Today’s modern diet is so desperately lacking in nutrients compared to those of our forefathers. How so? With the advancement of technology, most of our foods are manufactured, genetically re-engineered, and processed. Being busy people, we start to rely heavily on instant meals and due to busy schedules we tend to spend less time preparing healthful, fresh foods.
Even the foods that we do prepare in our kitchen with all the sophisticated equipment, kill and destroy the nutrients and enzymes that our bodies so crave. Just what are we doing to our bodies? During our research in the early years, we were so shocked with the findings about the foods that we have been consuming most of our lives. By knowing the damages these foods are doing to the body, you can start making conscious efforts to gradually change your eating habits. It doesn’t happen overnight but it can be done. By following our programs, we can make a change in your lifestyle within 2-4 weeks.
Remove Acid-Forming Foods From The Diet
When we eat foods that are “acid-forming”, we run the risk of metabolic acidosis, often as a result of eating a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet. When we talk about a low-carbohydrate diet.
For more information on what NOT to eat go to this link: Things to Remove From Your Diet
What Are The Acid-Forming Foods?
So, what are acid-forming foods? Some examples: Animal protein, dairy products, deep-fried foods, cooked foods, junk/processed foods, oily foods, medication, flour and sugar products (e.g. pastries, cakes, biscuits, doughnuts, etc.), artificial food additives (e.g. emulsifiers, colouring, flavouring, preservatives, stabilizers), soft drinks and alcohol. Plant proteins are also acid-forming but are more easily assimilated when compared to animal proteins.
Most other nutritionists / naturopathic nutritional therapists will say that you can eat these foods in smaller amounts, but we take the approach of eliminating them from your lifestyle totally, for it is only total elimination that will rectify your imbalances and ensure that they do not return. Eating, fresh, natural foods more (fruits, vegetables, plant based foods) will return balance to your body.
What DBM Eliminates from Your Lifestyle
Pasteurized Milk and Dairy Products From Cows
Pasteurized milk (UHT – ultra-heat temperature) is the heating of milk to temperatures of 160 degrees or higher. This changes the milk protein (casein) content to an inorganic form, which cannot be assimilated by the body.
When this protein cannot be broken down, it weakens the immune system, causing allergies and many other problems, such as asthma, nasal congestion, skin rash, chest infections, higher blood cholesterol, increased risk of heart disease and stroke.
Do you realize that when you consume cow’s milk, it causes excessive mucus to be formed in your lungs, sinuses and intestines? The mucus also hardens to form a coating on the inner wall of the intestines that leads to poor absorption of nutrients. It causes constipation and can lead to many ill problems. Imagine then, what havoc cow’s milk does to an infant. No wonder asthma and bronchitis are so rampant in our young children!
Sally Fallon of the Weston Price Foundation had this to say:
“Pasteurization destroys enzymes, diminishes vitamin content, denatures fragile milk proteins, destroys vitamin B12 and vitamin B6, kills beneficial bacteria, promotes pathogens and is associated with allergies, increased tooth decay, colic in infants, growth problems in children, osteoporosis, arthritis, heart disease and cancer.”
If we are going to cow’s milk for calcium, we are mistaken. Cow’s milk is not a good source of this mineral. Milk (and dairy products) are acid-forming in our body. When it gets acidic, our bodies try to balance the pH by drawing more calcium (alkaline) from our bones. Over time, more and more calcium are actually drawn out from your bones and eventually lead to osteoporosis. For alternative sources of calcium, choose seeds, nuts, and crunchy vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, carrots and cauliflower.
These are not the only reasons why we remove cow’s milk from our program. Visit these pages: You Should Know: Cancer: Milk and Cancer; Milk IGF1 and the Cancer Connection and Milk Moustache
Soda/Carbonated Drinks
If you drink soda/carbonated drinks regularly, you would do yourself a great favour to eliminate them from your diet—the sooner the better.
