Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel on Unsplash
Today, it is easier than you might imagine developing essential nutrient deficiencies. There are two major paths of harm to your body's cells:
Analogy: You don't have to know how to build your automobile’s engine in order to drive it, but you do have to properly fuel and maintain it, or it's going to eventually stall and give out on you. Most people don't want to drive a wreck so they trade-in their worn-out automobile occasionally for a new one. Here's where this comparing analogy ends because you can't just trade your body in like that, although some people may want too! Who knows what the future may hold? For now, preventative care and body maintenance is where healthy lives.
Overeating refined processed ingredients prevalent in the food supply can lead to nutrient deficiencies stemming from both harmful pathways--malnutrition and toxicity--simultaneously. Many prescribed and over-the-counter medications can also rob your body of some vitamins and minerals.
Even though we live in an agriculturally rich country (U.S.A.) where whole foods are grown and are abundant, too much of the food in marketplaces has been denatured (natural qualities have been altered) through the industrialized refining processes that are stripping whole plant foods of their natural amino acids, vitamins, minerals and fiber. After refinement, the altered nutrients that remain are then used as ingredients in packaged foods which often must be fortified or enriched with synthetic vitamins in order to add back in some, but not all, of the nutritional value lost.
- Malnutrition- A lack of proper nutrition, caused by not having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things, or being unable to use the food that one does eat.
- Toxicity- The degree to which a substance (a toxin or poison) causes damage or harm. Acute toxicity involves harmful effects in an organism through a single or short-term exposure.
Analogy: You don't have to know how to build your automobile’s engine in order to drive it, but you do have to properly fuel and maintain it, or it's going to eventually stall and give out on you. Most people don't want to drive a wreck so they trade-in their worn-out automobile occasionally for a new one. Here's where this comparing analogy ends because you can't just trade your body in like that, although some people may want too! Who knows what the future may hold? For now, preventative care and body maintenance is where healthy lives.
Overeating refined processed ingredients prevalent in the food supply can lead to nutrient deficiencies stemming from both harmful pathways--malnutrition and toxicity--simultaneously. Many prescribed and over-the-counter medications can also rob your body of some vitamins and minerals.
Even though we live in an agriculturally rich country (U.S.A.) where whole foods are grown and are abundant, too much of the food in marketplaces has been denatured (natural qualities have been altered) through the industrialized refining processes that are stripping whole plant foods of their natural amino acids, vitamins, minerals and fiber. After refinement, the altered nutrients that remain are then used as ingredients in packaged foods which often must be fortified or enriched with synthetic vitamins in order to add back in some, but not all, of the nutritional value lost.
| An example of fortification are milled grains that are refined into flours and enriched synthetically because the nutrient dense parts of a whole grain's kernel--the bran and germ, are removed during processing. Leaving only the endosperm part of the grain being utilized to make flours. As a result, certain B vitamins (thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, folic acid) and iron must be "enriched" added back into refined flours per a federal government regulation. This is required in order to prevent widespread malnutrition from the prevalent use of these types of refined flours as a food ingredient in a multitude of products. Enriched (white) flour is an extremely poor-quality food ingredient that over taxes your body's cells' health simply to digest it. Sadly, the most nutrient rich parts of nature's live grains are largely lost during refinement. Most milled grain flours available in the marketplace have been rendered lifeless this way and re-fortified synthetically. A large percentage of the packaged cereals, breads, crackers, cookies and many other types of foods contain refined enriched flours. These products are also loaded with added sugars, salts, and preservatives, none of which fuel human body cells properly. |  Image source: Whole Grains Council |
Stop consuming denatured foods and loosely regulated food supplements and help put an end to unhealthy mindless eating in America!
