Never Be Sick Again (22 page)

Clean Up an Unrecognized Toxic Site:
Your Pantry

The hard part is to obtain accurate information about what is good for you and what is not. A woman who had studied extensively in the fields of health and nutrition reminded me of this fact in a startling way. Even with her background, she had little understanding of how to select a nontoxic diet.

I met Cynthia at one of my all-day seminars. By the end of the day she was motivated to make major changes in her life and asked if she could purchase a day of my time so that I could teach her how to shop for healthful foods. Despite all of her previous study, she felt overwhelmed with information and confused about how to make healthy choices.

My day with Cynthia and her husband, Tom, serves as a general guide for you to start on a path toward a life-sustaining, nontoxic diet. The first thing I did with the couple was to clean out all toxic foods from their refrigerator and pantry. We ended up with several boxes filled with foods to be discarded; a lot of it was toxin-loaded breakfast cereal that her children would have eaten.

Then we headed to the local health food store. We went down each aisle and examined foods, read labels and discussed how to select foods that are either nontoxic or at least less toxic than supermarket alternatives. For example, a healthy substitute for the boxed cereals was found in the grain section of the health food store. We purchased a variety of organic, whole grains that could be cooked like rice and fed to the children. (By the way, the kids loved it.)

As Cynthia, Tom and I walked through the store, I began to explain principles that would help them in the future. Almost any type of food that has been packaged—in a box, jar, can or bottle—has been processed and is likely to contain toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals either can be deliberately added to the foods (food additives), or they can result from food production practices (chemical residues). Whatever the source of these chemicals, processed foods (such as breakfast cereal, bread, canned foods, frozen foods, oils and vegetable shortenings, soft drinks, ice cream, cookies, cake and candy) are loaded with them. In addition to their lack of nutrition, the high toxic content in processed foods makes them a poor choice.

A variety of food additives are used to enhance flavor, color and texture; to help foods process better; and to extend their shelf life. In all, more than three thousand FDA-approved additives are in use today, and the average American ingests more than ten pounds of them per year. Imagining someone eating ten pounds of toxic, synthetic chemicals a year is difficult, but we do it—a little at a time, without realizing how it adds up. Although food additives must be approved for safety, frequently they are initially determined to be safe, only to be removed later from the market due to unanticipated harmful effects. Do not assume that food additives are safe just because the FDA has approved them.

Furthermore, researchers usually test one additive at a time, even though we eat them in combination. Almost no research goes into studying the safety of food additive combinations. Our modern exposure to many different combinations of food additives is a gigantic and dangerous chemistry experiment. The combined toxic effects of food additives were reported in a study conducted by B. H. Ershoff (published in a 1976
Journal of Food Science
) that examined three different FDA-approved food additives: an artificial color, an artificial sweetener and an emulsifier (a substance that keeps oil and water from separating). When fed one at a time, these food additives caused no readily observable side effects in experimental animals. But, when two of the additives were consumed at the same time, the animals became sick. When all three were combined, the test animals died in less than two weeks! Bearing this in mind, pick up an average box of breakfast cereal (or just about any other highly processed food) and count how many additives are in the product. Obviously, you are eating these additives in combination. After examining the labels on boxes of breakfast cereal in Cynthia and Tom's pantry, we discarded all of them because the labels showed that they contained artificial colors, flavors, preservatives and hydrogenated oils.
Read the labels on the foods that you buy.
When a food contains artificial colors, flavors, preservatives
or other additives, do not buy it.

What would happen if we eliminated certain food additives from our diet? A study reported in a 1986 issue of the
International Journal of Biosocial Research
addressed this question. Between 1979 and 1983, the New York City public school system gradually removed foods containing artificial colors and flavors from the school lunches served to more than one million children. During this same period, without any other changes being introduced, the schoolchildren's academic performance skyrocketed. New York City schools experienced the largest four-year gain in academic performance ever measured in any city school district in U.S. history. How was such improvement possible? Food additives are toxic; they poison cells. When you stop poisoning cells, health improves. As the health of brain cells improves, so does the ability to think, learn and remember. A contributing factor to today's poor academic performance is the burden of toxic exposure on the developing minds of our young people. Unfortunately, once the experiment was over, because of political pressure from conventional food suppliers, the New York City schools reverted to “normal” foods, and these extraordinary gains were lost.

