Health requires answering two basic questions.
The first question is the one I hear all the time: What should I be taking that I’m not? The second required question to ask for health is What shouldn’t I be getting that I am getting? These two questions are the Yin and Yang of health. Not only do you need to put good stuff in, but you need to keep the bad stuff out.
What’s the bad stuff?
There are many ways to classify “bad stuff.” Bad stuff is anything that harms or overwhelms your system. It is anything that you eat, drink, breathe, or absorb that causes you harm or causes you to feel less than your best. Some of the bad actors like excess sugar are obvious, but some are less so.
Hidden food toxins include non-food ingredients in your food. What happens when you eat additives such as food coloring, artificial colors, and artificial flavors? Does your body just pass them through without an effort? No, your liver needs to break down the chemicals so that they can be eliminated from your body. The dramatic rise in fatty liver disease over the past few decades is evidence that our livers are overwhelmed with their jobs.
You get it. You understand that eating artificial anything is a strain on your liver, but what else shouldn’t you be getting? The top three inflamers that I see in practice are sugar (or corn syrup), gluten, and dairy.
I don’t allow corn syrup in my house. I don’t allow products that have corn syrup in my house. The tsunami of fructose that hits the liver after consuming corn syrup is like having a neighborhood Halloween party at your house and the entire town tries to join. Overwhelming. You’ll recover from the party, but you’re going to be picking cups out of your bushes in the Spring, and your aunt’s favorite carpet that she passed onto you will forever have a red wine stain. You survived the party, but the marks will forever remain.
Why is corn syrup so bad?
In addition to having an overpowering amount of fructose, it also has glyphosate. Almost all commercial corn is Round-up® ready. It has been genetically modified to withstand Round-up®. The glyphosate kills the weeds but not the corn. Glyphosate remains in the corn that you ingest, is toxic to gut bacteria, and requires the liver to work overtime. The glyphosate showed up at your party and TP’d your trees and dumped your plants in the pool.
Besides corn syrup, gluten is wreaking havoc in some bodies.
Why? Is there something wrong with people compared to a hundred years ago? Or is there something wrong with gluten? With our food? Wheat, the main source of gluten, has been genetically modified. It now contains over twice as many proteins as it did two thousand years ago. Sometimes bodies don’t recognize those proteins as food anymore but as foreign invaders. Bodies sometimes make immunoglobulins toward gluten like it is the flu. Many of the symptoms of the flu come from the body’s reaction to it, not the flu itself. Don’t be surprised the next time someone gets fatigued or stuffy the next time they eat gluten.
The same immune reaction can happen with dairy and modified cows.
Cow milk contains more inflammatory casein than it did decades ago. Cow milk was designed to make an infant calf into a sturdy young calf in a matter of months. It has dozens of anabolic hormones to get that job done. My favorite functional medicine doc, Dr. Mark Hyman, says, “Cow’s milk is the perfect food…. if you’re a baby cow.”
“But I need vitamin D,” you say? Yes, you might, especially in our neck of the woods in Pennsylvania. The milk at the store is vitamin D enriched. The cow got it the same way you can—from a supplement.
The first requirement for health is getting what you need from your food and environment. The second basic requirement for health is absence of harm. Demand food and not chemicals in your food. Everyone can benefit from decreasing or eliminating sugar and corn syrup. Everyone. As for gluten and dairy, a two-week trial off either or both can tell you a lot. Your provider can order tests to see if you are sensitive to them, but the best test is how you feel without them. Try cutting back or eliminating some of the drains on your body to regain the energy you deserve so you feel like throwing that Halloween party again. Don’t forget to make it invitation-only this year. Toxins will be turned away at the door.
If you feel like you need help identifying toxins or foods that might be inflaming you, please call us at (814) 772-0722. We would love to help you feel your best.