I am amazed at how we Americans view our health. We have come to accept that as long as we don't have cancer or a heart attack we are healthy. We think that because someone is thin, they are healthy. Outside appearances can be very deceiving. We are anything but healthy.
Our bodies are factories. They have evolved to be very efficient, and it knows what it needs to be healthy and efficient. When we crave a food, it means our body is missing some nutrient and the food we crave is high in this nutrient. Diseases are a result of poor nutrition. When we fuel our bodies with the correct fuel, it will protect itself. Our bodies have built in defense mechanisms and will try it's best to protect itself from foreign invaders. However, when we introduce foreign matter into our systems, over time the bodies defenses will wear down and we get sick. A fever is the bodies attempt to kill this foreign matter. Cancers are a result of the body not being able to expunge these foreign materials.
If you were to look back about 100 years ago in America, you would find there were no records of heart attacks, and cancer was rare as was diabetes. Doctors and hospitals were for things like severe cuts or broken bones. We were able to keep ourselves healthy by what we ate. We used to know the foods that kept us healthy. We have lost that instinct due to all the processed foods that we have been consuming over the last 60 years. People who want to lose weight will try any diet that agrees with their personal views, or ones that promise to be easy. There is no easy path. We have allowed ourselves to be fooled into thinking the government knows what is best when it does not.
If one were to take a step back and look at all of the diets out there, they would see what they all have in common. Processed foods are eliminated in favor of whole, natural foods. These are the foods nature intended for us to eat. Fruits, vegetables and meat. For 99% of human existence we have eaten these foods. I has only been in the last 10,000 years that we began using grains. It has only been in the last 100 years that we have been using processed foods and oils. Up until the 1920's there had never been a reported case of a heart attack in the US. In the 1950's there were only about 500 cardiologists. Today heart attack is the most common killer and there are over 30,000 cardiologists even though the population has only doubled since the mid 1950's. Diet is the only thing that has changed for us.
Pollution levels today are far less than they were post WWII. Prior to WWII most homes were heated with wood or coal. People still used fireplaces, and they were breathing the dust from these fuels. Yet cancer was not a common affliction. One can only deduce that our current health crisis has to be our food supply. It is the only thing that has changed for the worse. If you want a long, healthy life, and you don't want to be on medications then you MUST change what you eat. There is no magic pill to cure what we have done to ourselves. There is only the magic food that mother nature gave us.
Eat to live, do not live to eat.
I began reading a book "Nourishing Traditions" by Sally Fallon. She says the same thing - processed foods, vegetable oils, etc. We are looking at making changes around here, too.
ReplyDeleteSally is quite a resource of knowledge. She has done many lectures and has her philosophy based on the work of Weston A. Price. Another good video to watch is The Oiling of America. Most people don't know that the first heart attack recorded in the USA was in the 1920's. Coincidence that it occurred about 40 years after we started refining flour?
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