Healthy Eating 1

Being healthy isn’t about specific rules or diet as people are different and are affected by different things and it is these differing things which means one size doesn’t fit all and this is the major problem with being healthy. I have to clearly state that I am not a doctor or health professional and like many people I see the issues and the problems and how people overcome them and the results people get with many things and this is where to begin. I have researched many claims and found most have vested financial interests for profits and when you challenge their claims most easily fall apart as many of these claims come from unqualified and unquantifiable sources and they are designed to look legitimate but force you to sign up to something or buy something, and I am basing this upon considerable research and working with people backed by impressive results.

Every week there is something new and one week it will be cut out coffee or stop eating butter and switch to a low fat spread and this is a major issue, conflicting information and unsubstantiated claims as these are often due to vested interests of food manufacturers or certain foods and the disinformation which arises from them.
Who remembers the “five a day” slogan and who can specifically state how this slogan came into being and what medical credibility it has, and what testing and research is there to substantiate their claims, actually there is very little as this was a marketing slogan from America designed to promote the veg growers during a slump in their sales. Therefore there is no research or little credibility to their claims and little scientific proof to substantiate their claims and here lies our first problem, vested disinformation. Vested disinformation is a marketing tool used by more advanced marketing people and it relies on disinformation and scaring people into buying something they don’t need or really want as they are seduced by a manufacturers claims and they frightened by their claims, let me explain. Who remembers the advertisements for cleaning products where a child runs into a house and everywhere he touches glows brightly and other people also touch it, here we have the scare from the glowing touched areas and automatically it assumes the child is dirty and unhygienic and again it uses children as children promote fear in parents. This fear is taken and used mainly as subliminal messaging which reached the point of indoctrination and who remembers children being used as excuses for everything; emotional blackmail of many parents, people taking pictures in public spaces are told not to photograph children as this riles up others who join in and begin shouting or worse when they join in the fervour. In this case the law is very clear in that anyone in a public place can film, photograph, and audio record anything they can see or hear and there are no exemptions for children or anyone else as the law is clear and specific, if you want privacy you have to create it. If you don’t like your children being filmed then don’t take them out, don’t send them to school, and basically exclude them from every public area as the UK as the most security cameras pro rate per head of population and it will be inevitable they will be filmed somewhere as recent figures suggest an average person is filmed over 70 times per day. If we put this into context it clearly shows people using children to try and further any argument they think they have because they have no argument and they try the emotional element to try to persuade people to their opinion, and yes it is only opinion. Domestic security cameras, business CCTV cameras, cameras such as dash cams in cars and the hard wired ones in lorries and the claimed security cameras in public buildings and especially those around the entrances and exits as well as organisations such as the police and local authority cameras are filming everyone without exception and this is followed by a lawful maxim of “there is no expectation of privacy in public” which holds true as more surveillance is constant. This is a prime example if vested disinformation designed to sound legitimate and play on people’s emotions.
Sugars

I will not state things such as you will cut out all sugar as this is unrealistic and people cannot do this as sugars are good for you, but like many things it depends what type of sugars they are, where they come from, and what comes with them as one item can be either very bad for you or very good for you. If we take an orange the perception is that it is good for you and by a process of flawed deduction people assume orange juice is good for you and as an average glass of orange juice contains the juice of 6 oranges it is actually bad for you as on its own it is heavily sugar laden with fruit sugars called fructose and any fruit juice is actually very bad for your health if you simply drink the fructose. If you want to make it good for your health then you need to eat the orange instead of drinking it in much the same way Grapefruit were eaten for breakfast as you get the orange juice and the fibre from the orange and combined they work together as a tag team to promote very good health, omit one of them and they are bad for you.

