Bread, Milk, Margarine, Salt and Sugar are staple foods in every house today. But did you know that these 5 common everyday days foods can heal the body or they create illness and disease. Here are some tips to help you make better choices. Everyone can make these simple everyday changes. Just imagine over the years the benefits gained by choosing healing foods instead of harmful foods, the choice is yours!!!
1. Bread
Bread is essentially finely-milled whole grain, or flour and water. A staple in the diet of many cultures throughout the world, bread varies in both quality and digestibility.A wide range of options exists in the bread department; from doughy white bread to hearty, sprouted whole grain bread; quick-rise yeast breads to long-rise sourdoughs; an abundance of choices creates the appearance of diversity.Most often all breads available in supermarkets are mass market and do not meet our standards for good nutrition.
Most bread in the supermarket is made from wheat flour, which may be either bleached or unbleached, and likely enriched with an inexpensive synthetic blend of vitamins and minerals.
Before the industrial age, breads were created from fresh, whole, stone-ground grains. This preserved the nutrient rich germ - the delicate oil portion - and the outer coating, called the bran. Bread made in this way is not suitable for mass-production, due to the ease of spoilage of these fresh, fragile nutrients and the time required producing such high quality loaves. As a result, all mass-produced bread today is created from grains that are milled at very high temperatures (400°F), and separated from the germ and bran. This high temperature also destroys many naturally occurring vitamins.
Wholesome bread is dense and chewy, bursting with an earthy, healthy flavour that is both filling and satisfying to eat and does not sit ‘heavy’ in your stomach.
BREAD that harms:
- Refined, bleached white flour breads
- Soft, mushy, squishy bread, bread produced in mass
- Most bread found on typical grocery store shelves
BREAD that heals:
- Stone-ground whole grain flours
- Breads produced from a wide variety of flours
- Sprouted grains, seeds, nuts, and herbs, and made with unrefined sweeteners
- Breads produced locally or in small batches from a neighboring bakery
2. Milk
The path that transforms healthy milk products into allergens and carcinogens begins with modern feeding methods that substitute high-protein, soy-based feeds for fresh green grass and breeding methods to produce cows with abnormally large pituitary glands so that they produce three times more milk than the old fashioned scrub cow.These cows need antibiotics to keep them well. Their milk is then pasteurized so that all valuable enzymes are destroyed (lactase for the assimilation of lactose; galactase for the assimilation of galactose; phosphatase for the assimilation of calcium). Literally dozens of other precious enzymes are destroyed in the pasteurization process. Without them, milk is very difficult to digest. The human pancreas is not always able to produce these enzymes; over-stress of the pancreas can lead to diabetes and other diseases.
The butterfat of commercial milk is homogenized, subjecting it to rancidity. Even worse, butterfat may be removed altogether. Skim milk is sold as a health food, but the truth is that butter-fat is in milk for a reason.
The homogenization process destroys the delicate balance of natural fats contained in dairy, and renders them unrecognizable by our digestive systems. This is the primary reason why many are allergic to dairy products. Unhomogenized dairy is therefore preferable over homogenized products, whenever available.
The healthy alternative is whole, unhomogenized milk from cows raised on organic feed is now available in many supermarkets, gourmet shops and health food stores. It can be cultured to restore enzyme content, at least partially. Cultured buttermilk is often more easily digested than regular milk; it is an excellent product to use in baking.
MILK that harms:
- ALL lite, skim, fat free milk
- Most milk found on store shelves
MILK that heals:
- Organic unhonogenized milk (found in health stores)
- Raw Milk (sold as body milk)
- Organic Rice Milk
3. Margarine and Oils
Manufacturers of margarine use hydrogenated oils to extend the shelf life of the product. Hydrogenation also makes vegetable oil harden at room temperature. This is why we find hydrogenated fats in margarine, lard, non-dairy cream, bakery products, and nut butters.What is the hydrogenation process?
