How Sweet It Isn’t: What happened to me when I gave up sugar – Part 2

….continued from August 25/2014

donutsWhen my girls were about four and six, I went alone one day to do my weekly grocery shop. The last thing I added to my basket was six Bismarcks.

A Bismarck is a jelly doughnut. The Co-op bakery made the best Bismarcks. The dough is light and fluffy. They are fried a deep golden-brown. They are injected with real raspberry jam and finished with a light coat of fine, not powdered sugar.

These are still warm and their aroma teases my nose as I start my car. I decide to have one before I leave the parking lot.

One must bite into a Bismarck strategically or risk wearing the filling. If you bite it at the “injection site”, you are rewarded with a burst of flavour in your first bite and you reduce the risk of it volcano-ing down your shirt.

I quickly inhale the first Bismarck.

I reason I can have another since there is no sense taking five doughnuts home for a family of four.

Number Two disappears equally fast, practically melting in my mouth.

I pull away from the parking lot but I still want more. So I reason that I can eat “my donut”. After all, of the four left, one is mine!

It too is gone in a few bites, as though made of air.

Then I think, “I can’t take home three donuts for a family of four!”

So I gobble down the last three!

I’m not quite sure what I did with the bag before I got home. Maybe I ate it too!

I don’t even remember eating those last three Bismarcks. I was likely suffering from a sugar-rush, near a diabetic coma. I do remember the overwhelming feelings of guilt, shame and failure.

What kind of mother gobbles up her own children’s treats?

Why can’t I control myself?

What am I doing to my health?

No wonder I can’t control my weight!

Typical negative talk that I now know feeds those cravings for empty calories.

Over the years I have consumed theater-size bags of Twizzlers, Nibs or other chewy candy, easily in one sitting, sometimes, before the movie started. I have inhaled a whole layer of Turtles chocolates in one ten-minute session and likely dipped into the bottom layer! I have torn through a $50 box of premium chocolates in a couple days, only because polishing it off in one sitting would be embarrassing!

I have known for at least three decades that sugar is evil, yet extricating myself from its grasp was something I didn’t consider and if I did I was certain I would never succeed. How could I possibly give up sugar? Sugar is love!

My path towards health has progressed since my peaches epiphany 35 years ago. In 2005 I discover I have gluten intolerance. Eliminating wheat results in significant weight-loss and the clearing up of the acne that plagued me from my teens to my mid-forties. I used to joke that it was insulting to have zits sprouting out of my wrinkles.

I actively seek ways to increase my health. I study health issues and learn about food. Each year I choose to do something specific to improve my health. I give up the small bit of alcohol I consumed. I feel better. One year I resolve to eat more vegetables by ensuring they occupy at least half of the real estate of my plate. I feel better. The next year it is to eat more raw foods. I notice that my wrinkles appeared to fade, (or maybe that’s just the wishful thinking of a middle-aged woman.) But I feel better!

One year I decide to eliminate dairy. I hadn’t been a huge dairy consumer as milk always tasted sour and it upset my stomach. But I did love butter, cheese, cream, and ice-cream. When I stop eating dairy I realize an unexpected benefit: I stop snoring completely. My husband had been complaining about it so it is a very happy benefit for both.

Last January, as I polish off the last of the Christmas chocolate, I decide to see what will happen if I eliminate sugar.

A fellow Toastmaster who spoke about sugar a month previous influences this change. He reveals that in 1800, the average person consumed about four pounds of sugar each year; that in 1900 it was about 45 pounds and by 2010 it was over 160 pounds per year!

Over the years I learned that sugar feeds cancer, it causes inflammation and it robs the body of nutrients. I believe that the skyrocketing rates of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease are diet related, specifically our society’s high consumption of sugar.

Yet I continued to eat it, like smokers who know lung cancer is in their future but puff away.

I eat my last sugar January 5, 2013. I do little except to be ultra aware of what I ingest. I resolve to consume no processed sugar (including any hidden in processed foods) and no dried fruit (which is high in sugar). I allow myself very small amounts of maple syrup and honey but I avoid these entirely for the first couple months.

The first thing that happens to me is a headache, not a throbber, but a dull ache, like when I don’t get enough sleep. That lasts about three days. I find it bearable if I drink lots of water.

Within 14 days I lose 14 pounds. That is amazing! But not surprising. Sugar causes inflammation, which causes water retention. I suspect the first 14 pounds were simply water, flushing away the toxins my body had sequestered.

Within three weeks I notice something else: I had had a root canal five years before that always bothered me. No dentist could figure out the problem. I had resolved to live with it, chew on the other side of my mouth. After three weeks of no sugar, my root canal tooth no longer bothers me and I can chew on that side. Over a year later, I am still chewing without pain.

After two months, I am down 22 pounds. My clothes are hanging off me. I have to buy a new wardrobe. That was fun! It sure felt good to explain to the sales clerks that my shopping spree was because I had gone from size 12 to size 6! All because I stopped eating sugar.

