Dear Readers,
This week’s question came from Collin. He wrote,
I want to know if there are also foods you recommend I avoid as I change my health this year (finally committed to doing that). Appreciate it.
For sure, I have a solid list of things to avoid! It’s number one reason people don’t want to go out to dinner with nutritionists! But honestly, my working policy is never to give you the nevers when you come to me for help. Don’t think of a pink elephant. What did you just do? Don’t eat sugar. Now sugary foods will be forefront in your mind. The nevers get stuck in a brain that doesn’t process negatives well.
My preference is to give you the things you can replace the unwholesome foods with for improvements. So at the end of each section, that’s what we’ll do.
Okay, let’s get down to it.
In my opinion, these are the top five foods to replace to maintain good health:
1. Sugar
A lot of people know sugar isn’t good for them, but they mistakenly think it’s an empty calorie; it adds nothing, but doesn’t really deplete anything. They mistakenly think that if they skip other meals they will have a low calorie count and then the sugar they consume won’t adversely affect them. But nothing could be further from the truth. It’s true sugar doesn’t have any nutrients to speak of, but it isn’t that simple. While it gives nothing to the body but abundant energy, it taxes the body to be metabolized and stored – namely the pancreas via the insulin response. And it taxes the body to heal the damage it does while it’s circulating in the bloodstream waiting for the insulin response to get it to a safe level (retinopathy, neuropathy, atherosclerosis, etc.) It further taxes the liver to metabolize and over time causes fatty liver, which is why this condition is quickly rising in incidence.
In those who have eaten sugar so repeatedly that they become insulin resistant, a chromium deficiency is common. Other deficiencies are usually present because people eat sugar to the exclusion of other foods due to the dopamine response it has on the brain, not unlike that of hard drugs. The dopamine hit makes us want the taste and rush of sugar and associate it with pleasure - even when an hour later we are in a semi conscious sugar coma state. I’ve heard nutritionists say foods cannot be addictive but they are misguided. Rat studies clearly demonstrate the sugar is more addictive than cocaine.
Sugar further dysregulates the hormones that signal appetite and satiety so that even large meals do not satisfy us. Fast food chains know this: if you give a soda with a meal people will eat more. So it makes us crave more and more sweet food, depletes the body of nutrients, and makes us unable to feel satisfied after we eat. In addition to all of this, and possibly more detrimental, it produces an overgrowth of harmful bacteria in the gut – and the mouth – which leads to a number of disease states from rotting teeth to digestive woes.
Now, when I say sugar, I really mean sugars, as this includes white sugar, brown sugar, demerara sugar, organic sugar, cane sugar, beet sugar, agave sugar, sucrose, fructose, rice syrup, corn syrup, maple syrup, and others. Any sugar that spikes blood sugar, whether natural or not, is detrimental to the health of the body. Honey may be the only exception, when used in very small doses, because although it has many health giving properties it still spikes blood sugar and we are living in a time when this is epidemic. Once a person is insulin resistant, honey is not good for them. Parents mistakenly think because their kids are slim or active that some sugar is safe. But skinny is not synonymous with healthy and we need to get that out of our heads. Even athletes do well to remove it because of the systemic inflammation and pain it causes. There really is no upside to sugar and it should be omitted and replaced with healthier options for the entire family, not just those who are dieting.
So what are the healthier options? I have a post that explores this in more detail here, but I feel stevia (natural leaves, crushed, or minimally processed) and non-GMO xylitol or monkfruit are the healthiest choices for a sugar substitute.
2. Artificial Sweeteners
When we started to realize how detrimental sugar is to the body, artificial sweeteners were developed. We were told they were safe and they were added to a plethora of food items. We were told they would help with weight loss, but that clearly hasn’t been the case. In fact, studies show that long term consumption of artificial sweeteners actually increases glucose intolerance and risk for metabolic disease, just like sugar does. We now also know that artificial sweeteners have been linked to damaging the gut biome, which is quite possibly the most important prerequisite to good health. For a complete low down on why these are not a healthy option, go here.
With a myriad of new, natural options that don’t have the same impact on glucose tolerance, it’s quite easy to replace these with healthier options. Again, my recommendations are stevia, monkfruit, and xylitol. Read about the healthy sugar substitutes in more detail here.
3. Vegetable Oils: Canola, Safflower, Sunflower, Corn, and Soybean Oils
These are the oils that are virtually everywhere. If you buy take-out or processed food, it’s likely bathed in them. Why? Well, they’ve been pushed by our government-sanctioned food guide as recommended healthy products for a number of decades. It’s now widely understood, however, that these oils are detrimental to every cell in your body – because every cell is encased in a cell membrane that is formed from the oils/ fats we eat - and these ones aren’t what we were told they were.
First, they are anything but natural. They are industrially created and are highly unstable. Watch these videos on how coconut oil is created, how olive oil is created, and how vegetable oils are created to better understand the issue. Or listen to this explanation of the corn oil process. It will blow your mind, and that isn’t even touching on the clear cutting and resulting ecosystem degredation, genetic modification, and toxic spraying of these crops with cancer-causing chemicals. These are not wholesome foods for our bodies or the environment.
