Part 1: Nutrition
I recently was a guest on The Intentional Mind podcast, where the host, Ang Barnard, asked me to speak about toxin free living. In the preparation for this event, I could have written a 17-page essay on this topic. I had to laugh writing it, because I was reminded of my English professor, who used to say: “Please don’t write double the allowed words again, Silvia; for everybody else, assignments under 10 pages, at 10 point font size, single spaced will be graded as ZE-RO.” By the way: If you are just floating along in life and feel that you need some 'pointers' in the right direction, you should absolutely listen to her podcasts! It always astounds me how a person so young can have THAT much wisdom. I owe my newly found and very intentional life to her "clarify your vision" classes. For me, it's an annual MUST to focus on what I want to achieve in the coming year. Thanks Ang! You've become a true friend! It was an honor to be on your show!
So. I had my five pages lying right in front of me and 17 single notes flash cards of points that I thought important enough to NOT miss under any circumstances. You see, I have become quite passionate about avoiding toxins in the past 30-some years. It started slowly, with ‘a slight rash under the arms from a deodorant with aluminum’ to an exponentially increasing anti-toxins-learning curve of ‘I can read labels and know what most of the chemical substances mean that are on the ingredient list.’ Of course, the podcast went way over the usual allotted time and will more than likely be aired in two parts. Aaaaaand, after we were done recording, I still had a couple of unmentioned flash cards lying in front of me.
Several times during the recording, I thought that this must be overwhelming for listeners to try and implement it all, so I decided to put the main points down, where YOU decide, which step you want to implement when and how far you want to take it. This blog will come in several parts in order to honor my teacher from the past and the valuable time YOU dedicate to read this. I very genuinely appreciate you being here.
Today’s topic revolves around food.
Remember: EVERYTHING IN LIFE IS A CHOICE! And every little thing you do, has consequences one way or another down the road.
So don’t let this blog overwhelm you, but rather inspire you to be more aware of what you put in and on your body. Just want you to think about it… and soon…
…Thoughts will become words.
Words will become actions.
Actions will become habits.
Habits form character.
In today’s world there are seriously enough toxic things attacking you from every angle. Starting from the added fluoride in city water and your toothpaste, to heavy metals in the air sprayed on us via geoengineering (ever seen straight, expanding clouds in your childhood? Something to research, for sure!), to the over-depleted soil tortured by Big Ag full of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. And that’s sadly just the stuff that you can’t do anything about.
Good news is that there ARE things that you CAN do something about to make your body stronger for the onslaught of those above-mentioned toxins that you can’t avoid. And that is food. You can avoid the toxic preservatives in highly processed foods that the SAD (standard American diet) conveniently drops on your dinner plates (if you’re still eating microwaveable TV dinners or order pizza from your favorite pizza joint three times a week, know that you’re not serving your body well). The dead (negative) energy in those foods will affect YOUR energy eventually. And most chronic dis-eases are avoidable (and often reversible!) with nutrient dense, healthy food choices.
A wonderful guide to get you started with the art of ancestral diets and cooking is the Weston A. Price Foundation, at www.westonaprice.org and Sally Fallon’s book: Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and Diet Dictocrats. If there are any health nerds reading this blog, I would encourage you to attend the annual Weston Price health conference! The positive vibes at these events are contagious and the information given is priceless! I’ll be there (this year’s event is going to take place in Orlando, FL).
Soaps, shampoos, lotions, sunscreen, and make up products are next. They promise you to make you look young forever (yeah, right! Insert eye-roll here) but fail to tell you that your vanity potentially comes with the side effect of the accumulation of chemicals that can cause all kinds of chronic disease, including arthritis, food intolerances, Alzheimer’s, mental illness and cancer and many more. For my life, I have made the choice that I will gladly put up with some wrinkles instead of not remembering the faces of my loved ones when I get old.
And let’s not forget the toxic relationships that we all have experienced or still are experiencing in our lives. Everybody knows one of those “Energy Vampires” that don’t build you up but leave you in a heap of emotionally exhausted mess that needs a night to sleep on to replenish the love and light filled human being that you are meant to be. And that is IF you can even muster to sleep at night after a stressful day of work, taking care of the children, preparing meals, taking care of the house… our circadian rhythms are often so butchered that it doesn’t give your body the time to recuperate and gain strength again for the next day to come. And BAM! You’re in a cycle of stress that will even put more strain on your body.
I’ll be honest: It’s not convenient to change your life to get on a healthier path, but your body, your children and the people that you can influence with your newly acquired wisdoms will thank you for it. And that’s a promise.
I will never forget when my (American) husband and I (German born and raised) were dating, I once brought a can of cheese home to my mother. Full of enthusiasm, I said: “Look, mom, how convenient is THIS?! You just bend the tip and you can spread the cheese right onto your cracker!” My mom looked at the can, said “How nice” in her ‘graveyard voice’, opened the trash can and threw it right in. After I gave her a horrified look, she said: “Silvia, there is no cheese in cans. Whatever THIS is, it’s probably closer to plastic than cheese.” I had no idea how right she was with this statement. Looking at the chemical structure of margarine, this cheese in a can and so many other convenient (non-)foods, they are often only a few atoms away from your plastic shopping bag. And you wouldn’t eat THAT, would you?