Another risk in processed foods you do not find on the label: toxic chemical residues. The manufacturer does not deliberately add these chemicals, but they are present in almost all ordinary commercial foods. If manufacturers do not add it, they do not have to list it. (Recall David's exposure to mercury in tuna fish; obviously, mercury is not listed on the label but it is in there, because it was in the fish.) Chemical residues come from many different sources, including industrial chemical and pesticide residues, herbicides, fungicides, artificial ripening agents, hormones and other veterinary drugs and packaging materials.

On our “tour” of hidden toxic residues, Cynthia, Tom and I took a walk down the frozen foods aisle. According to the 1982–1986
FDA Total Diet Study,
frozen french fries contained 70 different pesticide residues. Frozen pizzas had 67 industrial and pesticide residues. Frozen chocolate cake contained 61 toxic residues and milk chocolate had 93. Peanut butter had a whopping 183, including highly carcinogenic aflatoxin, which is produced by a mold that grows on peanuts.

Lurking in all the aisles was another overlooked danger: packaging materials. The toxins in packaging materials (such as plastic wrap, plastic bottles, milk containers, juice boxes, Styrofoam and epoxy can linings) can leach toxins into our foods before we eat them. Foods coming into contact with packaging materials that contain water or oil-soluble toxic chemicals can absorb these chemicals, and then the consumer ingests them. Portions of the polymers, plasticizers, stabilizers, fillers and even colorants in plastic wrap can dissolve into the food. Avoid foods packaged in plastic. Choose foods packaged in more appropriate materials, such as paper and glass. It's ironic that people sometimes spend extra money to buy organic foods, yet the foods may be wrapped in toxic packaging. Why purchase organic meat in a Styrofoam tray topped with plastic shrink-wrap, or organic canned goods in an epoxy-lined can? Unfortunately, these conveniences come at a price, and that price is the bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals in your body and subsequent disease.

Choosing Your Oils: A Slippery Slope

We continued our shopping trip, learning how to avoid foods that invite sickness. In the oils and salad dressings section, I reminded Cynthia and Tom that almost all oils on supermarket shelves are processed and toxic. These toxic oils also find their way into a variety of prepared and processed foods, including salad dressings, canned and baked goods.

Most oils, especially peanut, cottonseed and soybean, are highly contaminated with pesticide residues toxic to the nervous system. Many modern oils use chemical extraction methods, which leave solvent residues that are lung irritants, nerve depressants and detrimental to health in general. Even oils that have been cold-pressed (rather than chemically extracted) often are refined with toxic chemicals and exposed to high temperatures in their bleaching and deodorizing processes, making the oils toxic. Exposed to high temperatures, nutrients in these oils are altered and turned into toxic, trans-fatty acids and a variety of other toxins (aldehydes, ketones and hydroperoxides). About one-third of all the oil sold—whether bottled or contained in margarine, vegetable shortenings, baked goods, breakfast cereals, peanut butter, etc.—has been hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated and contains toxic trans-fatty acids and numerous other toxic chemicals.

Since these processed oils have come into widespread use, the incidence of myocardial infarction (a type of heart attack) has increased eightyfold, and heart disease, formerly rare, has become a leading cause of death. Coincidence? According to Udo Erasmus, author of
Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill,
the reason for these burgeoning health problems is that processed oils promote a condition known as “fatty degeneration.” In this book, Erasmus wrote: “Sixty-eight percent of people die from just three conditions that involve fatty degeneration: cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes.” Only a handful of healthful fats and oils are on the market: organic butter or ghee, high-quality olive oil (difficult to find), and high-quality essential fatty acid products such as flaxseed oil (see appendix C for my personal choices).

