Being My Best Self (Physically)
Whole Grain Food Items (These are GOOD)
· 100% Whole wheat or wholegrain flour, bread, and pasta.
· Rolled oats
· Triticale flour
· Home popped popcorn
· Quinoa
· Maize (not hominy)
· Barley
· Brown rice
Deceiving Grains (Don’t eat these!):
· Hominy
· White bread
· Pastas (non-whole grain)
· White flour
· White rice
· “enriched”
· “bromated”
· “Wheat flour” (ß Real whole wheat flour must say “100% wholegrain wheat flour” on the package, not just “Wheat flour.”)
Stay Away From (usually caner-causing):
· *Foods with Nitrates (à nitrites à nitrosamines à cancer): food preserver.
o Cured meats (meats from pig- that’s why Lord told the Israelites that swine is unclean. Because it is.)
§ Cured ham
§ Bologna
§ Salami
§ Bacon
§ Hot dogs
§ Beats
§ Carrots
§ Green beans
§ Spinach (organic spinach is better to eat)
§ Collared greens (leaves without a head)
o Watch out for Nitrates/Nitrites in (check labels):
§ Soups
§ Meats
§ Canned meats
§ Chocolate
§ Peanut butter (try looking for organic instead)
§ Onions
§ Pickled food
· *Acesulfame K
o Dry mixes for beverages (Kool-Aid, Crystal Light, etc.)
o Coffee & tea
o Gelatin desserts
o Pudding
o Non-dairy creamers
· A
rtificial colorings
· Aspartame
· BHA and BHT (they cause cancer; really badly)
· Caffeine (causes birth defects. Though it may temporarily relieve headaches, the truth of the matter is if we adjust our diets by cutting out things that are bad for us and include things that our bodies need, for, we wouldn’t get headaches as much. Though some get headaches despite attempts to change their diets or lifestyle, improved diet will surely improve chances for headache avoidance.)
· MSG and HVP
· *Olestra
o Found in many snack foods
o Cleaves to needed illness-fighting nutrients and flushes them out of the system. If eaten, may improve likeliness to develop lung cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and muscular degeneration (including blindness).
o Low doses can even cause diarrhea.
· Potassium Bromate
o Banned in every country except for U.S. and Japan, California must place a warning label on every bromate-containing package that says “Warning: May cause cancer.” Need I say more?
· Sulfites: Dried fruit preserver
o Has been directly lined to asthma attacks, including a dozen fatalities.
o Has been known to be an allergy trigger.
o Check your labels to avoid these hazardous chemicals.
All in all, it boils down to what kind of a people we are. We are both a naive and ignorant society. Many of the “facts” about how unhealthy we really are tend to be withheld from the public so that we’ll keep buying products, and the big businesses have no problem making money by killing us off one by one through our diets. But what kind of research do we do to protect our families, our children, our spouses, and ourselves from these dangers? We have mountains of information at our very fingertips through the internet, yet is our time spent mostly on research for our families, or checking to see the degree to which we are loved on facebook, email, blogs, etc.? Facebook, email, and blogs can be very good forms of communication, but it is important for us to limit our time on these so that we can improve our chances for survival by simply doing the research necessary.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Okay. I’ve heard all of these ‘green’ activists telling me I need to be healthier, to put down the remote, to eat some bland and disgusting food, recycle, and cut out everything enjoyable in my life. Is my life really on the line here, or are you just a diet fanatic? Why should I listen, let alone make those changes?” Here’s the answer: Your life is on the line. There’s the simple truth. We often believe that we have the right for life to be easy and effortless. Can life be simple? Of course, and it should be! However, we need to a more self-reliant people. We need to rely on ourselves to produce the good things we want to see in our lives, and not on the brand names to do so. This idea can incorporate everything from politics to home-life, but I want us to focus on the diet aspect. Take a look around yourselves. We all know someone who is suffering because of poor diet, maybe without even realizing it. Is this to say that we blame them because they don’t take care of their bodies? No. Perhaps they don’t know the things they were putting into their bodies would have such an effect. We want to protect ourselves from the hardships that inevitably come with poor diet. So we begin by making those healthy changes. Will is cost us money? Yes; however, if we budget correctly we can live within our means to eat healthy. Will it require time to prepare meals? Yes, it will require our precious time, but remember it is for a precious cause: our bodies. Will it require us to do some shopping around until we find the foods that are really good for us? You bet it will! But how fun it will be to share these things with each other!
Another aspect of health I’d like to touch on is the Word of Wisdom (found in D&C 89). Many Latter-day Saints follow the “what not to do’s” very pharisaically, in the sense that we simply don’t do what we shouldn’t (i.e. drink alcohol, teas, coffees, etc.) But do we all follow the “what to do’s” just as emphatically? My experience is that we tend to forget that part, and now we are seeing that our loved ones and friends are paying the price; a price which many of us are bound to pay if we don’t make the changes to include wonderful things in our diets. The Lord has told us, “And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man- Every herb in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.” He also tells us that meat is to be used less-often. Is anyone else as excited about all of this as I am? It is wonderful to know we can be sustained off of the things He has created for us! He says later that, “All grain is for the use of man… to be the staff of life…” Wholegrain it is, Lord!
Have you noticed all the recalls lately? How safe is it really to eat store-bought spinach, eggs, milk, etc.? The fact is that we still do buy them and we still do eat them. Organic is the best way to go, because it tends to be grown with far less pesticides and harmful chemicals than non-organic. However, my guess is that the time is not far off until we will need to have the best kinds of food available to ourselves if we have some kind of natural disaster or nation-wide recall of foods. Food for thought. That’s why gardens in our own backyards seem to be such a simple answer to many of the questions that may otherwise arise. Food storage is also more than just being safe; it’s means staying alive in many instances, including the recalls, natural disasters, and economic crises to name a few.
In closing, did you know that even most vegetables and fruits sold in the markets were grown in conditions containing so many pesticides that it is now healthier to not eat them? We can grow a garden and have fresh, healthy veggies! We can save our earth, and thus save ourselves and posterity, by having a separate container outside for recyclable items, and then take them to a recycle center to get a few cents to spend on a RedBox movie night date or family night! We can put down the soda, and reward ourselves for our accomplishments! We can make the choice, by changing our diets, to keep hazardous chemicals out of our extraordinary bodies! We can learn to like wholegrain and whole wheat! If fact, it is richer in taste! We CAN do it! Will you join me to make those changes?
In the inspiring words of Michael Jackson:
Gotta make a change for once in my life.
It’s gonna feel real good,
Gonna make a difference,
Gonna make it right.
I’m starting with the man in the mirror.
I’m asking him to change his ways.
And no message could have been any clearer.
If you want to make the world a better place
Take a look at yourself and then make the change.
Thank you for reading.
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