I think it was at about two months that I stop using toothpaste. I can’t stand the taste of the sugar in it. (Yes, toothpaste has sugar in it!) I begin using baking soda and essential oils (peppermint, spearmint, or wintergreen) and my teeth are whiter than they’ve been for years. I’m not sure if that’s because of my no sugar diet or no toothpaste but I’m happy not to have spent hundreds on teeth whitening.

I also save money on teeth cleaning. A recent visit to the dentist reveals no cavities and no tartar or plaque so no need for cleaning.

….continued next week

How Sweet It Isn’t: What happened to me when I gave up sugar – Part 1

“For my daughter’s recent cookbook, I wrote my sugar story.

 I promised not to share it with my readers until her book was released.
Buy it here
rachelscookbook
Now here is my story. (It’s long so we’ve broken it into 3 segments.)
I would love to hear about your struggles/victories over sugar!”

 

 

My Year Without Sugar and How my Body Reacted

Truly, it’s not surprising that I have a sugar addiction.

It is surprising to me that I refer to it now as an addiction. Like any addict I lived in denial for years.

From a very young age, my loving paternal grandmother showered me with sugar. She entered puberty at the onset of the Great Depression, with its scarcity of sugar. The greatest gift she could give was food, especially sugar.

The only sweetener she had regular access to growing up was honey and that was reserved for medicinal purposes. My great-grandmother was a closet alcoholic so any sugar that came into the house was diverted to a crock in her bedroom for fermenting fruit.

Then came World War II and the rationing of sugar. By then Grandma was married, poor, and homesteading. Grandpa demonstrated his love by keeping bees, which ensured an extra large sugar ration (for the bees) and abundant honey (for Grandma).

By the time I was born, my immediate ancestors were as well off as they had ever been. And that meant abundant food. Not fancy food. Mostly homegrown food. But the one thing that was prevalent was sugar.

Do you know how easy it is to shower (grand)children with sugar love?

Grandma always served three desserts. Desserts were planned and prepared long before the main meal. She might serve chocolate cake, vanilla ice cream and raspberry Jello. Or she would offer a choice of two kinds of pie, always apple, and sometimes raisin, cherry, or saskatoon (or a slice of each) with ice cream. She may also have had homemade cookies in case you didn’t get enough sugar. And there was nothing like a cup of hot chocolate to soothe the soul!

Sunday after church we would stop at the North Hill Store where we each got to spend one of our two dimes; the first dime had already fallen dutifully into the collection plate. We often chose a bag of penny candy painstakingly selected and ceremoniously placed into the tiny paper bag by Mr. LaBarre. He had a soft spot for us as we were purportedly well-behaved for children, and he would sneak in an extra piece or two of our favourites. Sometimes we would spend our money on a cream soda, orange or grape crush and a bag of chips or a chocolate bar.

Looking back it’s not at all surprising that I associate sugar with pleasure. Grandma was devoted to me and she showered me with love and sugar. Love and sugar go together. Pleasure!

Much of my energy as a child went into securing sugar. Within moments I spent all found-money at the corner store. I invariably inhaled my portions; my brother would slowly savour his sweets or even hoard them for later, which meant that I had to concentrate on how I might manipulate the treasure from his greedy grip. Occasionally that would result in his sharing or even surrendering entirely. (Not likely).

I was a sugar pig.

Processed food became mainstream when I was a child. Like other 60’s mothers, my mother bought into their promise of convenience, although her limited budget prohibited her from completely stocking our shelves with junk. Kool-aid, Tang, and cereal (with toys inside the boxes) were all part of our diet, at least sporadically.

Luckily we were poor and we grew our own vegetables, raised our own eggs, picked and put-up wild berries, and supplemented our homegrown chicken diet with meat from the odd deer that Dad would bag in the fall.

I developed a taste for fresh vegetables from the garden. A favorite activity was playing hide and seek in a pea patch on a hot afternoon. I would munch on peas while I hid or even as seeker, (one can become quite famished playing hide and seek!)

I liked the raspberry patch even more. As sweet as fresh peas can be, there’s nothing like ripe raspberries picked while the dew still clings like blobs of transparent mercury on the knobby surface of the berry. They’re especially good when they’ve been sun-warmed for a couple hours. Heaven is gumming a handful of raspberries (not chewing to avoid lodging their tiny seeds into your teeth) and letting the sweet syrup trickle down your throat.

My infatuation for sugar led to my childhood dream for the future: that I would live in Calgary (check), that I would have my own car (check) and the back seat would be filled with cinnamon buns and chocolate bars! I’ve likely eaten enough chocolate bars to fill many backseats!

By the time I turn 21, I am married, pregnant with my second daughter. I’m in Safeway with my toddler in the cart. In the produce department I admire the fresh peaches. But alas! They are expensive. I begin to push away.

I look into my cart.

I see doughnuts. I see cookies.

Like a bolt of lightning I am struck by the notion that if I put back the junk, I can afford the peaches.

That epiphany changes the course of my shopping forever. I begin allocating more of my grocery budget to fresh whole food. I bake our treats, usually substituting some whole grain flour for the white flour and cutting the sugar at least in half. Nobody ever notices. If they do they don’t say anything or stop eating what I make.

