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Working Through The Maze of
Healthy Eating Facts

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Have you found that healthy eating facts seem to change all the time?

Are you confused because everything you read says something different?

I know I certainly felt that way.  If you feel the same way, I hope to clear up some of the confusion.  This page has a lot of information to share, but it mainly focuses on 3 healthy eating facts. Summed up, it's about finding the right balance of whole foods that agree with your body type.

Most of us are letting our taste buds decide what we eat. That doesn't mean good food tastes bad, it actually tastes better.

Our ancestors ate instinctively. They didn't have the FDA or books explaining healthy eating facts to them. They ate what nature provided and they learned which foods agreed with their body based on how they felt.

Some Fascinating Findings By Dr. Weston A. Price

I found the studies of Dr. Price really eye opening.  Dr. Price was a dentist that had a strong interest in the health of his patients. 

He traveled did extensive research on the eating habits of of primitive people, people that just lived off the land.

In all the places he went, he found that there were several things in common about their diets.

One of the most interesting fact is that they didn't have any tooth decay despite not having toothbrushes. 

Nor did they have crooked teeth, arthritis, and other diseases that were so common in the cities of the world.

He also discovered that if a family left the village and moved into a city where the foods were different, (probably more processed) they then began to develop the same diseases common diseases.

In the study, he noticed that about 1/3 of the diet of the natives was some type of high quality animal protein and fats. The rest was a combination of of plant foods like vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds.

I feel this information, in addition to my other research, is summed up into three main principles.

Healthy Eating Facts must include three basic principles:

• Eating the right balance of foods
• Eating natural and whole foods
• Eating the right foods for your body chemistry

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It's all about Balance

The first healthy eating fact is getting the right balance of foods in your diet.  The food we eat is responsible to nourish all of our organs and all the systems of the body.  Our bodies are constantly regenerating which is why getting a balance of nutrients is so important.

• Balance your daily diet consuming 1/3 with protein and the other 2/3 should be mainly non-grain carbohydrates and quality fats.
• Fats and oils are important too and can come from any part of the diet. However the fats should not represent more than 1/3 of your daily caloric intake.
• The carbohydrates should be made up mostly of vegetables and fruits
• This helps to keep a favorable pH in the body because vegetables and fruits are alkalizing to the body and protein foods end up being more acidic.

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Eating Natural Whole Foods

The second healthy eating fact is that most Americans are eating too much protein and too many refined carbohydrates.

Whole foods are more nutrient dense; more nutrients for the calories.  If you are eating lots of refined carbohydrates and low nutrient food, you're probably hungry all the time. 

I noticed that when I started to eat more natural whole foods, I would typically stay full for about 4 hours. I didn't feel the need for a snack in between my meals. 

I later read that if your body is craving nutrients that it didn't get from your meal, it's going to hunger for more food.

Try to avoid refined foods, they are usually just empty calorie foods.  Even if you're buying whole foods, please avoid GMO foods.  Almost all corn is GMO now unless it's labeled organic. 

Just look at any processed food label and see how many of them contain some type of corn derivative in them.  That's another good reason to avoid processed foods.  But you still have to be careful to make sure the "whole food" is not genetically modified. 

According to Steven Horne, an expert in natural health, if you just implemented this one step, eliminated refined carbs and eat whole foods, more than half of your physical symptoms would resolve themselves!

Healthy Eating Fact on Carbs

• Try to get most of your carbohydrates from low glycemic, non-starchy vegetables and fruits.
  
•  Limit dates, pineapple, potatoes, yams, wheat, corn and other grains. While these foods may be wholesome, they will trigger more insulin production (which makes you store fat) so eat them in smaller portions especially if you're trying to lose weight.
  
•  Try to avoid refined sugars. Substitute with honey, molasses, freeze-dried sugar cane juice (sucanat), grade B maple syrup especially when baking your occasional sweet treat.
  
•  When baking use whole grain flours, including oat, spelt, quinoa, rice flours.

Healthy Eating Facts on Protein

• When possible eat your foods raw or slightly warmed as cooking minimizes and destroys enzymes and other nutrients. No microwaving, it ruins the nutrients of the food.
  
• Eat red meat as raw as possible, except for ground beef. Cooking any protein food at high temperatures neutralizes the benefits of the amino acids in the meat.
  
• Some foods like poultry need to be fully cooked, but it's important that they not be over cooked or cooked at high temperatures.
  
•  Cook meats at low temperatures, slow cooking in a crock pot is one of the best ways to cook high protein foods.
•  Low temperatures and slow cooking allows the body to use the protein more effectively and so you require less.
  
• Since you're eating less protein (3-4 ounces for the average adult), try to buy high quality meat from pastured or grass fed animals.
• Don't eat farm raised fish because most of it has been raised on fish food and sometimes waste products. It is poor quality and is frequently artificially colored to make it look appealing.
• Try to eat “wild caught” fish, read your labels.
  

