We’re exposed to ungodly amounts of toxins from eating and drinking.  

Buyer Beware

When you buy something that comes in some type of packaging, consider the following:  

• How is it packaged (think single-use plastic)?  
• How is it processed (how many words have no vowels and numbers with commas, think chemicals)? 
• How will you prepare the food so you can eat it?  
• Do you drink out of single-use plastic water bottles (the noisy, squishy plastic)?  
• Is there a thin lining in your canned foods?    

In regard to that last bullet point, I implore you with all that my Mama Bear heart can muster… please, never microwave anything you are going to eat or drink in any kind of plastic.  NEVER!!  From the pan to the serving and storing dishes, everything that touches your food and drink matters.  Also of note is the fact that many canned tomato products are sold in BPA plastic-lined cans so the tomatoes won’t react with the metal.

Avoid Plastics Like The Plague

Bottom line, these plastics compete with the “metabolic keys”.  

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you may recall that we talked about the receptor “locks” located within your cellular membranes.  Our hormones, enzymes, and other physiological chemicals are the keys that open or close these critical locks.  

The plastics I’m speaking to here actually compete with the keys and cause the cell to become sick when enough of these keys are nudged out.  

Another word for this is “endocrine disruptor”.  

These disruptors cause that cell to turn toxic.  Your body, in an effort to protect you, will store the toxic fallout in your fat.  That is how the body walls off the life and death organs from toxins.  

Switch Out Your Oils

Another way to leave the C.R.A.P. on the grocery store shelf is to change out your oils and fats. 

Stop eating canola, soybean, any seed oils really.  And as for the so-called “vegetable” oils, you’ll be hard-pressed (pun intended) to find anything that resembles a vegetable in the stuff labeled “vegetable oil”.  

You’ve got to get rid of these highly processed oils.  Do not use them for anything. 

Read labels like your life depends on it, because it does.  

If you eat processed foods (anything from a box, pouch, bag, found on a shelf) stop buying brands with these junk oils in them.  

There is work to do here.  

These oils are in EVERYTHING that has a shelf life.   Same for sweeteners.  And colors.  And flavors.  

It’s Just Marketing

Nothing “natural” about these things, even if it has the word “natural” on the label.  It’s just marketing.  And it works.  Billions of dollars are exchanged in the processed food biz, so companies aren’t going to grow a conscience and stop using that term anytime soon.  

If you’re eating the junk oils, the membrane that helps usher nutrients in and waste out of your cells starts to inflame.  It becomes rigid and it therefore won’t be able to do its job.  

Remember we want pliable membranes like an underfilled water balloon to help usher the good stuff in and the waste out of the cell.  A pliable membrane is a key factor in this process working at its best.  

Junk oils ensure the process is thwarted.  

Frankenfood For The Loss

One last thing to consider is the avoidance of Frankenfood.  You’ll also hear me refer to it as C.R.A.P. when I’m feeling frisky. 

Frankenfood is most anything that has been processed. In other words, something sold in a form that it was not grown in: mashed, grated, shredded, chopped, juiced, cut, sliced, etc.  

If something was done to your food after it was picked or slaughtered, it is processed.  

Here’s a good place for one of my favorite Dr. Sam-isms… 

“The longer the shelf life of your food, the shorter yours will be.

If your food can’t spoil, there’s no food in your food.”  

If you can leave some item you buy on a shelf somewhere in your kitchen for weeks, months, years even, there’s some chemical added to it to lengthen its “shelf life”.  

It has no business being eaten. 

If your food can’t spoil, there’s no food in your food.  Period.

Real Food Rots

Real food rots.  Or “goes bad”.  

Processed food can resist the rot for way longer than what is natural.   

The C. R. A. P. in our processed foods gunks up the same receptor sites mentioned a moment ago.  Contributing to the level of chaos at a cellular level.  This chaos builds to lower the defenses of the cell, in turn making it sick.  Sick cells equate to an ill “you”.