Additionally, vegetable oils are largely comprised of Omega 6 fatty acids, which trigger inflammation in the body when they are imbalanced with Omega 3 fatty acids. They significantly (40 percent) reduce the conversion of Omega 3’s to their active forms – DHA and EPA – which are used by the body and brain to reduce inflammation. This increases the risk for various diseases. Think anything that ends with “itis” to name a few.
This can not be overlooked if you are suffering from painful inflammation in the body. Anywhere in the body. Tylenol (acetaminophen) stops our awareness of pain by blocking prostaglandin pathways. Guess what Omega 3 fatty acids do? They change the prostaglandin response in the body from an inflammatory pathway to one that dampens inflammation. If you are suffering pain, you need to get the vegetable oils out and get the Omega 3’s in!
Dr. Joseph Hibbeln from the National Institutes of Health has researched the impact of Omega 6 and Omega 3 fats on our health. He explains that over-consuming Omega 6 fats (vegetable oils and commercially produced meat) and under-consuming Omega 3 fats (fish oils, fish, and grassfed, sustainable meat) significantly increases:
Heart disease
Type 2 diabetes
Metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetesIrritable bowel syndrome
Inflammatory bowel syndrome
Macular degeneration (eye damage and blindness)
Rheumatoid arthritis
Asthma
Cancer
Psychiatric disorders
Autoimmune diseases
That’s just one person’s investigation into the matter. The data are copious that these government endorsed foods are not healthy for us. So what do we replace them with? We absolutely must consume homemade foods to get rid of hidden vegetable oils and we need to switch to organic coconut oil, ghee, lard, tallow, and avocado oil to cook with and extra virgin, first cold pressed, organic olive oil or grassfed butter for condiment purposes. It’s an incredibly easy switch and the health benefits go on and on!
4. Low Fat Foods
Contrary to popular belief, low fat foods are not wholesome. When fat is absent in foods, the only way to give them flavour is to add excess sugar, (refined) salt, or artificial flavours. The rendered product is more processed, less natural, and less satisfying. In fact, fat plays a huge role in satiety: when fat is present in the gastro-intestinal tract, the body signals satiety to reduce hunger. This is what makes us satisfied after eating a meal. Remove the fat and that doesn’t happen. No wonder people are overeating more and more in a low-fat obsessed society!
In addition, the brain is the fattiest organ in the body, comprised of nearly 60 percent fat and the nerve cells are sheathed in a protective fatty layer, called the myelin sheath. Despite decades of advice against eating saturated fats, they are most beneficial for these tissues. It’s understood now that the recommendation to reduce saturated fat was politically motivated and based on faulty science. Newer data has demonstrated it was a huge mistake. I write about this at length here and here. As such, low fat foods are of no benefit and only promote overeating and obesity through overly processed, nutrient deficient foods. This is super easy to address, however! Simply do not purchase anything labelled low-fat and consume healthy fats as part of your meals. See above for those I recommend.
5. Homogenized Dairy
This is dairy that has been treated to make the fat globules distributed evenly throughout the liquid instead of rising to the top, as they naturally do. It’s thought that consumers don’t like the skin that forms in natural dairy products, so the product is pushed through a very fine screen to change the particle size of the fat molecules. This only applies to bovine (cow) dairy, as goat and sheep milk is naturally homogenized. The fat globules do not separate in these dairy products.
The problem with homogenized dairy is that your gut didn’t get the memo that it’s the new kind of milk fat: the altered structure may make it unrecognizable. Normally fat globules have a specific size that helps your body identify them, so messing with the structure changes the way the body is able to ‘read’ them. In the case of dairy I suspect it has everything to do with why so many people have grown intolerant to it, particularly those who become intolerant to the casein portion of it, as is common in Autism Spectrum and psychiatric disorders.
Because of commercial dairy production where cattle are treated poorly and milk takes longer to reach the table, pasteurization is essential to kill off unwanted and dangerous bacteria in the milk. Raw milk that hasn’t been pasteurized is arguably much more nutritious, but it is only safe when the dairy products are produced in a very healthy manner with healthy cattle that are responsibly maintained with milk delivered quickly to the consumer. This is ideal but obviously not the case at present for most of our dairy products.
Health food stores do offer higher quality products from smaller, more sustainable farms and even non-homogenized milk. Of course, buying full fat dairy is another way to avoid homogenization. Whipping cream is not homogenized. It can be watered down to the desired consistency. We can also support farmers fighting for the right to sell raw milk to give the choice to consumers. If you’re looking for a healthier option to dairy you can also look at grassfed A2 milk. The cattle create a different type of casein, which is more easily digested and less inflammatory to a number of people who are sensitive to regular milk products. Goat and sheep milk and full fat coconut milk are also a very wholesome alternatives if you are absolutely intolerant to bovine dairy. The first two contain protein, whereas coconut milk is not a substantial source.
Try replacing these foods permanently if you are serious about your health.
As always, if readers have their own health questions, I welcome them. Just send me an email. And if you’re looking for more specific health information check out my website and sign up for my free newsletter at hopenotdope.ca. I offer 1:1 health coaching and several nutrition programs for various health issues. If you haven’t experienced the power of food as medicine, I invite you to reach out to learn how!
Namaste!
Nonie Nutritionista