Understanding sugars is key as some sugars are bad for you while others are good and first we have to understand that highly refined and processed sugars are generally bad for you and they are added to so many foods as the body craves sugars and food producers know this and add it to everything as the body works to a seasonal clock. This works by converting sugars into fat and this fat is stored to get you through the winter and all animals in the wild eat sugar rich foods as it becomes available to build their fat reserves up to take them through winter and wild plants and foods are in season at the end of summer and into the autumn so that animals can feast on them and get fat for the winter.
Now we need to understand our relationship with sugars as humans have evolved from being seasonal creatures to being creatures of habit and this means we may have two spoons of white sugar on our morning cereal or two sugars in our morning tea or coffee and this becomes a habit when we do it every day. If we only did this prior to winter and became connected to nature our sugar consumption would drop, if we found out which sugars are good for us and used them in moderation and only seasonally our health would improve, but we don’t as we still take our sugar every day summer and winter.

Fruit sugars on their own are bad, combine them with the fibre from the fruit then they become good and beneficial as you don’t stop taking sugar, you take it differently and if you identify good and bad sugars and substitute bad sugars for healthier sugars your weight will fall and your health will improve. In basic terms forget fruit juice as it has no fibre so add the fibre, swap out bad sugars for healthier sugars so what are these healthier sugars; simply put any natural sugar is better than heavily processed sugars and if you swap your white sugar for lightly processed sugars such as brown or raw sugar then you have an instant improvement. Switch to the most natural sugar, honey, as this contains many health benefits and you can put this into your drinks instead of white sugar and if you cannot afford honey then switch to a less processed sugar such as raw or unrefined sugars and lower your sugar usage little by little.

Knowing how sugars work on the body is essential and the one most people know is the sugar rush, so how does this happen? If you consume a can of pop which is normally full of sugar then within about 10 minutes you experience a sugar rush and if we use a scale such as 0 – 100 we can better explain this. When you consume your can of pop your sugar levels rise and if they rise to + 50 within 10 minutes before starting to fall, in another 10 minutes they fall to – 50 and this is where the problems begin as every sugar action has an equal and opposite reaction and it is this reaction which causes the problems. When your sugars rise to + 50 you get a hit or sugar rush in around 10 minutes and in the next 10 minutes your sugars drop to – 50 and this is where the problems begin as your body naturally liked the sugar hit and wants more, you suddenly get sugar cravings and you would eat more sugary items or drink more sugary pop to get you back to + 50 when you really need to be at 0.
If you limit your bad sugar intake you reduce the sugar + and if you only rise to + 25 instead of + 50 your reaction will only be to fall to – 25 instead of to – 50 and you begin levelling out the highs and lows and with less high and less low you reduce your sugar cravings. Sugar is all about peaks and troughs and the peaks are the positive or + numbers and the troughs are the negative or - numbers and if you can level these peaks and troughs out your food cravings will eventually go away and you won’t have large sugar highs and sugar lows or severe cravings.

Can you eat chocolate, actually yes you can and again it depends what type of chocolate it is as the white chocolate for children is literally dripping with sugars in the form or direct sugar or in the form of syrups which is easier for chocolate makers to convert into chocolate and this will elevate your sugar levels and rush excessively. Chocolate is made from something called COCOA and all cocoa is refined or processed CACAO which is the raw cocoa and this is literally crushed to a powder and sugar is added. Dark chocolates such as 80% cocoa or more are actually beneficial for most people as the dark chocolate high in cocoa/cacao and contains a lot of beneficial products and the reduced sugar means they work on the gut and improve its health. In reality you add a can of pop to a chocolate or sweet and you are raising the peak even higher and your readings may now become + 75 which automatically mean your readings will drop to – 75 and this means a wider gap between your peaks and troughs and your cravings become more intense and your body craves more sugar to get back to + 75 and the sugar high it gives. In reality the more you can lower the positive reading the more you lower your negative reading and you level out the peaks and troughs and reduce your cravings which means you have less inclination to eat sugary foods and suddenly your weight drops or stabilises and your diabetes disappears and blood pressure normalises.


