Low fat foods and high fructose corn syrup cause obesity!

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Taking action

Found this great article by Jonny Bowden and thought I would add some to it and share it with you folks as it is a problem that affects us all! So much so that the first Lady, Michelle Obama, is now taking on childhood obesity as her cause from the white house! Maybe we can help her out! This post touches on the diet problems of our obesity epidemic but doesn’t get into the physical aspects, will write a post about that later so be sure to check back!

Our diet issues

When you have something as massive and as scary as the obesity epidemic, it’s hard to point the finger at one single element and say, “that is why it happened.” But however you slice it, the low-fat movement played a part in the epidemic.

After World War II, heart disease rates began to rise precipitously. In the 1970s, a committee led by Senator McGovern issued a report advising Americans to lower their risk of hear disease by eating less fat. This recommendation was based on evidence that linked diet to heard disease. Unfortunately, the report wrongly singled out saturated fat as the wicked element in our diet responsible for all our problems.

This was the beginning of the low-fat movement, and the obesity epidemic. It’s more than a coincidence that they happened at the same time, and here’s why.

Once upon a time…..

Once dietary fat was “identified” as the chief culprit in heard disease (a huge case of mistaken identity in my opinion) food manufacturers sprang in to action. The race was on to produce low-fat & no-fat foods, and to engineer saturated fat out of everything.

This led to a slew of “Food-like” products, manufactured and processed edible substances bearing little resemblance to whole foods, and to idiotic experiments like margarine. Add to this witches’ brew the invention of high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oil (to replace saturated fat) and you had the perfect dietary storm.

You see, if you’re the food manufacturer and you’re removing the fat from some food, you need to replace it with something else if won’t taste very good. So , we would up with  a slew of low-fat products loaded with sugar. And since high-fructose corn syrup was now available cheaply, adding sweetness was an easy thing to do!

So easy, in fact, that high-fructose corn syrup started showing up I hundreds – if not thousands- of food products.

As the same time as all of this was happening, Americans started eating more of everything. This, too, is no coincidence. Here’s why: If I give you a carton of Domino’s sugar and tell you to eat till your heart’s content, you won’t consume very much. Same thing with butter. But if I put them together something magical happens. Combine sugar and fat and every one of your evolutionary buttons are pushed. Manufacturers know this. Cravings get activated, brain chemistry starts firing, and you can literally eat this stuff until you bust. And we did!

The whole low-fat movement coincided with a huge spike in food processing  and those who precess and manufacture food products for a living have one goal-getting people to eat more of their products. That’s easy to do, just engineer combinations of sugar and a bit of fat, which work really well with the whole “low-fat” philosophy.

As long as it didn’t have to much fat, you could eat it right? Not really! Meanwhile, fat-the one macro-nutrient that keeps you full and satisfied- was lacking from most of what we were eating. Sugar, the one element that keeps cravings going, was plentiful. Portion sizes in general collectively took a shot of steroids, as the whole country decided that super sizing was its birthright.

Low fat has a lot to answer for. It may not be the only reason we are experiencing one of the worst health epidemics in modern times, but it sure is one of the biggest!

What did you eat today!

What are we eating? Are we turning toward vegetarian diets or are we all eating rotting flesh? Are we getting fat on ice-cream, cake, cookies or cheesecake? Are we eating more fruits and vegetables or more French-fries?

Since the early 1900’s, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture has been monitoring our food choices and uses that data to see what direction we are headed in. Check it out!

In 1977, soda became the most popular American beverage, and number 2 is still way behind Unbelievably, we drink 50 gallons of soda per person per year and that doesn’t include the 8 gallons of un-carbonated soda that masquerades as “fruit” drinks. And the soda companies, to increase their sales and profits, put their vending machines in the schools from grade to high school in their quest to get as much money as possible regardless of the costs.

With regard to “liquid meat” (milk products), we’re eating slightly less ice cream than we did in 1970, and most of it is as fatty as it was 30 years ago (except for Ben & Jerry’s and Haagen-Dazs, which are even fattier). As for cheese: the sky’s the limit. We are eating twice as much as we did in 1970, and cheese has passed beef as our number-one source of saturated fat. Whole milk is down (that’s good), 2% is down (that’s good), and although 1% and skim are propagandized as a better option, they are not replacing the fattier milks. I say propagandized because hidden from you is the fact that when you reduce fat content you increase protein content which correlates directly to higher rates of osteoporosis. “Liquid meat” is in just about everything, including the worst of all places, your arteries, and has been shown to be a direct link to breast and prostate cancer, especially if it is not organic milk because it then contains genetically modified bovine growth hormones, with links not only to cancer but to type-2 diabetes and obesity.