Healthy Eating Facts on Eggs and Dairy

• Try to find a farmers market that sells eggs from chickens that are able to peck around the farm. Try to get soy-free eggs as most soy is genetically modified.
• The darker the orange and thicker the yolk, the better the egg. If I can't find farm fresh eggs, I try to buy organic, cage free, soy free eggs.
• Eggs should be soft cooked, soft scrambled or soft boiled, when eggs are hard boiled and rubbery, some say the protein value is neutralized.
• The pasteurization of dairy foods involves high temperature heating. While it's done to prevent food-borne illnesses, pasteurization has caused the dairy products to be more mucous-forming than when consumed raw.
  
•  Raw milk provides many more health benefits but most states have banned the sale of raw milk. If you can't get raw milk, try to find non-homogenized and low pasteurized milk, avoiding ultra-pasteurized milk products.
  

Healthy Eating Facts on Fats

• Fats are essential to the body so make sure you are consuming high quality fats like olive oil, coconut oil and butter from grass fed cows.
• Good sources of monosaturated fats are olive oil, avocados and nuts.
• Butter is a saturated fat but it is actually healthy for you and so much better for you than than trans fatty acids found in hydrogenated oil. Skip the "tub butters". Link to my page on margarine vs butter which can be found in the Additional Resources below.
  
• Bake with coconut oil or butter, avoid margarine as well as trans fats, hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated oils.
  
• Omega 3 is an essential fatty acid and can be found in ocean fish, flax and chia seeds. Many people find supplements helpful to get this necessary oil.

Healthy Eating Facts and Your Body Chemistry

The third of the healthy eating facts is to avoid the foods that don't make you feel well. Learn to listen to your body. You may be intolerant of certain foods or some foods may even cause allergic reactions. Just as our looks and personalities are all different, so is our biochemistry.

Even if a food is whole and natural, it still may not be compatible with our body chemistry.

This book helps to explain why “one man's meat is another man's poison.”   This is a fascinating book and helped to answer some questions that I had regarding certain foods and the reactions on my body. 

In the book Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight, Dr. James D'Adamo and Dr. Peter D'Adamo have done decades of research on foods and blood type.

 If you react to certain foods and don't know why, I would highly encourage you to read it.  You can get your copy by clicking the image to the right.

Sometimes the symptoms aren't that obvious but they can lead to gastrointestinal disturbances, respiratory congestion, rashes, fatigue, migraine headaches, auto-immune disorders, hyperactivity, anxiety and depression just to name a few.

One of the major causes of chronic diseases are food intolerances and/or food allergies. Some people genetically lack certain enzymes to break down certain foods likes milk or wheat.

If someone is lactose intolerant they usually can't drink regular milk because they don't have the enzyme necessary to break down the sugar (lactose) in the milk. Consequently, they will suffer some type of a reaction. 

Gluten (protein in wheat), casein (protein in milk), eggs, soy and nuts are some of the other inflammatory foods known to cause problems for many people.

Self Testing For Allergens

Food allergy testing is expensive, trust me I know from experience, my insurance didn't cover it.  Subsequently I was taught about a quick way to see if a food might be a potential allergen.

Take your pulse to get a beginning number. Then eat or drink a little bit of the food and then take your pulse again. If your pulse is more than 6 beats per minute faster after eating or drinking that food, it's probably an allergen to your body.

The best way to be sure is to eliminate the suspected food for a couple of weeks and then re-introduce it.  If it is an offending food, you should notice some clearing of your symptoms. Secondly, you should see those symptoms return when you re-introduce the food after the two weeks.

These are some of the common foods that cause allergies: Wheat, Tomatoes, Dairy products, Corn, Nuts, Chocolate, Eggs, Food additives, Soy, Shellfish, Peas, Oranges, Berries, Beans, Gum Arabic.

This little home test along with the information you'll learn in the book, Eat Right 4 Your Type: The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight should help you know which foods are compatible with your body chemistry. We are all wired a little differently.

If you are suffering from a chronic disease or just want to obtain optimum health, it's helpful to know which foods might be better for you.

Even if you follow the book's recommendation 75% of the time, it will still be beneficial even though you eat some of the “avoid” foods once in awhile.

Click the image to the right to pick up a copy of the book. Let me know if it helped you.

Eating properly for good health may take a little trial and error but it's so worth it to feel healthy and vibrant again.

We hope these healthy eating facts helped you figure out what to feed your family. 

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Healthy Eating Facts
Additional Resources

Learn about the margarine vs butter debate.

Avoid GMO foods at all costs.

More info on Fats and Oils

Transfats are bad news

More on Healthy Eating Guidelines

To find local farmers and markets check out the Local Harvest Directory.

Could you be Lactose Intolerant?

Suffer from Migraine Headaches?

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