Understanding Foods

Food manufacturers and processors are businesses and like any other business they need profits and to get this they use the latest production techniques and while they may be good for profits they may not be good for your body; in this equation your body always loses as profits come first and they usually justify this with the usual rhetoric of “we employ 500 local people” which is usually followed by indirectly supporting local businesses.
Next we have to understand more basics and this is the more a food is processed the worse it is for you as highly processed foods generally remove or reduce the good/healthy elements through the processing of them and this applies to all foods and even the staples are not exempt and one such basic is beer. Beer was drunk as the water supply was poor, unhygienic or toxic and it bought epidemics such as cholera and this was due to toxic waste from industries and living generally entering the water course and polluting the same water people were drinking, washing or bathing in and cooking in; to reduce the risk fermented products such as beer were drunk. To make beer you used grains and then they were not chemically fed throughout their growing cycle and you then malted the grains to allow them to produce their natural sugars, these were then steeped which is boiled in water for several hours at a specific temperature which killed many contaminants through the temperatures and the time they were steeped and once cooled you covered them and added yeast. This fermented the available sugars and other things added to beers and once fermented they were racked and the sediments were allowed to fall before the finished beers were drawn off. This method of making beer was inconsistent and haphazard as it relied upon a consistent crop, consistent malting and consistent steeping to convert the starches into sugar and this sugar was also inconsistent the final beer was inconsistent in its strength and naturally things moved on.
Now the grains are nearly all chemically fed to improve their yields and consistency when growing and this chemical contamination stays in the grains, they are malted using ovens and heat which are often sealed and the gases given off during malting are not vented and the sugars created naturally are supplemented by adding additional sugars called brewing sugar and this isn’t just sugar as it’s a complex chemical cocktail. As they ferment beers they use tanks or vats chemically cleaned, they finish the fermented beers using finings which again is yet another chemical cocktail and finally you get beer and a lot of chemicals which they put in a can or bottle.
Consistency, now there’s a word and while your modern beers may be consistent, so is the consistently rising chemical amounts they introduce to the beers and throughout the brewing process to clean everything from fermentation vats to beer barrels and even the bottles they use and reuse, now there’s consistency.

One thing we need to be aware of is that any food product which is fermented has sugars as these sugars are those which are fermented and fermented foods such as Sauerkraut or Kimchi use naturally occurring sugars, most things have additional sugars added and this is the problem, additional sugars. Bread uses yeast to rise and this is a fermentation process and this used chemically fed grains which are introduced as ingredients and mixed with other ingredients to produce dough which is then blast frozen and transported in freezer lorries in bulk to the bakeries until it is needed and it is thawed out and cooked as required after it is put into baking trays and allowed to prove, or rise. This means sugars are added to the dough as well as yeast and once it is frozen it is too cold for the yeast to work and as it thaws out and the temperature rises it becomes warm enough for the yeast to work and CO2 is produced as bubbles in the dough and this is it rising.
This brings us nicely to grains as they are carbohydrates and carbohydrates or carbs are high in starch as are potatoes, pasta and other foods made predominantly from grains, you should ask about the low sugar breads as in reality they aren’t low sugar as it needs sugar to rise and cutting back on these foods helps enormously.

This brings us to processed foods and how we can identify them and the simplest way is reading the ingredients and particularly the additives, if it has a lot of E numbers it is highly processed and should be avoided and you need to research what other names are given when used in foods as they add sugars to everything, even meats.
What about diet? To make diet foods they use sugar replacements and they have their own issues in that they are actually worse for you than sugar and credible research reveals the elevated cancer risks which are shown to be about the same as someone smoking 100 unfiltered cigarettes per day, many wish they could afford 100 cigarettes per day. Replacement sweeteners are also used in other food stuffs and none of them are safe and when you find this out it’s usually too late for you.
Other foods are processed and many of the large American chains such as Muckdonalds, Burglar King, Subway and many more offer salads as “healthy alternatives” and this is simply marketing speak as they require regular supplies of salad stuff and much of this is grown in “cradle to grave” chemical growing systems. These are chemically filled growing mediums designed for maximum cropping yields and the foods absorb these chemicals and store them in the foods as chemicals; some are hydroponically grown which is water filled with pure chemicals and they are all treated with pesticides to kill anything in there and this is The Chemical Brothers in action.
When they are picked they are washed in chlorine solutions as this kills any bugs and the washing solution contains additives such as preservatives to prolong the life of the food so the seller of products containing salads can use them for longer and it reduces their food waste and amount they spend on salad. Still looking as the healthy option now?