C = chemicals your grandparents wouldn’t have in their own kitchen

R = refined sugar and grains

A = artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, etc.  

P = processed in any way.  

If it has a label on it, it is suspect.  

Choose food that was on the plant, not made in a plant.  

While you’re at it, choose foods that were swimming, walking, slithering, or flying in the not too distant past to boot.  Not to be gross, but meat should rot when in the thawed state if it’s been meat (no longer alive) for awhile.   

Big Food has run amuck, unchecked for far too long.

From time to time I use quotations around the word “foods” because much of that passed off as food has no real food in it!  It’s riddled with preservatives, added sugars, fillers, bulking agents, dyes/coloring, flavor enhancers and a whole bunch of other things that should be illegal to put in “food.”  

There’s A 12-Step Strategy For That

I’ve been introducing my 12-Step Strategy For A Body & Brain That Just Won’t Quit to clients for years.  Over a decade of experience in direct patient care went into its development.  

Correcting the biochemistry of the individual client with REAL food is how I’ve been able to help hundreds of people solve their metabolic mystery.  

Recall that our strategy for successfully resetting the metabolism must be 2-fold as discussed in last week’s article, “How Doing Absolutely Nothing Is Everything When It Comes To Jumpstarting Your Sluggish Midlife Metabolism”. 

Bottom line:  We must stop bogging down the system with the carbage, AND we have to burn what we have stored for later.  

To continue the conversation, and in the spirit of leaving the C.R.A.P. on the grocery store shelf, there are 2 steps to implement next.  

Step # 7: Squelch That Sweet Tooth

Ah…the sweet tooth.  Get that baby extracted!  

If only it were that easy.  

Our sweet meters are broken.  We’ve been raised to be sugar addicts from the very beginning.  In nature, sweet is associated with “safe to eat.”  We are hard-wired to seek sweet.  

In the wild, that is good.  In today’s world, where we have engineered the wild out of our life, this is NOT good.  It is bad, very bad.  It’s so bad it’s killing us. Slowly and painfully.  

Even our fruit is sweeter than ever.  It is bred to be that way.  Whether GMO or just good old-fashioned propagation, this stuff is off the charts saaahhhweet!!  And we love it!!  

Did you know there are over 70 names for sugar in food?  This number doesn’t even touch on the alternative sweeteners.  

Some aliases for the “other white powder”:  agave nectar, corn syrup, sucrose (anything with an –ose), rice syrup (anything with a syrup), dextrose (there’s another -ose), High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS), and the list goes on and on.  Start keeping track of them for yourself.  You’ll be shocked at the lengths these sneaky buggers go to try to keep their shenanigans unnoticed.  

Oh, I’ve noticed.

Step # 8: Put Processed Foods On Notice

Step # 8 is a biggie.  If what you buy is in a box with a “Nutrition Facts” label, it is most likely altered in some fashion.  Ergo processed.  

Food is processed to prolong its shelf life.  Not yours.  My rule of thumb here: if your “food” has more than five ingredients, pay close attention.  

Go to your pantry, or reach in your desk drawer for something in a package. If you’re like many of my clients, they have some sort of granola or nut-packed bar on hand for a “healthy” snack.  

Let’s sneak a peek at the ingredients of a popular nut bar that promises to bring goodness to the world (I won’t use a brand name, but it is a synonym for “nice”).  

Let’s see, ingredients:  peanuts, almonds, honey, sugar, non-GMO glucose.  (Buzz-word: non-GMO).  

Whole food, whole food, sugar, sugar, sugar…3 kinds of sugar in the first five ingredients.  What the ***!?!

Labeling laws mandate that manufacturers must label ingredients by weight.  And their workaround when it comes to the sweet stuff is to use different sources, so the first ingredient isn’t SUGAR!!! 

When I tell you these guys are sneaky, I mean it.  You must be on alert at all times. 

Anything with a nutrition label is suspect.  

Next week will be the final article in our 8-part series focused on my 12-Step Strategy For A Body And Brain That Just Won’t Quit. Check back here to read the final wrap up!