The Diet and Lifestyle Foundation

Unfortunately, many foods that would typically be thought of as likely to promote health can come with an added payload of substances that cause biochemical injury (toxins). This is especially problematic in the United States, where it’s challenging to find food that doesn’t come with added chemical toxins.

Let’s define food as something that was alive recently and has only one ingredient. As soon as you pair food with factory-produced chemicals, it ceases to be just-food and becomes food-plus-chemicals. Our bodies have wondrous systems to detoxify, but we’re hitting those systems with a tsunami when they were designed to handle a stream.

Glyphosate is a great example because it’s used on over 90% of the crops in the world as the primary ingredient in a product you probably know as RoundUp. Glyphosate is a very effective antibiotic and shows up in nearly all processed food. Researchers in Germany found that as little glyphosate as 0.1 parts per billion (ppb) is enough to destroy beneficial gut bacteria.  To put that in perspective, Anresco, a laboratory registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), found glyphosate residue in Cheerios at a level of 1,125.3 ppb! I’ve written extensively on the history of glyphosate as well as the legal and political landscape that permits it’s use to continue. Read more here. And it’s the tip of a very large chemical iceberg.

A hundred years ago, almost all food everywhere was just-food. Today, simply locating food without chemical additions requires substantial education. There are major grocery stores and restaurant chains that offer no uncontaminated food whatsoever. Contaminated food is inciting health problems for millions of people without their knowledge. This needs to change and is something I’m passionate about.

Here’s what you need to know to clean up your food.

Fats

Vegetable oils like canola and soy are harmful on multiple levels. They would typically be from GMO crops sprayed with glyphosate and other pesticides. During processing, the standard method of extracting vegetable oils involves the use a chemical solvent like hexane or acetone. Both are toxic, but that’s not even the worst part. The fat also oxidizes.

Fat that has been oxidized by heat causes all the problems you’ve always heard attributed to fat. Vegetable oils like canola and soy are oxidized during manufacturing and are literally more harmful than smoking.

Dr. Cate Shanahan M.D. is the nutritionist for the Los Angeles Lakers and has a book called Deep Nutrition. She points out a 2006 study published in the American Journal of Cardiology. The study found the vegetable oil in ONE serving of french fries obliterated endothelial function (blood flow regulation through artery dilation/constriction) for 24 hours. That means it gave the artery function of an unhealthy 80 year old. By contrast, smoking only obliterates endothelial function for 4 hours! And as a bonus, the vegetable oil hangs on in your body to become free-radical producing (cancer) building blocks for cells. This is backed up by Dr. Steven Gundry, former Professor and Chairman of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Loma Linda University Medical Center. He also served two successive terms as President of the Board of Directors for the American Heart Association. Dr. Gundry also says a single serving of french fries has enough oxidized oil to be worse for you than smoking.

Aim for 5-9 servings of healthy fats daily. Healthy fats include avocados, pastured egg yokes, olive oil (not for cooking), avocado oil, coconut oil, MCT oil, raw macadamias, raw almonds, raw hazelnuts, raw walnuts, grass fed butter, grass-fed red meat and fatty fish like wild-caught salmon. One tablespoon of butter or oil is a serving.

Meat

Full fat butter, whole milk and fatty ground meat are the worst sources of toxins – ESPECIALLY WHEN THE ANIMALS ATE FEED CONTAMINATED BY PESTICIDES. Hear this. The payload of chemicals – not the meat itself – causes contaminated animal meat (especially the fat) to become inflammatory, and therefore a trigger of disease in humans.

By contrast, if the animal is 100% pastured, grass-fed, grass finished or wild-caught, the meat becomes anti-inflammatory. Contamination means inflammation. Pastured meat is least contaminated and least likely to be inflammatory.

When an animal is fed pesticides via genetically engineered soy and corn, the toxins accumulate in animal fat at much higher concentrations than in produce.

I like the saying: “It’s not the cow. It’s the how.” Most beef in the US contains antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides and herbicides. If it’s processed meat, it can also contain soy, nitrates and chemicals. To avoid the chemicals, I eat grass-fed (also called “pastured”) beef. You can find grass-fed ground beef at Aldi, Earth Fare, Whole Foods, Trader Joes and SAMs Club.

By US federal law, chickens cannot be raised with added hormones. However, they can be given antibiotics and get GMOs, herbicides and pesticides from their feed. For this reason, I recommend only organic chicken. Even better, get to know a farmer that raises pastured chickens and supplements only with non GMO feed. Chicken fat is high in omega 6, so I try to limit to only one or two servings per week.

Farmed fish is often fed GMO feed. To avoid the GMO payload, go with wild-caught fish instead. Keep in mind, the larger the fish, the higher the mercury levels. Mercury buildup looks like many other health problems, including lack of energy and drive. Aim for salmon and smaller.