Now to some of the rhetoric and is rhetoric which is another word for lying and disinformation as much of this centres around specific issues and to begin you need to read the labels and understand them and their double speak as they have evolved many ways of naming one thing. First is the “low fat” options and are they really low fat, yes and no is the real answer as technically they have reduced the fat and this makes the food bland and to replace the taste they increase other flavourings such as sugar and salt, so is the best option? NO and if you are reducing processed sugars you have unknowingly increased your intake. What about salt? again it depends what type and the highly processed white table salts are out, replace them with pure sea salt as this is dried and only lightly processed to clean it, it also contains the natural minerals and salts from the sea and these additional minerals are extremely beneficial for your health. If you remove any fats, salts or sugars it alters the taste of the food and slick marketing makes people buy these products on the presumption they are good for you, removing any of the aforementioned is another process or processes it makes it a more highly processed food which is actually bad for you.
Recent long term testing clearly shows all these highly or ultra processed foods have negative long term health effects and products claiming to be good for your health are actually bad for you as products such as Benecol claim to be good for you as they contain plant stanols but they are bad for you as they are highly or ultra processed products, the testing showed what we already know and that normal butter is healthier for you. Only today has it been revealed that 40% of organic baby foods contain dangerous levels of toxins and this is what mums are feeding their babies as they think organic is better for their health; it shows how easily people are duped and conned. It also reinforces the slogan “breast is best” which is something most men would agree with, breast milk alleviates many problems and triggers even more natural bodily responses in babies which is confirmed by credible research showing breast fed babies are healthier at all stages of their life.

Water is a contentious issue and at the present time you see the idiots walking about with plastic bottles of water which usually have the large branded labels on them so why spend all that money on buying branded bottled water when the local lads are often peeing into the water source either unknowingly or simply for some weird fun. Once again you question the water companies and again the same rhetoric of “it meets all of the standards” yet nobody asks what these standards are as recently we have seen massive discharges of raw sewage into water courses used for drinking and this alone causes major issues, combine this with the untreated waste from industry and this becomes concerning. Tap water is cleaner than bottled water and healthier for you and if this is sub standard then what is the bottled water? Just another way of getting the gullible and other idiots to pay you for potentially damaging their own health in the long term along with free advertising.

Locally we had a guy with emerging kidney problems and the medical profession suggested it was to do with his drinking and he was very annoyed as he doesn’t drink and hasn’t done for some years due to working odd hours and driving and they backtracked and said it must be something else he was drinking. I went round and measured his tap water and with 2400 parts per million of contaminants it was surely his tap water so I offered him a simple solution, a Brita water filter as we had a spare jug and I took it with me and filled it with the same water we had just tested and it dropped from 2400 PPM to just 138 PPM just with filtering it through a charcoal filter. He rushed out and bought one and as they were on offer at 50% off so he bought two and has his own spare and he got the bulk pack of filters from the internet and his own water testing meter and it removed nearly all the heavy metals and fluoride which is yet another toxin. Within 2 months of drinking filtered water his health has improved dramatically and his kidney issues have nearly cleared up, the medical solution was to put him on a cocktail of drugs which would make it worse but mask the symptoms.
One thing he also does is to follow more advice and this involves getting a whole lemon which must be a pure lemon and not have wax or other type of coating and you cut a slice, including the skin, you put your filtered water in a GLASS jug and put a slice of lemon into it, you can get the water dispensers in glass which stand inside your fridge and would be a good investment as plastic leaches contaminants into your water.

What is good for you?

Eggs in any form, hard boiled, fried, as omelettes, poached, scrambled and boiled as eggs have lots of useful health benefits and having them as a slightly sloppy omelette is even better; you can add other ingredients such as mushrooms, peppers, onions, or anything healthy and red peppers are the healthiest.

Sauerkraut is a fermented food and a spoon a day works wonders for your gut health and any fermented foods have the same gut health benefits and kimchi is another fermented food which is good for gut health.

Apple cider vinegar can be used as vinegar or as a drink diluted with water and a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water works wonders on your gut health and lowers your blood pressure and helps with conditions such as stress or diabetes as well as psoriasis.

