become
part of our modern diet.
1911. In America, the launch of Crisco® brought partially hydrogenated
vegetable oil into kitchens nationwide. It gave a much-desired crumbly
texture and taste to our food.
1937. With the looming war, butter became a rationed product. The race
was on to find a cheaper, more available alternative, and so margarine was
born. Gradually margarine replaced butter, and vegetable shortening
replaced animal fat (like lard) in cooking. This remained so some time to
come.
The India arm a MNC, Hindustan Lever Ltd, introduced the ‘Dalda’ brand,
which has since gone on to become a generic name for oil in the country.
Of course other companies followed and helped to ruin the health of the
citizens.
1957. The American Heart Association recommends replacing saturated
fats (animal fats) as they caused greater risk of coronary heart disease
(CHD). Over the next 30 years, most of the consumer advocacy groups
followed suit and trans-fats replaced saturated fats in cooking.
1975. From as early as 1975, scientists had suspected that eating partially
hydrogenated fats was connected with CHD. Years of subsequent testing
followed until the 90’s, revealing an undeniable correlation between transfats and increased LDL (bad) cholesterol.
1993. Following the release of several scientific studies, health advocacy
groups call for fast-food restaurants to stop using partially hydrogenated
oils in their deep fryers.
www.healthoracle.org
10
2003. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA) passes a law
requiring that trans-fat be listed on the Nutrition Facts label on food
products. With a 3 year grace period to comply, some manufacturers
reformulated their products to contain less or no trans-fat.
2006. Trans-fat labeling becomes mandatory in the US. Later the same
year, New York City becomes the first US city to ban trans-fat. In Europe,
Denmark preceded New York by 2 years, banning trans-fats in 2004.
Philadelphia followed suit thereafter and other cities are expected to follow.
As manufacturers are looking for a new ingredient to replace trans-fat and
saturated fat, palm oil appears to fit the bill perfectly. It remains solid at
room temperature and does not require hydrogenation, and it has many
other positive health qualities. Palm oil today has successfully replaced
trans-fats in many food products including cakes, popcorn, fries,
chocolates, ice creams, frying oils, noodles, cookies ad more. However
some manufacturers and retailers are reluctant to switch to palm oil
because of the negative environmental perceptions facing it. Whilst the
industry is taking steps to improve the situation, it will take time before
people can be convinced that palm oil is as ethical as it is healthy
The soya myth
Finally the soya myth needs to be exposed. This is another persistent one
among alternative circles. An often-used argument is that soya has been
used in Asia for thousands of years. Another half truth. While it is true that
soya products were consumed as far back as the Ming Dynasty, only
fermented soya was used. Raw soya products such as tofu, soya milk, soya
lecithin and soya oil are only 200 to 300 years old. Once again they have
been popularized by a powerful industry which has been pulling the wool
over your eyes by emphasizing a healthy tradition in fermented soya use
and confusing it with unfermented soya. Health food stores sell this as a
health food!
What is so bad about soya? Well, it contains lots of phytic acid, an acid
www.healthoracle.org
11
which can also be found in yeast bread but not in sourdough bread.
Sourdough bread is fermented bread which contains lactic acid bacteria and
so does fermented soya. Besides eating the sugars in the starch these
bacteria also eat the phytic acid. If left intact, phytic acid acts as a mineral
blocker. It blocks the absorption of important minerals like iron, zinc,
magnesium and calcium. Feeding babies with a so-called lactose allergy
soya milk is an absolute disaster. Kids and adults would also do wise to
avoid taking unfermented soya.
Fermented soya products are soya sauce (watch out for other harmful
ingredients such as sugar, MSG, preservatives and colorants), miso and
tempeh. Particularly, Japanese cuisine is very good with fermented soya.
Bad news for vegetarians and vegans who often turn to tofu and associated
soya products. They too fall victim to the propaganda of a very profitable
industry.
A fascinating new study published by the American Journal of Clinical
Nutrition shows that dietary fat is necessary for the absorption of
nutrients from fruits and vegetables. In the study, people who
consumed salads with fat-free salad dressing absorbed far less of the
helpful phytonutrients and vitamins from spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and
carrots than those who consumed their salads with a salad dressing
containing fat.
More about Fats
This is interesting research, but not necessarily all that surprising. We
have known for a long time that healthy fats are a critical part of a
healthy diet, and that avoiding fats actually causes chronic disease. The
key is in choosing the right kind of fats for your diet and making sure
you do not overdo the fats, because fats have a very high caloric density
and can add far more calories to your meal than you might expect.
In this study, the focus was on eating salads with either fat-free salad
dressing or regular salad dressing containing fat in the form of rape seed
oil. However, these findings apply to far more than just eating salads.
www.healthoracle.org
12
Every meal that you consume should contain healthy fats, even if only
in small portions. What are the healthy fats? Rape seed oil is what is
consider a neutral fat, meaning it is not necessarily a bad fat, but neither
is it considered one of the healthier fats. The healthy fats include extravirgin olive oil, flax seed oil, and fats from plant sources such as nuts,
sesame seeds, avocados, and coconuts. These healthy fats should be
consumed with every meal. Failure to include these fats in a meal will
result in many of the nutrients consumed during the meal not being
absorbed by the body. That is because many nutrients are fat-soluble
nutrients. Beta carotene, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E are three such
nutrients that require fat in order to be absorbed and used by the human
body, but there are many other nutrients that also need fats for human
metabolism.
It does not take much fat, by the way, to aid the absorption of these
important vitamins and nutrients. Eating just 5 or 10 nuts, or one-fourth
of an avocado, provides plenty of dietary fat for transporting these
nutrients and aiding their absorption. On another note, it is interesting
to remember that for decades the American Heart Association insisted
that heart patients should avoid nearly all dietary fat. This was during the
low-fat craze of the 1980’s and 1990’s, when people were running scared
from all dietary sources of fat and instead consuming massive quantities
of sugar and refined carbohydrates.
We now know that this advice from the American Heart Association
was, in effect, causing extreme nutritional deficiencies and actually
reducing the life span of heart patients rather than helping them. Such is
the case with information from many so-called disease organizations,
such as the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes
Association. Do not listen to nutritional advice from any association
that is so politically motivated and receives funding from pharmaceutical
companies, as both of those organizations do.
The other thing to keep in mind with this finding is that if you are
supplementing your diet with nutritional supplements or super foods, it
is a good idea to do so in combination with a few nuts, seeds, or a
www.healthoracle.org
13
tablespoon of flax oil or olive oil. One tablespoon of flax oil will give
you about 100 calories, so keep that in mind in terms of keeping your
total daily calorie intake under control. By consuming fats as you take
these nutritional supplements, you will multiply the effectiveness of the
phytonutrients found in those supplements, thereby giving your body
far greater nutritional help from the very same capsules and pills.
In other words, if you take superfood supplements without fat, you are
not getting the same benefit as taking the same supplements with a little
bit of fat. So keep some nuts handy, as I always do, and eat a few nuts
with each meal. We highly recommend macadamias, cashews, pecans,
peanuts, and almonds, and remember that all nuts should be purchased
and consumed in their raw form, without absolutely no added salt or
flavors, and with no roasting or cooking. Raw nuts are the healthiest way
to go, and will provide you with all sorts of additional beneficial
nutrients that go beyond what you are getting in your food.
www.healthoracle.org
14