You don’t need any more than 4-6 servings of protein per day. A serving of protein is usually about the size of the palm of your hand.

• Beef, Bison, Lamb – Pastured (100% grass fed and grass finished) and never administered antibiotics or growth hormones.
• Poultry – Pastured, free range, never exposed to GMO feed. Chicken fat is high in omega 6, so best to limit to only one or two servings per week.
• Eggs – Same as poultry. You want pastured eggs. It’s easy to tell by looking at the yoke color. Pastured chickens that ate bugs and worms produce eggs with deep orange yokes.
• Fish – Wild caught (Farmed fish are generally fed GMO feed.)
• If tolerant after the elimination period, grass-fed and cold pressed organic whey
• 1-2 cups of homemade bone broth each day

Produce

Fruits and vegetables are packed with critical nutrients and fiber, but are typically permeated with pesticides and herbicides. You can’t wash the toxins off either, because they are present in every cell of the produce. I recommend USDA Organic fruit and vegetables because the USDA Organic seal means it was grown without GMOs or synthetic herbicides and pesticides. Better yet, get to know a farmer that grows food with organic practices, even if it’s not certified USDA Organic.

Veggies are vital and should take up about 3/4 of your plate. Try for 6-11 servings daily. Organic produce is best when you can. Be sure to eat veggies with healthy fat because many of the vitamins must have fat present to be absorbed.

Also important, are enzyme-rich lacto-fermented vegetables, fruits, beverages and condiments (probiotics). Sauerkraut and kimchi are fantastic sources that are inexpensive, but be aware that heating kills the good bacteria. The probiotic that will work best for you is highly personalized. Pay attention to how you feel after you take them. Be prepared to adjust occasionally as the populations in your gut change. Also, be aware that many people with symptoms like diarrhea or constipation may in fact be better off trimming the bacteria population and actually avoiding probiotics for awhile.

Eat a serving of fruit (berries are best) or starch (like sweet potato) only at dinner. The goal is to limit fructose until you are no longer insulin resistant. If you are already lean and athletic, more fructose from fruit is fine.

Water

Water often contains fluoride, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides and BPA’s from plastic storage containers. I recommend a Berkey water filtration system with the additional fluoride filters. Despite the initial expense, this ends up being about the most cost effective way to get toxin-free water. Store water in glass containers.

Processed food

One of the most damaging things you can put in your mouth is processed food, because it can be a conglomeration of many toxins including oxidized (rancid) fat, gamma radiated wheat (nearly all modern wheat has been modified by radiation), GMO soy, GMO sugar, chemical additives, nitrates, pesticides and herbicides. Dr. Mark Hyman calls these substances frankenfood. I recommend never eating processed food. Not ever. It initiates a major withdrawal from your health bank account.

Cut chemicals not calories

Think of calories like the markings on a measuring cup. Let’s say I hand you two measuring cups. One contains exactly 1 cup of water and the other contains exactly 1 cup of gasoline. Is the 1 cup marking the most relevant factor for your health? Obviously, the chemical substance in the cup matters far more because it gives instructions to your body.

If you need to reduce fat storage, aim to reduce high glycemic load carbs. Glycemic load is how LONG a food raises blood sugar. That matters because elevated blood sugar triggers insulin to be released. Insulin instructs fat cells to store fat as a way to normalize blood sugar.

Veggies, protein and fats have a low glycemic load. They don’t make you produce very much insulin or store fat for very long. On the other hand, only a little bread or sugar will raise blood sugar for hours. Simply cutting or eliminating the highest glycemic load foods (breads, cereals, starchy grains and sugar) can mean something like NINE HOURS less fat storage per day!

Fruit is a middle ground that needs to be reduced by some, but not by others. A lean athlete may not need to pay much attention to fruit intake whereas someone trying to reverse insulin resistance would want to limit fruit to one serving per day, preferably with dinner.

For more on calories read: Why You Should Forget Counting Calories

Chemical exposure directly instructs hormones also.

When you are exposed to a chemical, your liver goes into action immediately. The liver needs energy for this work, so stores of glycogen (the body’s first-stop energy source) are used up and no longer available for your brain. When glycogen is no longer available, your brain pulls the alarm to tell you you’re starving. So instead of getting five hours of stable energy from a meal, you might feel ravenous again in only a couple hours. Chemicals from an air freshener, dryer sheets or perfume can result in making you hungry faster!

There’s more. If your toxic burden is already high, your liver won’t be able to process the chemicals out of your body quickly enough. Rather brilliantly, your body senses this liver overload and stores the chemical toxins away in fat cells to deal with later. One reason it can be so uncomfortable to begin losing weight is because fat cells release stored chemical toxins back into the blood. This is partially why it’s wise to eliminate all added sugar for the first month of weight loss. Eliminating fructose frees up your liver to deal with chemical toxins being released from emptying fat cells.