Natural fish such as mackerel or other oily fish contain omega 3 and this is excellent for you and if you can get it in sunflower oil it is as good as it gets, if you want a snack a mackerel salad is excellent for you.

Most fruits and they must be eaten and not pressed for their juice so the juicers are out and you eat the whole fruit so you get both the juice and the fibre; if you want and like smoothies then avoid commercially available shop bought items and make your own as commercially available items are full of sugars and chemical preservatives. If you make your own you automatically include the fruit and its resulting fibre.
Many fruits such as lemons have the most benefits in their skin so peeling or zesting a lemon and putting the segments into the blender then removing the white pith and cutting up the skin and putting this into the blender and blending the lot means less waste and you get massive improved health benefits. Most fruits and vegetable are good for you and certain foods are to be avoided with certain medication such as grapefruit with blood pressure medication so check your medications for the foods to avoid. With fruit and vegetables it is colour which is important, colour? Yes because certain colours contain better natural chemicals to obtain their colours and this is beneficial for your health and the colours you look for are blues, purples and reds as these fruits and vegetables are better for you. Always go for red peppers instead of green or yellow and if you can forage then forage blackberries then do so and freeze them whole, raspberries and strawberries are red fruits and blueberries are now called super foods, and for good reason and often they grow wild and are free of chemicals.

Greek yogurt and this must be the full fat and not the low fat variant and it must be full Greek yogurt and not Greek style or Greek type yogurt as these are not the same.

Does this mean you have to give up certain foods? Actually no as it means you limit or restrict them and you improve them by modifying them and if you cut out most of the white and brown breads and still reduce your potatoes and pasta consumption you improve your health; you then have fish and chips on Friday and fish is healthy but the chips and peas or not. If you have one slice of white bread you have butter with it instead of highly processed spreads and instead of having salt and vinegar you just use apple cider vinegar you have modified and improved it to your advantage.

Do you go vegetarian? Certainly not and being vegetarian is a choice and a choice you make and from the beginning of time man has hunted animals and ate their meat and meat contains the protein you need so keep the meat, if you have a steak then take the salad option instead of chips as the chips are potatoes and starch, and if you limit chips or potatoes to once a week you can have fish and chips on Friday and add apple cider vinegar improves it. In recent years the original vegetarianism has been taken over by vegans and the vegetarian options are outed in favour of vegan; but, here is the reality, year on year the vegan options are being dropped as it is bland and tasteless and you need a lot of replacement supplements to replace those missing from a healthy diet which is a lot. In reality it has dawned on many people that vegan foods are ultra processed foods which are actually bad for you and coupled to the missing vitamins and minerals means your body is going to rebel and to many people it was a myth perpetuated by the media, certain agendas, and those with vested financial interests in selling you vegan food at inflated prices, and now we are beginning to see the long term results and they are bad and so is the health of long term vegetarians and vegans buying into the agenda. Most people would be better eating many of the vegetables raw as it has more essential nutrients and vitamins you need and they rarely leave you feeling hungry, who doesn’t like peeling and eating a raw carrot as its better for you that that bar of white chocolate.

If you want to drink apple cider vinegar neat I would say no and you can modify it slightly by adding warm water to honey and dissolving the honey and adding the vinegar to this and you can use filtered water to improve things further and put this into the fridge in glass jugs ready for drinking and you could finely chop or finely zest some lemon peel and add this.
Greek yogurt is excellent and it must be Greek yogurt and not the Greek style or Greek type yogurts and it must be the full fat yogurt and not the low fat versions as it may well be low fat but it is also highly processed so stick to the full fat as it contains the healthy fats which work with your body.

Good foods are not hard to find if you look and there are many good things out there and sticking to naturally grown foods and not introducing more chemicals into your body has to be a positive thing.

Great post, useful reminders and steady, sensible well-tried suggestions.
Cider vinegar is a real benefit for me.
Night cramps - diluted cider vinegar releases the painful constriction in less than a minute. Heartburn, indigestion and skin problems almost always yield to diluted cider vinegar. The skin and hair like to be slightly acidic, so an egg-cupful to 4/ 5 litres of water makes a good after shampoo rinse.