We produce more food than we
need. To keep it from spoiling, it is highly processed and refined.
In so doing, the thermolabile substances are destroyed. These foods
contain calories but little, if any, nutrients.
Processed and
refined foods will not allow for repair or growth of your body. In
fact, refining foods removes so much nutrition that Federal Law requires that a
few artificial vitamins and minerals be added back. These foods are
labeled "enriched" or "fortified" and literally mean that the natural nutrients
have been destroyed! And, facts show that over 60% of the typical diet
today is refined foods and snacks. That's the problem.
There's no comparison between
vitamins produced synthetically in the laboratory and those made by
nature. Vitamins are not food and although food lacking in vitamins
is useless, so are vitamins by themselves. You cannot live on vitamins
alone. In some cases, vitamin D for example, an excess is as harmful as a
deficiency.
Vitamins are organic food substances. They exist
only in living things. They exist in foods in minute quantities but
are absolutely necessary for life. Plants manufacture their own supplies
of vitamins. Some richer than others. This is why it is important
to supply your diet with a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits.
Vitamins, unlike fats, proteins
and carbohydrates, are not "foods" because they are not broken down into other
substances. They keep their own form and bring about certain essential
changes in your cells.
Refined foods have generally had
every vitamin refined out of them. For example, refined white sugar
is the product that remains when all the B vitamins, and a lot of other
valuable, necessary trace elements, have been removed from the molasses.
Food containing white sugar has to be digested without the assistance of the
vital B vitamins. Your system has to get these from somewhere and, as
they are stored in the body in various places, such as the liver and kidneys,
these organs have to contribute the requirement and thus, a vitamin B
deficiency occurs. This is the same situation with all denatured foods,
such as white flour and white rice.
These denatured foods have no
food value except carbohydrates - pure calories. Pure carbohydrates
do not exist in nature. Each cell in your body is equipped to deal with
natural foodstuffs. Certain vitamins and minerals are necessary for your
body's use of fats, protein and carbohydrates. Natural foods (fruits,
vegetables, honey, etc) come ready equipped with all the things necessary for
their metabolism.
What happens when we eat refined
foods to the extent that we are, is slow starvation of our
cells!
The additives called sucrose and
glucose are the concentrate of naturally occurring sugars in fruits and
vegetables after throwing away everything else. The "pure" substance left
is actually a drug! It is unrelated to anything that occurs naturally and
thus makes terrible demands on your body.
White flour has had practically
everything of value removed during milling and the residue is sold separately
at a high price, and called vitamin B! (How does that make you
feel?) This is bad enough but what is added to the flour is much
worse.
As fast as law prohibits one chemical another one is used
in its place. Enough? Guess again. When this milled flour
passes to the bakers, devitaminized and bleached to "pure" white, the dough
must be conditioned with yet more chemicals called "improvers". These
help the bread retain freshness longer.
Bleached white flour is
dead. To be truly nutritious, bread must be made from 100% whole wheat
which retains all the wheat germ and the consequent vitamins B and E. It
is a live substance!
Carefully read the labels!
Even breads boasting "whole wheat" may just be caramel colored to make you
think it's whole wheat! These missing nutrients are critical to immune
function, cell communication, appetite control, preventing free radicals, fetal
brain development and hundreds of other functions.
It's absolutely merciless how the
"foodless food" industry distorts truth. Numerous rapidly increasing
diseases could be prevented by the nutrients discarded from wholesome grains,
which, cumulatively, are a tremendous source of much needed nutrients,
especially for children. The misinformation coming from the refined
food industry is truly dangerous!
Even nutritional supplements give us
misinformation or distortions of the truth. Often supplements do not
furnish nutrients that their users lack and usually numerous vitamins are
omitted, which are as important as those supplied and many contain dozens of
nutrients in insignificant amounts.
Only nature seems to understand
the nutritional science required to create perfect body fuels.
Natural foods are balanced. Whole foods contain precise amounts and
ratios of vitamins, minerals, trace nutrients, fiber and
phytochemicals.
Vitamin and mineral supplements
cannot compensate for a poor diet. The natural balance in whole foods
cannot be expected to be duplicated in a lab. We know of some
balances but nowhere near all. For instance, we know calcium without
phosphorous cannot be fully utilized. Fat-soluble nutrients cannot be
metabolized without fatty acids.
Trying to compensate for missing
nutrients can cause other problems.
Here's a couple of
examples:
Refined foods contain added amounts
of phosphorous. However, these foods have not increased calcium, which is
necessary to metabolize phosphorous. Refined foods contain added
sodium. Everybody associates high blood pressure with this excess
however; the real problem might be inadequate potassium. The
sodium-potassium balance and interaction is known to scientists to regulate the
transfer of nutrients to cells. These two nutrients when properly
balanced also help transmit electrochemical impulses throughout your body
without which your nervous system, immune system and organs cannot
communicate. Chromium helps escort glucose into your cells but most of us
are chromium deficient. It's a trace mineral in whole wheat that's
missing in refined flour.
Hundreds of thousands of animal
experiments have shown that if a single nutrient is omitted, disease is
produced. People produce illnesses in themselves by selecting diets
as faulty as those that cause disease in experimental lab animals. Think
about it.
Recently, the Surgeon General said,
"(Whole) Foods contain nutrients essential for normal metabolic function and
when problems arise they result from imbalance in nutrient
intake."
When you eat refined foods instead of whole foods,
your body knows your stomach is full of nutritionally inferior and unbalanced
food and that it doesn't have all the nutrients it needs to produce good
health. Thus, your urge to overeat. (Eat, eat, eat…)
The best way to satisfy your nutritional needs and not overeat is
by eating whole foods, which supply the building blocks to nourish and
detoxify. With all the illnesses and diseases we are subjected to, and
the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics, our immune system is the most
critical aspect of our health. Feed your immune system with whole
foods.
Do you know what the attributes of good health are?
Let's take a look...