I actively guard my children from too much sugar. It‘s not always easy in the face of my Grandma (whose sugar showering continues with my children) and my in-laws, who are of the same generation as my grandma. I am often accused of being a mean mom when I forbid sugar or even when I simply limit it.

“Awww!” The guilty (great-)grandparent whines when I declare “no sugar to be sent home!”

“I just made these lovely squares.” (to child) “You like the mocha balls, don’t you?”

I remember once getting into the car after visiting Grandma and my girls are giggling in the back seat. What’s so funny? Despite my orders that the girls are not to have candy, Grandma has sneaked them each a chocolate bar as we slipped out the door.

I grouse but inside I smile because I know exactly how those girls feel. I know the feeling of being in cahoots with Grandma. I know that a loving heart committed the crime. I know the rush of pleasure: love in a sweet package!

Even if sugar is poison, is it really a sin when it comes from such great love?

At their dad’s parents’ house, cookies, cakes, and squares are served up to five times per day. (Mid-morning coffee, dessert at noon, mid-afternoon snack, dessert at supper, and bedtime snack!) Only breakfast doesn’t include them but sugar is well-represented with toast and jam, pancakes and syrup, and/or porridge with brown sugar.

I remember stuffing myself so full at their Sunday dinners my stomach would protest painfully. My sister-in-law would hold her abdomen and cry in agony, “I am so full!” Our gluttony often struck me as hypocritical in this evangelical Christian home. But I didn’t stop.

My girls’ grandpa thought bonding time with his granddaughters was a trip to the Co-op coffee shop for a long john (a huge block of a donut covered in chocolate or maple icing). They did too.

I saw them developing the same addiction to sugar that afflicted me. One long john contained more than their full day’s allowance of sugar, fat and calories and contributed almost no nutrition.

But I couldn’t really blame them for their attraction to doughnuts…

…..continued next week

Vacation Weight Gain: Ten Tips to Keep Holiday Food from Going to “Waist”

woman-measuring-her-waist-100202732Post-vacation blues are not limited to dreading returning to work. Vacationers often lament gaining “ten pounds” on their vacations.

There is no need to gain weight on vacation. While it’s harder to adhere to a healthy diet when travelling, it’s not impossible. Here are some tips to avoid food going “to waist”!

  1. Stay the course. Your health is your greatest asset and doesn’t take vacations. A devil-may-care attitude about what you consume will cost you on many levels. Bingeing at buffets daily WILL affect your health, (although I’m all for a good feast once in a while!) Keep up your exercise regime as much as possible.
  2. Don’t over-imbibe. Alcohol is packed with empty calories that go straight to belly fat. In moderation your body can handle it but starting poolside happy hour at 10AM will fatigue your body. Drinking every day impairs your body’s repair-ability.
  3. Ask for special concessions and preparations. Restaurants are surprisingly accommodating if you ask. On our recent family trip to Disneyland, we found the park over-the-top helpful when we asked about their gluten and dairy-free options. At one restaurant on Main Street Disneyland, the chef himself took our order and assured us he, alone would prepare our meal. (Note: they did not advertise gluten-free, but many places in SoCal had GF menus).
  4. Always get a bar fridge in your hotel room, because…
  5. …the grocery store is your first stop. Buy cut-up veggies, fruit, nuts, healthy dips, almond milk. Keep them in the bar fridge (see #4). Not only can you save big bucks on food by shopping at the grocery store for some of your meals and snacks, it’s easier to eat clean when healthy snacks are available. (Pack baggies to carry and store snacks).
  6. Oh, and buy a case of bottled water. We often don’t drink enough water on vacation; dehydration triggers feelings of hunger. Keeping cold ones in the bar fridge helps you stay hydrated. Coffee, soft drinks, and alcohol all contribute to dehydration.
  7. Plan daily snacks. Packing a cooler bag with some fruits, nuts and veggies can head off the hangries that strike and help you avoid the temptation of unhealthy options generally available at tourist attractions.
  8. Make smoothies. I carry a small blender (Magic Bullet) when I travel with my grandtoys. They love smoothies for breakfast, desserts and snacks and it’s a great way to use overripe fruit. This trick saves huge money on breakfasts!
  9. Watch your portions. Restaurants, especially in the USA, serve mountains of food on one plate. My husband and I often share dishes and still have leftovers! If you can’t share, ask for a carton and immediately put half away to take with you. Also, it’s not a crime to leave some of your fries on the plate. If more people stopped eating, the portions might shrink!
  10. Scout restaurants in the area that have healthy choices. In California, we ate several times at Soup Plantation, a soup and salad restaurant, (called Sweet Tomatoes in Arizona). They featured gluten-free lemon muffins when we were there. The grandtoys were in heaven! We also ate frequently at Mother’s, which is a Southern California health food store chain with attached vegetarian restaurant. The grandtoys had Mother’s gluten-free pancakes and French toast several times as well as consuming a few peanut butter banana smoothies. I had baked sweet potatoes (better than fries), plates of steamed seasonal veggies and pita pockets filled with  shredded beets, carrots, with avocado and tomatoes. Yum!
photo belongs to www.ShelleyGoldbeck.com
photo belongs to www.ShelleyGoldbeck.com

Bonus Tip #11: Get back on the horse. It’s inevitable that your eating habits (aka diet) will be disrupted when you’re on vacation. So what if you come home a few pounds heavier? Resume your healthy practices and you’ll soon be back to your svelte self. Hopefully you tried some new healthy foods you can add to your repertoire.