Small particles of nickel or copper are added and the mix is heated to very high temperatures under pressure for up to eight hours while hydrogen gas is injected. This process destroys the essential fatty acids in the oil and replaces them with deformed trans-fatty acids. These trans-fats formed by hydrogenation are unnatural and as a result the human body is not well-equipped to deal with them. They also compete with essential fatty acids for absorption in the body. This blocks or delays the work of the essential fatty acids, creating deficiencies and imbalance throughout the metabolism, including fatty deposits in the arteries.
Importance of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs)
EFAs are involved with producing life energy in our bodies from food substances, and moving that energy throughout our systems. They govern growth, vitality, and mental state. They hook up oxygen, electron transport, and energy in the process of oxidation. Oxidation, the central and most important moment-to-moment living process in our body, is the `burning' of food to produce the energy required for life processes. Chia seeds are one of the best plant-based EFAs or Krill Oil for non-plant based.
OILS that harms:
- ALL margarine is processed
- Vegetable oils when heated
OILS that heals:
- Cold pressed, Virgin, Organic un-refined Olive Oil for salad dressing
- Coconut oil (by far the best oil to use for everything!!!)
- Organic butter
4. Salt
Natural, unrefined sea salt is an essential element in the diet of not only humans but of animals, and even of many plants. Use of unrefined sea salt is one of the most effective and most widely used of all food seasonings and natural preservatives and a source of 21 essential and 30 accessory minerals that are essential to our health.
Refined salt (table salt), the most commonly available salt, on the other hand only gives you a craving for more salt because what you are eating is not satisfying your needs it has been stripped of all the essential nutrients.
Refined salt burdens your kidneys and adrenal glands and interferes with the absorption of nutrients and depletes calcium stores.
SALT that harms:
- ALL table salt
- Many sea salts are also refined
SALT that heals:
- Celtic Sea Salt (grey colour and moist texture)
- Himalayan crystal salt (pink colour)
5. Sugar
Refined sugar is what most people use and the sugar used in most foods and drinks. It is lethal when ingested by humans because it provides only that which nutritionists describe as "empty" or "naked" calories. It lacks the natural minerals which are present in the sugar beet or cane. In addition, refined sugar is worse than nothing because it drains and leaches the body of precious vitamins and minerals through the demand its digestion, detoxification and elimination makes upon one's entire system.
Refined sugars have been observed to aggravate asthma, move mood swings, provoke personality changes, muster mental illness, nourish nervous disorders, deliver diabetes, hurry heart disease, grow gallstones, hasten hypertension, and aid arthritis.
ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS are even WORSE!
Artificial sweeteners are by far the most dangerous substance on the market that is added to foods. They accounts for over 75 percent of the adverse reactions to food additives reported.
A few of the 90 different documented symptoms as being caused by artificial sweeteners include:
- headaches/migraines
- dizziness
- seizures
- nausea
- numbness
- muscle spasms
- weight gain
- rashes
- depression
- fatigue
- irritability
- tachycardia
- insomnia
- vision problems
- hearing loss
- heart palpitations
- breathing difficulties
- anxiety attacks
- slurred speech
- loss of taste
- tinnitus
- vertigo
- memory loss
- and joint pain
Where are ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS found?
You will be surprised to know they are found in thousands of products such as:
- instant breakfasts
- breath mints
- cereals
- sugar-free chewing gum
- cocoa mixes
- coffee beverages
- frozen desserts
- gelatin desserts
- juice beverages
- laxatives
- multivitamins
- milk drinks
- pharmaceuticals and supplements, including over-the-counter medicines
- shake mixes
- soft drinks
- tabletop sweeteners
- tea beverages
- instant teas and coffees
- topping mixes
- wine coolers
- diet yogurt
SUGAR that harms:
- Refined sugar (white)
- ALL artificial sweeteners
- Corn syrup
SUGAR that heals:
- Raw honey
- Raw sugar
- Organic Maple Syrup
- Natural sweeteners - Stevia, Xylitol