We now produce 152 pounds of added sugars each year for every man, woman, and child in America. That’s 25% more than in 1970. Soft drinks account for a third of our intake, so-called ‘fruit” drinks supply another 10%, while cookies, cakes, and other sweet baked goods contribute 14% (thank you Mrs. Field’s and Famous Amos), and candy, breakfast cereals, and ice-cream chip in about 5%. That makes roughly 62% of our intake coming from sugar products. And we wonder why we have an obesity epidemic!

We cat more wheat flour than we did in 1970, and only a tiny fraction is whole grain wheat flour which is the kind that helps lower the risk of heart disease and diabetes. The rest is fiber less, empty caloried, “silly-putty”. What’s a malasda? It’s a ball of white flour, soaked in egg batter, covered with sugar, and cooked in grease. That is basically what many of us have floating around inside us…yuck!

We cat 111 pounds of red meat and 83 pounds of poultry and seafood per person every year. That’s 194 pounds, per person, of heart disease, cancer arthritis, constipation, diabetes, stroke, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, every year.

Intelligence says we should control our senses. But, unfortunately for most, we are sold into slavery by our tongues and taste buds. We should learn and eat to live not live to eat!

One Enzyme A Day Keeps The Doctor Away!

How Enzymes Work and Why You should Use Them

The number of enzymes the body is capable of producing is finite.

Enzymes for digestion come from two sources:

Internally – from our own digestive organs (digestive enzymes); and externally – from the food we eat (food enzymes).

Food enzymes occur naturally in raw foods and provide the body with additional support to break down those foods. Cooking or processing food at temperatures greater than 118°F destroys all enzymes and places the entire burden for digestion on the body.

The depletion of enzyme activity over time leads to chronic conditions and eventually the loss of life.

The health impact of food enzyme depletion has been largely overlooked in allopathic medicine, but today healthcare practitioners in many different disciplines are recognizing the importance of digestive enzymes.  Supporting proper digestion with enzyme supplements can noticeably improve your health.

In fact, everyone could benefit from an enzyme supplement taken with meals.  Remember, you are not what you eat but what you absorb.

Lack of enzymes in foods puts undue stress on the pancreas and other digestive enzyme-producing organs to produce all of the enzymes required for digestion. When an excess amount of resources is constantly used for digestion other metabolic functions in the body suffer, leading to chronic health problems.

The goal of enzyme supplementation is three fold:

1) To increase digestion and absorption of nutrients needed to maintain a healthy body.

2) To provide adequate support for digestive organs, relieving them of unnecessary stress and thereby extending their productive lives.

3) To increase availability of energy and valuable resources that can be used for other necessary metabolic functions, a preventive measure to reduce the onset of disease.

“The length of life is inversely proportional to the rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential of an organism. The increased use of food enzymes promotes a decreased rate of exhaustion of the enzyme potential.” (Dr. Edward Howell, Enzyme Nutrition: The Food Enzyme Concept¹)

Choosing the Right Enzymes

Enzymes from animal sources, such as pancreatin, are most active in the alkaline environment of the small intestine (pH 7.2-9.0) after the body has already produced and released enzymes to support digestion. This means animal enzyme supplements do nothing to spare the pancreas and other digestive organs from producing an excess of enzymes.

Microbial enzymes are active over a broad pH range (pH 2.0 to 11.0) and begin digesting food immediately after entering the stomach. The presence of digesting food in the stomach signals the body to produce and release fewer enzymes. Microbial enzymes, therefore, are the better choice because they relieve the body of the total burden of digestion.

What to Look For in an Enzyme Supplement

The four enzymes commonly found in food, and therefore, needed in an enzyme supplement are:

Amylase for carbohydrates and starches digestion

Lipase for fat digestion

Protease for protein digestion

Cellulase to break down fibrous foods

Additional enzymes, such as glucoamylase, sucrase, lactase, alpha-galactosidase, phytase, and peptidase enhance and support complete digestion of each of the food groups.

When selecting an enzyme supplement be certain that the four primary enzyme types are present to assure digestion of all of the main food components, while noting that additional enzymes improve the digestive efficiency of the supplement.

Systemic Enzyme Therapy

For those clients that have already fallen into dis-ease, due to poor digestion, poor absorption or reduced metabolic enzyme production; enzyme supplementation can also be extremely beneficial.

In systemic enzyme therapy, larger dose of proteases or proteolytic enzymes are taken on an empty stomach one hour before and two hours after a meal. This allows the enzymes to be absorbed directly into the blood stream.  It is well documented that protease enzymes act differently in the tissues of the body than in the digestive tract.  Once in the blood stream, protease enzymes binds with alpha-2-macroglobulins, shifting them into their active form.