Our time-stressed society has become hooked on "fast-food" and loosely regulated powdered and pill-form dietary supplements. These cheap foods and supposed nutritional boosters (vitamins, superfood powders and protein powders and drinks) are mass produced and of poor nutrient quality, but quick and easy to prepare and take-in. Formulated to have longer shelf lives and storage capabilities, packaged food products are enhanced with artificial taste addicting flavors. This type of food is loaded-up with refined sugars, salt, synthetic flavorings, chemical additives and stabilizers to help preserve their structure. Generally, the more convenient ultra-processed food is to prepare (e.g. packaged-microwave meals ready to eat in minutes), the less desirable CELL FOOD it becomes for one's body because it has literally been denatured to get into this market state.
Denatured food goes from living plant foods full of nutrients, to lifeless manipulated substances that must be vitamin enriched with synthetic fortification. Our body cells--which are living organisms-- were not born to absorb this for long term sustenance; however, cells do have a remarkable ability to adapt to what is forced upon them as all living organisms possess a natural "will-to-live". Unfortunately, they'll not be thriving for the long run when a depleting health toll surmounts the cells' abilities to keep up with their life's work in our bodies. These anti-nutrient foods wreak havoc when cells must rob nutrient resources from each other and the healthiest tissues and organs in the body that is available to them for digestion and energy. The habitual heist will lead to a depletion of resources and it's just not sustainable. On a steady diet of denatured (highly refined, ultra-processed) foods, cells will manifest unhealthy symptoms as they deteriorate with a shortened lifespan that leads to illness or disease.
The rise of more mindful and focused eating habits gives you, me and everyone better health!
The number one way to improve daily diets with a healthy cells mindset is to replace as much of this denatured food that you and your loved ones may be consuming with healthier natural food versions. In my health coaching practice, we go one-by-one through all six essential nutrient categories that make up body cells and find these healthier food options for each of these nutrients and begin to implement them into daily food preparation and eating habits.
Many Americans are not being skeptical enough and taking charge of the food ingredients they are consuming. Sadly, they are headed towards a future of health woes from the life-robbing, slow-creeping malnutrition that comes from eating too much denatured food and drinks, even though they go to bed with full stomachs nightly!
The choice is starkly uncomplicated, either eat denatured processed foods that have become deadened and fortified, or eat whole plant foods (fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, beans, seeds, etc.) that still contain a life force of their natural nutrients. Please note that meat is not included here, not because it is lacking in nutritional value, but because it doesn't contain: Dietary Fiber. Fiber is dietary material found in plants, containing substances such as cellulose, lignin, and pectin which are resistant to the action of digestive enzymes. Also known as roughage, fiber is a type of carbohydrate that the body can't digest. Fiber acts like a broom, helping sweep our digestive tracts clean and regulates the body's use of sugars, helping to keep hunger and blood sugar in check. Plant foods contain fiber, animal flesh (meat) does not.
The most effective way to permanently break addictive cravings for refined sugars, enriched flours and other harmful ingredients is to adopt a mindset of eating for your cells first. You'll find that getting the six essential types of nutrients (Water; Protein's building blocks-Amino Acids; Carbohydrates; Fats; Minerals; and Vitamins.) balanced into your eating pattern satiates your cells and begins to fuel you with feel-good energy that builds and builds each day.
I'm proud to say that keeping this principle in mind, I lost 20-pounds of weight creep--all gone within less than sixty-days and I have kept it off by balancing what I eat and self-regulating it this way. I use simple tools to plan meals that contain whole natural foods and have adopted a clean eating lifestyle wherein I eat for my cells first. I love helping people find their own ways of implementing this principle into their lifestyles as well.
If you learn methods, you’ll be tied to your methods, but if you learn principles you can devise your own methods. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson LEARN PRINCIPLES AND YOU CAN DEVISE YOUR OWN METHODS--IT'S HEALTHY!
HEALTHIER INSIDE & OUT BY DESIGN USING YOUR PLATE
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ELIMINATE FOODS THAT LEAD TO POOR HEALTH AND WEIGHT GAIN
By Judith Garner, Certified Health Coach
Helping people stay healthy inside & out!
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