Tower Garden

Our Easter Sunday family activity this year was firing up our Tower Garden, a home hydroponic  system for growing fresh produce in a small space. It was very fitting since Earth Day was this week.

Tower Garden before planting Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com

We started our seeds a couple weeks ago. We had great fun “planting” the rock wool cubes into the net pots. A pump in the tub lifts water to the top where it showers the water and liquid nutrients down onto the plants.

I first saw Tower Gardens last summer. Since I am a huge proponent of our growing as much of our own food as possible I instantly saw the potential of this growing system. Our growing season in Calgary is a mere 90 frost-free days so it’s almost impossible to eat locally grown fresh food nine months of the year.

Tower Garden fixes that. We were able to start indoors six weeks before the last frost. The gardens have wheeled platforms that allow growers to move their towers inside before the first frost. I suspect with some grow lights, I can run my tower year-round.

My plan is to document and blog about my Tower Garden experience. I will measure and record the produce I harvest from it. If I can prove that this is a viable option for food growing with a reasonable ROI, I will shout about them from the rooftops.

Tower Garden2
Grow fresh organic vegetables, greens and even fruits in less than one square metre. Photo owned by www.shelleygoldbeck.com

In the meantime, if you’re curious or anxious to have one for yourself before I share my experiences, please visit this site: https://sg23190.towergarden.ca/

Let me know if you have questions about my Tower Garden experience. I invite you to have a conversation with me.

I believe we can change our lives and our world if we grow even a bit of our own food. It’s the best way to ensure food purity (organic, non-GMO, etc.) and to reduce our footprint on this earth.

Tower Garden seems to be part of the solution!

Salt of the Earth

saltAre you afraid of salt? Is that fear based in fact?

Sodium is key in the operation of all signals within, as well as to and from, the brain.

Salt is so essential to the body that if you drink too much water it can flush salt out of your system and cause fatal hyponatremia.

Consumption of too MUCH salt can be deadly: about 1 gram of salt per kilogram of weight will kill you. In the western world we are constantly reminded to lower our sodium intake.

Obviously salt, like anything else, can be used for good or for evil. There are variables. For example, the kind of salt you ingest really matters.

Ideally you consume unrefined sea salt. All salt came from the sea at some point. The difference is in the refining. Table salt is heavily refined where sea salt is generally sourced by evaporating water out of sea water, leaving salt.

Sea salt isn’t white. It can be grey or yellowish or pink. But never white. White is a sign of refining. Refining is a sign of reduced nutrients.

Sea salt contains as many as 84 trace minerals in addition to calcium, magnesium and potassium.

Table salt is primarily kiln-dried sodium chloride with anti-caking agents added. (18 food additives are allowed in salt!) Kiln drying involves scorching salt at high heat to remove moisture. Trace minerals, as well as calcium, magnesium and potassium are also removed creating a product that is unnatural to the body, contributing to high blood pressure, heart trouble, kidney disease and eczema, among other problems.

Besides quality, the quantity of salt ingested is a major factor. The average North American consumes two or three times the recommended daily allotment for salt, about 1500 mg. Some experts believe our health woes could be dramatically reduced (by up to 50%) if we cut our salt intake in half.

The majority of salt consumed in North America comes from processed and restaurant foods. Food manufacturers understand that salt (along with its fellow criminals, sugar and fat) is highly addictive. They have gradually added more and more salt to their products, conditioning their customers to that taste in food. They also liberally use another offensive salt, monosodium glutamate or MSG, a known neurotoxin, which excites the taste buds, providing the illusion of better taste.

If you avoid processed and restaurant foods you can better control the amount and the quality of salt in your diet and therefore control the health problems it causes or exacerbates. There are other benefits too: fewer transfats, more fibre, less sugar, etc.

Leave the shaker off the table. Or don’t cook with salt but add a little at the table, to taste, meaning taste first, then sprinkle.

Choose sea salt; it’s more expensive but you will use less of it.

Be aware of hidden salt. Soft drinks, for example, are major sources of sodium.

Many companies make salt substitutes; I prefer those made with organic herbs and spices. They are good transition products to help your taste buds return to their natural state. Be careful not to eat too little salt.

At first you may find that you miss salt but I assure you that you will quickly get used to using less. You will find that food tastes different, better and requires less seasoning in general.

Then you will find that processed and restaurant foods are often too salty to eat. I can no longer stand to eat soup in a restaurant or out of a can: too salty!

Don’t be afraid of salt. Its historical significance is no coincidence. It is vital for life.