Research has shown certain protease enzymes exhibit greater activity in the blood than others and that the amount of needed for systemic activity is often much greater than that needed for digestion. Unfortunately, most systematic protease products on the market contain the same levels and combination of protease enzymes as are found in digestive products. Proper systemic enzyme therapy can reduce inflammation, boost immune function, maintain cardiovascular health, maximize endocrine effectiveness, aid in detoxification, promote normal respiratory function and on and on.

Volumes of scientific research exist on the benefits of enzymes therapy on a whole host of physical disorders.

One randomized, placebo-controlled study published by the University of Texas Southwest Medical Center determined protease-based nutritional supplements modulates the inflammatory response and accelerates healing time by up to 17% in 77% of the patients who received it.²

When enzymes are taken in formulation with vitamins, minerals, herbs, or phyto-nutrients the combination improves absorption and bio-availability of those nutrients, maximizing healing.

High Fructose Corn Syrup —User Beware!

The following information was taken from the magazine Alternatives by Dr. David Williams and is paraphrased so that I can share the key content of that article with you for your own information.
Several years ago the food industry began using the sweetener high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Many in the health industry praised the use of fructose, saying it didn’t cause the rapid swings in blood sugar like common sugar. One of the “benefits” of HCFS – that it doesn’t stimulate the release of insulin- may be just another of its problems. Read the rest of this entry »

The Sugar That’s Good for You

A great ally in satisfying your sweet tooth in a healthy way is xylitol. Xylitol is a naturally-occuring 5-carbon sugar that has about the same sweetness as sucrose (table sugar) so it can be substituted one to one in recipes. However, it has 40% less calories than sucrose and 75% less carbohydrates than sucrose. That’s great news for people trying to lose weight.
Xylitol also has a very low glycemic index (7), which means it does not spike blood sugar or cause an insulin reaction. This makes it safe for both hypoglycemics and diabetics.
Even better, xylitol actually helps reduce carbohydrate cravings. So, it really does soothe that savage sweet tooth and help you in your battle to get over your addiction to sweets.
And, best of all, xylitol actually has some great health benefits of its own. Yeast and bacteria can’t feed on it, so it actually helps combat yeast infections and bacterial infections like sinusitis, middle eat infections and periodontal (gum) disease.
Xylitol encourages re.-mineralization of bones and teeth. This makes it helpful in preventing and reversing osteoporosis. It also gives it a double action against tooth decay. It not only inhibits plaque formation by reducing levels of harmful bacteria in the mouth; it actually helps teeth to increase their resistance to cavities.
The Nature’s Sweet Life line includes high quality Bulk Xylitol, as well as xylitol-sweetened gum, mints and chocolate bars. When that craving for a sweet treat comes, try chewing a piece of Xylitol Cinnamon, Peppermint or Spearmint Gum. For a breath mint or quick treat, try Xylitol Berry, Read the rest of this entry »

Soothing Your Sweet Tooth The Healthy Way

Giving up sweets “cold turkey” is about as hard as quitting smoking. Refined sugar is actually highly addictive. So, rather than denying yourself any sweets at all, it’s best to soothe that savage sweet tooth with something a little healthier. Read the rest of this entry »

The Good News About Chocolate

If you crave chocolate now and then, there is good news for you. Cacao, the cocoa part of chocolate, actually has a lot of health benefits.
For starters, cacao is one of the richest sources of antioxidants on the planet- Antioxidant effects are measured as ORAC values (oxygen-radical absorbing capacity) and dark chocolate’s ORAC value is one of the highest ever measured. Chocolate also contains flavonoids that help keep blood vessels elastic.
Your craving for chocolate is probably pretty natural because chocolate has some mood-elevating chemicals such as phenyl eth >‘lamine Chocolate also raises serotonin levels in the brain and appears to influence endorphins and oxytocin, neurotransmitters – associated with pleasure and intimacy. Read the rest of this entry »

Get Off the Blood Sugar Roller Coaster

When you get up in the morning, your body has been fasting all night and your blood sugar is low. You “break your fast” by eating breakfast. And how you break-fast in the morning will set your metabolism for the day.
If you start off with coffee and donuts or other pastries, sugar-sweetened breakfast cereal or other simple carbohydrates, you do raise your blood sugar level quickly, but it comes at a cost. Read the rest of this entry »

Are You Falling Victim to the Dreaded Snack Attack?

The health of most Americans is in serious trouble. Obesity and diabetes are rampant and are huge risk factors for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in America. And, what is the primary cause of these serious health problems? We propose to you that it’s the evil being perpetrated by the dreaded snack attack. Just look in the many gas station convenience Read the rest of this entry »

Look what they’ve done to my food Ma!

Some say there are no unadulterated foods in any common food stores. After researching for this article I tend to agree. The bulk of most people’s food is store bought. Most of us do not have the means of producing our own food so it is really important for us to know what we are ingesting. There is alot of controversy about monosodium glutamate and metabisulfite we will examine these in a later article. Read the rest of this entry »