Dangers in Dairy and Meat

Our little group arrived at the dairy section. As you recall, milk and dairy products are not appropriate for human consumption and should be avoided by everyone, especially infants and young children. Toxic bioaccumulation is a problem; virtually all of the toxins to which a cow is exposed during its life bioaccumulate in its tissues, and these toxins are then present in its milk. You should regard milk as a toxic soup filled with pesticides, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, sulfa drugs, tranquilizers and other contaminants. Worse, the practice of pasteurization (a heat treatment done to virtually all milk products to kill bacteria) alters the physical and chemical properties of the milk. Pasteurization not only renders the nutrients less useful to your body but creates toxins as well. Between the toxic bioaccumulation, the pasteurization and the fact that milk products make up 25 to 50 percent of many Americans' diets, milk is a major contributing factor to our high rates of infectious, allergic and chronic disease. In fact, milk consumption has been linked to many diseases, including osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. My recommendation to Cynthia and Tom was that they eliminate milk and milk products from their family diet; I recommend the same to you. Milk does not do your body good.

Animal products were our next stop. Meat and eggs can have serious toxicity problems. Though animal products contain essential nutrients (and I do not recommend a diet devoid of them), you must choose your sources carefully. The nutritional value of a food source should always be weighed against the toxins it contains or is likely to contain.

Commercial livestock contain many toxins, which become concentrated in their tissues. Foods from commercial cattle (and their milk), chickens (and their eggs) and most farmed fish are all poor food choices. All their lives, these animals are fed foods that are lacking in nutrition and toxic (contaminated with pesticides and other agricultural chemicals). Pound for pound, livestock feed is substantially more toxic than the foods we eat, not to mention that large animals like cattle eat a lot more food than we do. When you eat these highly toxic animals, or products derived from them, the toxins enter you. In 1976, the EPA studied human breast milk and found that the toxic contaminants in the milk of vegetarian mothers was only 1 to 2 percent of the national average. The solution is to minimize toxic exposure by selecting organically produced meat, poultry, eggs and wild fish from relatively nonpolluted deep-water ocean areas rather than those harvested from polluted coastal areas or farmed.

Selecting organically produced animal products almost certainly requires a trip to a well-stocked, reputable health food store. The foods are more expensive, but the extra money buys protection from toxins, as well as contributes to better nutrition and a more environmentally responsible method of farming.

Health is a choice. You can pay now for good food, or pay later for doctors and hospitals. If you cannot find ideal foods, however, often you can make better choices; if you cannot find high-quality (organic) animal products, then minimize your consumption. Remember that the overwhelming majority of our toxic pesticide exposure is from nonorganic animal products such as poultry, meat, eggs and milk products.

I do not recommend a totally vegetarian or vegan diet, because both lack essential nutrients; however, a primarily vegetarian diet is desirable. An organic vegetarian diet is the simplest and easiest way to minimize toxins and maximize your nutrient intake. When you eat animal products, select free-ranging, organic animal products whenever possible.

Anticipating Food Invaders

Toward the end of our shopping trip, I shared a fundamental yet largely unrecognized food shopping concept.
Selecting
nontoxic foods means selecting foods that are not contaminated
with bacteria and molds,
which produce toxins. When bacteria and molds contaminate our foods, they damage our health. As part of their normal metabolism, bacteria produce toxins that place a burden on the immune system and contribute to toxic overload, disease and even death. The most serious cases of bacterial food poisoning can result in death, such as the toxins produced by the
Clostridium botulinum,
the botulism bacteria (found mainly in improperly canned foods), the
E. coli
bacterium (found in improperly handled meat and a variety of other foods) and others, including the most common contaminations from staphylococcal and salmonella. Death from these infective pathogens is rare, but quite common is the exposure to low levels of bacterial toxins present in foods, particularly animal products. Always smell meat, fish and poultry. A rank, fishy or rotten scent means that the product is too old or has not been properly stored; bacteria are growing and producing toxins, and the oils are rancid and toxic. Never eat such foods.