(I first became aware of the effects of salt when I was pregnant with my first child over three decades ago. My doctor advised me of the dangers and identified some of the hidden sources of sodium. Reducing sodium gave me immediate benefit and I have been vigilant about salt ever since).

Sources:

Michael Pollen has written a number of good books including “In Defense of Food” where he discusses fat, salt, and sugar.

Mineral content of sea salt:

http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/list-minerals-sea-salt-8907.html

Hyponatremia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatremia

Green

GreenMarch 17, 2014

On the one day of the year that we all claim to have a little Irish in us, I urge you to look at “Green” differently.

Turn away from green beer or cupcakes adorned with great gobs of greasy green icing.

Turn instead to spring greens, perhaps blended into a smoothie or sprinkled with lemon juice and olive oil and eaten with a fork.

Infusing food with green dye may seem like fun, but the truth is most food colouring is toxic, especially blue and yellow food dyes. Green, being a combination of these two, could be the most toxic.

What do food dyes do to the human body? Nobody knows for sure.

That’s right! Most food colouring is considered GRAS, Generally Recognized as Safe, and therefore has not been extensively tested, along with the other tens of thousands of chemicals lurking in our food supply.

Basically this means that until a problem is demonstrated, such substances remain in our food, causing unknown effects and contraindications with all the other foreign compounds in our bodies.

Because of the dearth of testing, our clues are mostly anecdotal. There is evidence that food colouring and other chemicals added to food contribute to cancer and can adversely affect children with ADHD tendencies.

My first daughter exhibited signs of ADHD as a toddler so I educated myself on the possible causes. I began a habit of preparing most of our food so I could control these poisons.

Of course it’s impossible to know if that made any difference but my daughter managed to survive without taking brain-numbing ADHD medications.

Is one glass of green beer or one green cupcake going to kill you? Probably not.

But our bodies are so bombarded with toxic chemicals that any tiny steps we can take to support them are worth it.

Substituting a green smoothie for a green beer is (at least) two steps: “not ingesting” the food dye is one step (or the alcohol, another step?) and “ingesting the whole real food” in your green smoothie is the other.

I urge you not to leave your health to the “Luck o’ the Irish” but take control by choosing the right green, not just on St. Patrick’s Day, but every day.

Smoothie resource:

http://www.thevegansorceress.com/smoothies1/01slfjphrkhdxm1hpzpdxyyixd4r00

Make your own food colouring:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/8-ways-to-make-organic-diy-food-coloring.html

Mana Boosting Green Smoothie Recipe

Unfood

no-junk-foodDefinition of Food:

1) things people eat.

2) things people eat that nourish, sustain or supply substances to sustain growth, repair and propel vital processes and to furnish energy.

Sadly Definition One is how most people think about food. If it’s edible, it’s food. Edible seems to mean if it doesn’t kill you immediately or in the short term, it’s okay to eat.

I prefer the second definition but if we use it as a ruler, the majority of what we eat falls short of food. We tend to eat a lot of what I like to call “unfood”.

Unfood is edible in that it doesn’t cause immediate death. Unfood is usually heavily processed and denatured of its nutrients. Unfood often includes substances created in labs to enhance, smell, taste, mouth-feel and shelf-life of the product. The body doesn’t know how to process these chemicals so it sequesters them into fat cells or reacts to them with aches, inability to sleep and other disorders.

Sadly, our first inclination is to reach for more poison: over-the-counter painkillers and sleeping pills, which further add to the toxic burden our bodies bear.

Look at the labels on the packaged food in your pantry. Are there words you can’t pronounce? I suggest you look them up online. Find out what other uses there are for these chemicals to determine whether eating them is a good idea.

Real food doesn’t require dozens of chemicals. Bread is a great example of how our food has been adulterated. Real bread requires five basic ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, water and yeast. Gourmet breads may include eggs, milk, and seeds.

But check out the label on your favourite bread. Subway has over 50 ingredients in its bread. A recent news story touted Food Babe’s victory in convincing Subway to remove one chemical from its bread. Big Deal. It’s a start but it seems rather like “lip service”. “We care about your health so we are removing X to lull you into forgetting about the other 40-some questionable ingredients!”

Chemicals are used to cover up the stench of processed food, which is often made with inferior ingredients. Pink slime, a lab concoction of proteins captured from slaughterhouse waste, is washed in ammonia before being added to patties, nuggets, sticks, and other forms of “pre-chewed” meats.

There is an entire industry manufacturing and marketing grain-based foods, most of which are corn-based. These foods are evil on many levels:

  1. 90% of corn in North America is GMO. In studies (except those conducted by GMO companies) consumption of GMO foods led to gastro-intestinal issues and higher cancer rates.
  2. Much of this corn is fried in GMO oils like corn, soy, canola and cottonseed oil. Frying creates acrylamides and other toxic substances and consuming them leads to Omega acid imbalances. (They’re all too high in Omega 6 vs Omega 3.) And they’re GMO.
  3. These foods are a major source of empty calories. Digesting food is an enormously energy-sucking process for the body. To achieve optimum health and reduce stress on the body, it is best to eat high-nutrient foods.
  4. Grain has been used to fatten animals for centuries, millennia. Why do we think a grain-based diet (which is the recommendation of the USDA Food Pyramid and the Canada Food Guide) is NOT going to make US fat?