How I wish my mother was still alive so that I could thank her for all of her ancestral wisdom that she passed down to me!
So. Without further ado, let’s take one of these toxic fields at a time. Let’s try to make this as simple as possible and let’s see how we can tackle this monster down by poking at it tirelessly and weakening it, while we become stronger, healthier and happier humans. And by no means do I claim that this list is complete. There is so much more, but I think it is a fairly good start.
1. Toxins in foods:
a. As a general rule, remember that processed food is de-natured and nutrient-depleted “stuff” – that I refuse to even call food. It might fill your stomach but won’t do much in terms of nourishing your body. The fresher the food is that you buy – the better. If you think that raw/organic food is “sooooo expensive”, stop whining, because your medical bills stemming from highly processed foods will be much higher in the future, plus the prospect of living a life with pain isn't worth the few saved today dimes either. The way to lower your food costs is a bit more cumbersome, but so much more rewarding. Get to know your farmer and/or buy at farmer’s markets! Especially the small family farms are very much organically inclined and will be happy to show you around, maybe even let the kids look at the chicken or pet the goats/cows/sheep, who knows? Plus, taking out the middleman is always a good idea.
b. There is also a great app, called Yuka, that you can download on your smartphone that will help you to learn reading labels. And while I only recently discovered this app, AFTER I tediously learned what to avoid and how, it’s a great feature that will BLOW YOUR MIND!
c. Learn to cook from scratch. It’s not that hard, really. You can put about ANY meal your heart desires into any search engine and get in the habit of preparing your own meals. If you are on a tight budget, cooking your own meals instead of eating out will actually save you big time. Not only will it make you proud and create positive energy in your psyche, but your body will thank you and serve you longer.
d. Avoid these three whites: whenever you see foods that are made up of blemish-free, white, uniform particles, it tells you that those items have been processed to the max:
i. White flour – especially the word “enriched” is something that you want to avoid. Enriched means that all NATURAL nutrients (those that the body can digest and absorb easily) have been taken out and SYNTHETIC nutrients (those the body has problems breaking down and absorbing) have been added. And that’s what they then call “enriched.” Euphemism at its finest…
ii. White sugar – this is one of the most toxic and most addictive substances and it’s in virtually everything! Once you pay attention to it, you may wonder: “Why did they have to add sugar to my ham/bacon/etc.?!” My Amish neighbor recently started his business of Maple syrup production. He gave me a bottle and its only ingredient is ‘maple sap’. I took my old bottle from way in the back out of my fridge and couldn’t believe it! There was not ONE thing maple-y in there! High fructose corn syrup, some other syrup, caramel coloring, and about 17 chemicals that I couldn’t pronounce to keep all this crap stable. Well. THAT went into the trash in a hurry! Instead, use raw honey from your closest apiary (bee-keeper), raw cane sugar, or maple syrup. There are a couple of other sugar alternatives out there worth researching, but I have decided that they are rather tricky and we have bees. PLEASE! If you have ever wanted to keep bees, contact me and I’ll get you started. One of THE most rewarding hobbies ever! Plus, those amazing creatures need all the help they can get.
iii. White salt – Salt is a very important spice that contains many important minerals that the body needs. Except – you guessed it – the white table salt that they added iodine to. Same story as with the flour: NATURAL nutrients out, Synthetic nutrients in. I carry around my own little saltshaker in my purse – as well as my Cajun spice shaker, because I just LOVE Cajun-anything.
e. While we’re still talking about food: Please CHEW thoroughly! Digestion starts in the mouth. The saliva glands add important enzymes to your food bolus while you chew. Not only to make it easier to swallow, but also to prepare it for the stomach. The more you chew, the more surface of the food will be exposed to the saliva.
f. A lot of people take pro-biotics or pre-biotics to help them add the enzymes that the highly processed food is lacking. Where do you even start? Which biotics, enzymes or supplements should you even take?! An informative tid-bit that I only recently learned was that supplements are mostly produced from byproducts of the oil and wood industry. Hmmm. Doesn’t sound like fun. And Nature makes it easy for you. Each fresh vegetable or fruit has EXACTLY those enzymes IN it that your body needs to digest it! How wonderful is THAT?! One salad a couple of times a week should give you lots of enzymes to help your digestion. Try to put as many colors in it as you can. Different colors mean different nutrients, mean different enzymes, mean different vitamins. Speaking of salads: please learn to make your own dressings. There is no value in trying to do well and eating salad, if then you suffocate the nutrients in it with store bought dressings that contain harmful seed oils. Vinegar, olive oil, flax seed oil, salt/pepper – and you have the foundation for any dressing. From there, the sky is your limit. Experiment what tastes good for you. Again, there are plenty of recipes in Sally’s book or online.
