| |
In her revolutionary book, Diet for a Small Planet, Frances Moore Lappe posed
the question, “Who asked for Fruit Loops?” She was commenting strongly on the
decline of a whole foods diet in America due to the abuses of corporate food
manufacturing and factory farming that have stripped our food of its nutritional
value and tainted it with chemical pesticides, preservatives and other toxins.
In the name of efficiency and profit, the quality of our food has suffered
greatly. Fast foods and convenience foods have increasingly replaced a whole
foods diet, and most of the foods we eat have only a fraction of the nutrients
we need for good health. For example, refined grains, including white bread,
white rice or refined pastas and cereals are highly processed and, as a result,
stripped of nutrients. This is because when wheat is refined to make white
breads and cereals, the part of the wheat kernel that contains most of the
nutrients is removed.
The destruction of our food supply doesn’t stop there. When you grab that
processed frozen dinner, take a quick look at the label. You will very likely
see added chemicals, colors and preservatives. You may believe these additives
are harmless because they have been tested and approved by the FDA, but this is
not the case. For the most part, additives and preservatives are non-food items
that accumulate in cells and interfere with proper metabolism. When the body has
to use its resources to rid itself of toxins, there is little energy left over
for the business of burning calories and using food as fuel so that the body can
work properly. This further contributes to malnutrition and obesity and
eventually to poor health. In fact, many Americans are overweight not because
they eat too many calories, but because they eat too many toxins. In addition,
brain fog, lethargy and any number of illnesses can often be attributed to a
lack of whole foods nutrition.
The only way to correct this problem is to replace refined and processed foods
with a natural whole foods diet. Ideally this means eating mostly organic whole
grains and whole, raw fruits and vegetables. While taking isolated nutrients in
the form of supplements to replace missing nutrients our food may seem like a
good solution to the problem, it is not. Plants like wheat, vegetables and fruit
contain more than isolated nutrients. They also provide compounds known as
phytochemicals that play an important role in maintaining health. The bottom
line is that there is no good substitute for natural, raw whole foods.
|
|