There is plenty of unfood in our grocery baskets. Soft drinks are a significant portion of the family grocery budget but they do not nourish or sustain or supply anything. In fact they rob your body of calcium and other minerals. They are most likely loaded with GMO High Fructose Corn Syrup, an evil sweetener, which is manufactured using dry cleaning fluid and mercury. Even if they contain sugar, it is GMO if it’s made with sugar beets and all that sugar (9.5 tsp per can of Coke) steals vitamins and minerals from the body.

A lot of people assure me they’re fine because they avoid sugar, opting instead for artificial sweeteners. Little do they know that diabetes has skyrocketed, in part because of the prevalence of artificial sweeteners. The body simply doesn’t know what to do with these strange chemicals.

Before food gets to the factory (or supermarket) it can be contaminated with dozens of chemicals, namely pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and other substances designed to kill things. The Environmental Working Group releases a yearly list of the most polluted fruits and vegetables called The Dirty Dozen. These are the most heavily sprayed food crops and one is prudent to choose organic versions of these. They also have a list of the Clean 15, those foods least likely to be sprayed.

I’ve never understood the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality of ignoring the consequences of toxic chemicals in food. I also don’t understand consumers’ blind trust of the system and their tolerance of governments, obviously in cahoots with powerful food lobbyists. These organizations care about money, not the health and wellness of their customer.

Sometimes it all seems hopeless. 100 years ago all food was organic. Now we have to pick our way through food minefields. Tragically, most of us won’t know until it’s too late that we’ve been poisoned by our food.

What can you do?

  1. Grow as much of your own food as you can.
  2. Get to know your farmers.
  3. Buy ingredients, not products made with ingredients.
  4. Choose organic products whenever you can.
  5. Ask for organic products from your store managers. Create a demand for clean food.
  6. Vote with your dollars, supporting local, organic, and ethical food.
  7. Be prepared to pay more for quality food.

Moving away from unfood is a process. It won’t happen overnight. But your health and your world will reap the benefits of your intention to banish unfood forever.

 

http://www.ewg.org/

http://foodbabe.com/

Do or D-I-E-T

dietDiet has two distinct meanings today. We tend to think only of “restrictive (in some way) plans for the purpose of weight loss”.

Diet also (perhaps more correctly) means “a way of eating” from the Greek word ,diaita meaning a “way of life”.

There’s a clue. To be successful we need only to seek food that supports our desired way of life.

And there lies the problems with diets, of the former connotation. They don’t work because they are the antithesis of “a way of life”.

Let’s explore: D-I-E-T

D: Deprivation, not generally an ingredient in success!

When I used to decide to “go on a diet” to “lose a few pounds” the first thing that happened was intense cravings for the very foods that I had foresworn. I’d scour the cupboards looking for partial bags of chocolate chips or go spelunking in the freezer for a forgotten bag of Christmas cookies.

Prohibition doesn’t work. Saying you can’t have it is entirely the wrong approach.

I know that bread bloats me, makes me feel like I have a rock in my gut, and makes the scale go up as much as eight pounds. My body is telling me bread is poison.

I no longer “can’t have bread”. I “choose” not to eat bread because I would rather not experience those symptoms. That attitude adjustment has made it easier to avoid bread.

Diets don’t work because they start with deprivation.

I: Impossible: most diets are impossible to sustain, contradicting the age-old wisdom that what we eat is integral to the fabric of our lives, diaita!

Diets fail to help people reconnect to their food. Sustainability becomes impossible.

Many popular diets are effective until the restrictions are lifted and their clients find themselves back on the weight-loss roller coaster.

Diet companies make billions of dollars each year selling their products. They have no motivation to help you understand why you overeat. If you knew the secrets, they would lose your future business.

Shareholders would not be Impressed! If you have troubles sticking to a diet, you’re not alone. They are impossible!

 E: Elusive: the goal is elusive because it’s the wrong target.

We are not sick because we’re fat. We’re fat because we’re sick.

Weight loss isn’t the goal. It’s the by-product of improving our health.

We have poisoned and continue to poison ourselves on many fronts. Our food, air, and water assault our systems continuously. Our bodies are ill-equipped for the constant bombardment.

When we diet and lose weight, we often feel lousy or downright sick as the toxins leave their fat-cell barracks. Without understanding the process, dieters give up when they have these symptoms. Knowing why they feel distress can help them persevere to the rewards of good health.

If your weight loss goals are elusive adjust your target. Cultivate an environment of good health and the pounds will fall away.

T: Temporary. Most diets simply can’t last.

Many diets impose limits all but guaranteeing participants will fail. Especially grievous are the meal replacement programs.  Dieters struggle to eat in the real world. Instead of blindly replacing meals, “drinking” their calories they would benefit from learning more about making healthy choices.

Ironically, most meal replacements are rife with sugar, an addictive drug for those trying to be healthy and reach a healthy weight.