g. Oils – ditch most vegetable oils. There are very good papers on the toxicity of those oils available. The person that I’m most humbly grateful for to educate me on oils is Dr. Mercola. Just remember this: most animal fats are generally saturated (and those fats don’t make you fat). That means that there is no free radical in their chemical composition. Most vegetable oils – since most of them are highly processed (often over 10 steps in the process!) – have one or more free radicals. Those will wreak havoc in your cells. The only vegetable oils left in my kitchen are coconut oil for teeth pulling, cold-pressed flax seed oil and cold pressed olive oil for salad dressings. And here’s my newest addition to kitchen gadgets: an air fryer! Want French Fries? Wash the potatoes, cut the potatoes, put them in a lidded bowl, add a spoon full of melted butter, lard, tallow or ghee, add salt or other spices of your choice, put on lid, shake the bowl. Throw it all in the air fryer and voila! 15 minutes later you have delicious French Fries that were not doused in poison and will not make you forget the faces of your loved ones in the future.
h. Fermented foods/drinks – Having read this far, it should be no surprise that sodas, pops and most of the carbonated drinks contain way too much sugar for your body – and not the good sugar. Industrial sugar is said to be more addictive than heroin. And in one soda there are approximately 10 tsp of sugar! Horrible! Add some “energy drink”, some caffeine and other flavor enhancers in those daily/overused drinks and it’s a recipe for health disaster. If you like carbonated drinks, think about transitioning to kombucha. Or better yet, learn to make your own. This will serve you in two ways. You will eliminate toxic sugars and instead nurture your body by providing it important enzymes that are plentiful in fermented drinks.
If you’ve ever been at Asian restaurants, have you tried Kimchi? Or Sauerkraut at German restaurants? Or tried Kefir (fermented milk), miso (fermented soybean paste) or sourdough bread? Our ancestors in ALL cultures knew that fermented foods are material to a healthy gut biome and with that: overall health. And what has our SAD diet done? – it pretty much killed all fermented foods or made them undesirable. Try to incorporate something fermented with your main meal of the day. Why not learn how to make your own sourdough bread/sourdough pancakes/sourdough crackers? My sourdough starter’s name is Courtney. You’ll understand why, once you check out www.butterforall.com .
Did you know that the gut is often referred to as ‘the second brain?’ In my research about healthy foods, the digestive tract has fascinated me in ways only paralleled by the blood circulation, heart function, and neurological functions; including all those programs that ‘run in the background’ without us even noticing, working each day – and night! – FOR us. We really should be good to it, wouldn’t you agree?
(Big sigh...)
I’m waiting for the day, when we are not being bombarded by ads for sugary/dead soft drinks/cereals, but rather see tips on how we can integrate fermented foods; when we are not being told to try this or that pill for whatever chronic dis-ease ails you, but rather are told how to eat properly to reverse them or avoid them from developing in the first place. I’m also waiting for the day when big corporations are putting humans and health over profits and greed (not holding my breath on THAT one though). In the meantime, however, I’m going to do my best to educate as many people as I can possibly reach to get off the hamster wheel of Big Ag, Big Pharma, Big Medical Industry, etc. We can only do so much, but that little bit is worth SO MUCH!
I really DO believe that there is a shift happening right now; that people are waking up to lies in all aspects of life. Look at it as you will, but the body was designed so beautifully, so divine! It could heal itself, if we only nourished it properly!
In the end, the choice is always yours: Who is responsible to live your life - and that of your children - without debilitating chronic pain and symptoms? You? Or a doctor, who will try his/her best to mask the symptoms with (oftentimes commissioned) pharmaceuticals, when your body is so depleted that it literally cries out for help? Take that power over your body back!
Think about it and start making choices that your body can truly ‘re-choice’ in!
… and soon, it will become a habit… to put you on the path of your best possible self.
See you soon in the second part of ‘Taking toxins out of your life’!
Until then, bee hempy!
Silvia
Don’t do this: | Do this instead: |
Ditch processed foods wherever possible | Cook from scratch |
Don’t buy your food at Walmart | Meet your farmer, go to farmer’s markets; better yet, grow your own! https://theseedguy.net |
Don’t just grab the packaged item/canned good | READ THE LABEL! (and/or download the YUKA-App) general rule: if you can’t pronounce/recognize the ingredient, it’s more than likely a toxin |
White “Enriched” flour | Organic, unbleached, flour |
White sugar | Raw honey, organic maple syrup, raw cane sugar |
White table salt | Redmond salt, Pink Himalayan salt |
Don’t “wolf” your food down | Chew like a cow, LOL! |
Supplement with synthetics (hard to absorb) | Eat fresh/cooked from scratch (easier to absorb) |
Vegetable oils, Canola, sunflower seed oil, etc. | Butter/ghee, lard, tallow, goose fat, etc.; cold pressed olive oil and flax seed oil for salad dressings |
Deep fryer (unless you use lard/tallow/goose fat, etc.) | Air fryer |
Soda/pop | Kombucha (good quality/make your own) |
Throw out your microwave! It kills almost all life (enzymes) in your food, leaving you wanting more, soon; adding weight instead of nutrients. | Reheat food gently on the stove top or oven. |
