I’ve been obsessed with food and it’s ability to kill or cure you for years.
My obsession with food and nutrition started with the movie Supersize Me. When I first saw the film I was eating fast food (and other junk) regularly. Watching Food Maters opened my eyes to a new world. I had to know more about food’s magical healing powers.
By the time I saw Fat Sick & Nearly Dead my eating habits had already changed considerably. Still, the film was a shock to my system. In my mind fruit juice had always been made from concentrate and was nothing miraculous or special. Suddenly real fruit and vegetable juice became much more valuable.
I must have watched every food documentary on the internet at one point, even a few with subtitles. Craving information, driven for answers to all of my countless questions. Hours upon hours watching, reading, and studying. I enjoyed learning about nutrition and how all the vitamins, minerals, and microbiome work in the human body.
All of my obsessive information diving (which typically includes reading scientific research papers) was pointing to a problem with the standard American diet. No one thing could be nailed down and many problems seemed to be popping up.
There also seemed to be a lot of evidence pointing to problems associated with contact with environmental toxins (pesticides, chemicals in cosmetics & household items).
Our bodies have amazing abilities to flush out toxins and heal themselves even against “incurable” conditions, but we can only harness this power if our machines are tuned to perfection.
Pople’s bodies and immune systems are out of balance – we are getting sick at alarming rates. The problems very often seem to be tied to either diet and or chemical exposure (assuming we forgo getting into environmental epigenetics and other genetic conditions).
Down to the molecule, these things have an impact in ways we cannot even understand yet. We are using people as lab rats and the test subjects are not doing very well. Cancer rates are shocking, diabetes is also on the rise. It’s a health crisis that not enough people are talking about.
Modern agricultural practices, foods soaked in pesticides, and groceries filled with ingredients nobody can pronounce, are a failure. Since their invention cancer and terminal illnesses have spiked in nearly all first world countries (especially America).
Each person’s body is different and unique. Another one of my obsessions over the years (since childhood) has been evolution, human, and animal. Without getting too off topic, it would be reasonable to believe that people all over the planet evolved to eat different foods dependent on what was available in their native culture.
Before GMO’s and the invention of year-round access to foods out of season, people were much more limited in their diets depending on local availability. In former times, predating modern migrations, indigenous peoples all over the world thrived on a variety of whole food diets limited based on local climate. Back then we were more in tune with the earth, all foods were whole foods, and nothing was processed.
I’ve had some mysterious health issues my entire life. Some of them smaller, (acne and water retention) others more obnoxious (severe PMS, chronic insomnia, headaches, & and IBS). Doctors have not been helpful. I’ve spent almost a lifetime searching for answers in a thirty-year mystery.
When they don’t know the answer apathetic MD’s dismiss you. It’s been difficult to get any doctor to take my complaints too seriously. The fact that I don’t want to take prescriptions unless as a last resort doesn’t seem to help. “Take this drug, you need more vitamins, drink more water, get more sleep, try more exercise.” All things I’ve done.
I truly believe in the body’s ability to heal itself. Having these health issues means something in the engine is not calibrated correctly and it’s time for a tuneup.
Over and over again I kept getting pointed back to the Ketogenic Diet so I’m making the change. Today is day two. I’m feeling great despite the knowledge that a detox flu may be just around the corner.
I feel like this could be a positive change to a diet that more closely reflects what my ancestors would have eaten – carbs and sugar would not have been on the menu.
My new diet may not be for you. The truth is we all have to pay careful attention to the whispers (and sometimes screams) of our bodies. We come from a variety of genetics there is really not just one “type” of human.
Genetic diversity is something we should value as a species but with that in mind, a one size fit’s all diet doesn’t seem logical.
You have to find the foods that work for you.