Sadly, there’s simply too much money at stake for diets to go the way of the dodo. If people knew about diaita , the secret they truly hunger for, the diet industry would suffer greatly.

But then perhaps demand for organic produce would rise and the economy would make up for lost diet revenue. One can dream!

“Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we diet!”

Is this your New Year’s vow, year after year?

If D-I-E-T as a “restrictive eating plan for the purpose of losing weight” is in your lexicon, I urge you to rethink your approach. Choose a way of life, a diaita. Your eating will follow and your body will repair itself.

Finally, here are a few Tips for Adopting a Better Diet:

  1. One thing. Don’t try to change decades of bad habits in one day/week/month. Pick one new thing at a time. It can be “eat more fruit” or “eat more salad” or “replace chips with popcorn”.  Everybody can do one thing. Then pick another. In no time your bad habits are changed.
  2. Choose food that is processed as little as possible. Cooking, freezing, drying are all examples of processing though some are less damaging to food than others.
  3. Reconnect with your food. Know your farmer. Get your hands dirty and grown your own.
  4. Read labels and understand that food manufacturers actively seek to fool you into thinking their food is healthier than it is. They use hollow language like “natural”, which means nothing. They use five types of sugar so sugar doesn’t have to be listed as the main ingredient. Buyer beware. Vote with your dollars: refuse to buy products that threaten your health.
  5. Buy ingredients, not products with ingredients. Do not be fooled by low-fat, low-calorie, low-sugar claims. These words typically describe “foods” with the least nutrient value. Low fat products usually have more sugar; low calorie foods often are filled with inedible ingredients and low sugar means sugar substitutes, which the body thinks of as poison.

Finally don’t despair. Changing a way of life takes practice and involves repeated missteps as you carefully pick the best stepping-stones. You will slip but the definition of success is falling down seven times and getting up eight times.  Never say diet!

Confessions of a Lazy Gardener: Or Reasons to Grow Your Own Food

Growing food is a skill I think every human being should have.

Many people know nothing about growing food and don’t want to know because they perceive that it’s hard.

They’re wrong.

Growing food is easy. Case in point:

At the end of May when I should have been planting my garden, I was travelling. Upon my return we had a solid month of rain. I finally planted potatoes July 10, six weeks later than tradition dictates (last week of May in Calgary).

I hand watered my potatoes a couple times, basically tossing a few gallons of rainwater at them when it was really hot and dry. I handpicked a few weeds twice, spending a total of maybe 20 minutes on the entire patch all summer. I didn’t even get around to hilling* them. In essence I could not have done less to propagate potatoes. Plain lazy!

Our first killing frost arrived October 13. (A killing frost sets the potato skins so they’ll keep longer). A few days later I dug my potatoes. From one kilo of seed potatoes I harvested all the potatoes in this picture, about 12 kilos.

Lazy Gardener's 2013 Potato Crop
Lazy Gardener’s 2013 Potato Crop

There were dozens of marble-sized potatoes under each plant indicating that if the season were longer, they would have produced more. (They made perfect, melt-in-your-mouth roasted potatoes).

My potatoes are crisp and flavourful, despite a summer of neglect. They grew without the “benefit” of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and other noxious substances.

A friend of mine grew potatoes in PEI for a major food processing company. Following the company spray schedule was a condition of supplying them with potatoes. The farmer sprayed her potato crop for something every other day! Potatoes routinely appear on the Environmental Working Group’s Dirty DozenTM list of the foods most likely contaminated with chemicals.

Why are those potatoes so heavily sprayed when potatoes grow almost wild, without care at all, as my humble potato patch proved?

Michael Pollan, in his book, Botany of Desire tells us it’s because of our demand for the perfect long French fry. At least that’s what Big Food attributes to us.

Monocultures contribute to the problem. Huge tracts of one-species are like a TV commercial for a free buffet, attracting every bug and blight to which that plant is vulnerable. The modern solution is spraying.

Eventually the land is addicted to its drugs.  Just like pharmaceuticals, once you take one agricultural chemical, then you need another to combat the effects of the first chemical.

Chemicals wipe out all life around the intended crop including beneficial organisms like soil bacteria, earthworms, insects (good and bad), bees, birds, bats and other natural predators, not to mention, contaminating groundwater, lakes and streams.

There is no proof any of these chemicals is safe for human consumption, never mind the cumulative toxic effect they have on the body. Then add the chemical assaults from our homes, our cars, our clothes, our cosmetics; the list goes on. No wonder rates of cancer continue to skyrocket.

Food that is grown in living soil, rife with minerals and beneficial bacteria, food that isn’t sprayed with toxins (sometimes called organic food) benefits our health in many ways:

  1. It contains more nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and antioxidants. Recent research shows plants produce antioxidants and other beneficial chemicals to repel insects and other marauders unless they’re doped up on agri-chemicals. This partially explains the nutritional differences between plants grown with chemical versus organic growing practices.
  2. Fewer toxins mean lower toxic load for the body to process, resulting in less “dis-ease”.
  3. We even benefit from exercise and sunshine we get from growing food, however minimal it is.  Gardening is the only exercise besides weightlifting recommended for the prevention of osteoporosis in women.
  4. Growing our own food helps heal the earth. Less fuel is used in production and transport, reducing pollution and other costs. Grass gobbles up a huge portion of synthetic fertilizers and fresh water in North America. Growing food instead is a better use of our resources.
  5. Growing our own food reconnects us to food and each other. Food made with human hands is often made with love. Factory food doesn’t contain love; usually you can’t pronounce what IS in it. Digging around in our own gardens spawns interest in others’ garden. Soon you have a community sharing resources.

I urge you to grow even a small portion of your own food.  It doesn’t require much space or a great deal of effort or knowledge, as I have confessed. Usually, all you need to know appears on the seed packet.

Potatoes aren’t the only easy to grow food plant. Lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, squash, and onions require little care and attention. Start a strawberry or raspberry patch with donated plants and eat fruit from them almost forever.  Rhubarb and asparagus are perennial too. Perfect for lazy gardeners like me.

Baked Fries recipe

                   

 

*Hilling potatoes is a “best practice” when it comes to growing potatoes. Soil is scraped into little mounds or hills at the base of the plants when the potato tops are six to twelve inches tall. http://www.wholerealfood.com/baked-fries/ prevents the tubers from peeking out of the ground and turning green, which renders them toxic. It also helps maintain moisture and coolness.

Safe Food Handling: 13 Tips to Ensure Your Food Doesn’t Make You Sick

turkeyTurkey Day is fast approaching. Many people get “the flu” around holidays. In truths these flus are often cases of food poisoning from unsafe food handling practices. Adopt these 13 habits to avoid being sick on Thanksgiving and everyday.

There has been some talk of governments mandating the irradiation of food to prevent food-borne illnesses. We should all cry out against this ill-advised policy mainly because irradiation not only kills pathogens it also destroys vital nutrients. Our food supply is already nutritionally compromised from being grown in nutrient depleted soils, sprayed with a myriad of chemicals, and being bred for aesthetics and the ability to travel long distances.

In an effort to be healthy I try to choose as many fresh foods as possible. Irradiation will destroy the last life that’s left and it simply isn’t necessary. Despite occasional concerns, Canada has a safe food supply, much safer than almost anywhere else in the world, but food handling naturally comes with risks because what is food for us is also food for other creatures.

There is much the consumer can do to minimize risks of food spoilage, which leads to food-born illness. Fortunately, one of my high school jobs was in a hospital kitchen. They took safe food handling very seriously. I received training on everything from personal hygiene to storage and safe preparation of food. I take these things for granted now but I realize not everyone had the benefit of this training. Here are some ways we can minimize our risks.

1) Buy fresh food and be aware of the length of the shelf-life. For example, don’t buy ground beef Monday to eat on Saturday; it should be eaten within a couple days.
2) Use plastic bags to wrap meat so juices don’t contaminate other foods in transit.
3) Schedule your errands so groceries are last. That way cold items are less likely to begin brewing bacteria. I throw my cooler into my trunk for meats and dairy products if I know I can’t go straight home.
4) Put groceries away immediately. Now is a good time to remove any science experiments from the back of the fridge, throw away leftovers that are more than a day or two old (depending on the item) and wipe up any fridge-dried spills and debris.
5) Wash produce thoroughly, even if it says on the package that is has been washed. Many products are packed in the field by workers, who don’t have access to proper bathroom and washing facilities.
6) Always store meat at the proper temperatures. Marinate meats in the fridge rather than on the kitchen counter. Use meats within one or two days or freeze them immediately for later consumption.
7) While cooking and preparing, wash your hands frequently to interrupt germ highways.
8) Be aware of cross-contamination scenarios. Don’t use the same knife to cut vegetables after slicing a chicken breast. Cutting boards are germ playgrounds and should be sanitized between food groups. I prefer glass or plastic boards that can be washed in the dishwasher.
9) Cook foods to safe temperatures. It varies with the product so find out and use thermometers to check before serving. Serve immediately or hold at prescribed temperatures.
10) Leftovers should be packaged (air tight to prevent fridge tastes) and refrigerated immediately. Granted, nobody wants to move from the table after turkey, but there will be a lot fewer Christmas “flu”s from the mandatory midnight turkey bun if the turkey flies into the fridge after the last bite is swallowed. The same goes for the stuffing as soon as its presence is no longer required at the table and for goodness sake, don’t leave it inside the bird!
11) Kitchen surfaces and sinks should be cleaned with soap (not antibacterial) and dried to remove germs. Otherwise your kitchen is nothing more than a giant Petri dish.
12) Change your dishcloth regularly; I wash mine daily. Don’t use a sponge as there are many nooks and crannies for germs to hide. I often toss my brushes, cleaning pads, and sink stoppers into the dishwasher to be sanitized, especially if the machine isn’t quite full.
13) Finally, practice good personal hygiene. Cooking is physical and in many ways, intimate. It involves touching, massaging and tasting. And if you’re not clean yourself, your food will be contaminated.

Practice these easy steps to ensure your meals won’t make your friends and family sick.