A can of soda/carbonated drink contains up to 15 teaspoons of sugar, 150 empty calories, 30 to 55 mg of caffeine and is loaded with harmful artificial food colours, flavourings and preservatives and with zero nutritional value.
Some soda drinks are “disguised” as “diet soda” where dangerous sweeteners like aspartame are added. Numerous health side effects are associated with aspartame ingestion, including brain damage, diabetes, emotional disorders, decreased vision, ringing in the ears, memory loss, heart palpitations, shortness of breath and many more. This short list should be enough to show you the danger of this ingredient in diet sodas. For more information see: You Should Know: Sugar, Aspartame & Sweeteners
Prescription Drugs
Yes, unfortunately, if you are already on any medication, these medicines will often address the symptoms of a specific imbalance, but in turn cause other organs or body systems to go out of synch. For example, a poor diet, low in healthy, nutrient dense green foods can cause bloods to thicken and clot as a result doctors prescribe medicines to thin the blood – these can lead to a myriad of other disorders, such as ulcers, constipation, poor liver and kidney function and a whole lot more. To rectify this patients are then often prescribed more medicines to rectify that. Before you know it, they are swallowing a handful of tablets each day. Other diseases that may surface: diabetes, high blood pressure, poor blood circulation, high cholesterol, yeast infection, etc. Once these imbalances arise, mainstream medicine just continues to prescribe more and more medication for each of these problems. It becomes a vicious cycle? Not only do the prescription drugs create more health problems, many of these prescription drugs adversely affect the absorption of nutrients. For more information see: Nutrition For Life: Nutritional Deficiencies
| DBM COMMENTTaking control of your life and your health begins by eating more life-sustaining, healthful foods. Don’t waste one more second of your life. Begin the process today. |
Refined Sugar
Human bodies are designed to fuel on carbohydrates, which is the source of our energy. We fulfil this need by consuming complex carbohydrates from whole foods like whole grains, vegetables, beans or lentils, or from fruits. However, with technology, man has extracted sweetness but leaving behind the nutrients. Refined sugar is lethal for human consumption because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals, rendering it “empty”.
Concentrated sugar—in the forms of white sugar, brown sugar, glucose and syrup—releases sugar fast, causing a rapid increase in our blood sugar levels when consumed. If this sugar is not required by the body, it is deposited in “storage” as fats. These concentrated sugars are almost totally devoid of useful nutrients. When the blood sugar level rises, the pancreas releases insulin into the blood stream. Insulin is a hormone that helps regulate the level of blood sugar. When we consume food that releases sugar fast (high glycemic index), our body over-reacts to the increase in blood glucose by producing more insulin than is necessary. As a result, blood glucose falls too much within a short time, causing you to feel hungry again. When you respond to that hunger by eating another high glycemic meal, it sets off another cycle of swing in the insulin level. Over time, these exaggerated increases and falls in the insulin level will lead to a reduction in the body’s ability to respond to insulin, the development of a condition called insulin resistance. When this happens, the glucose level in the blood system remains constantly high. The pancreas responds by producing more and more insulin to try to maintain the sugar blood level, until it can no longer keep up anymore.
This condition is directly damaging to the cells and can cause very severe long-term damage to the body. Some of the common health problems known that are related to this condition are insomnia, obesity, type-II diabetes, polycystic ovary disease, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and hormone related cancers. Do not be deceived and use artificial sweetener. They mostly contain aspartame that are even deadlier than your table sugar.
Follow this link for more information on Sugar, aspartame & Sweeteners.
Table Salt
The salt we are referring to here is table salt (sodium chloride). It creates untold physical problems and suffering. Yes, the body needs salt (sodium), but it must be in an organic form in order to be useful to the body. Table salt, sodium chloride, is an inorganic sodium compound that combines with chloride. It is extremely toxic to the body and causes the body to retain fluid. High intake of this substance thickens and stiffens arteries and increases the risks of strokes, and cardiac failure.
It accelerates the rate of renal functional deterioration. Excessive sodium chloride draws calcium from your bones, which is excreted in your urine. This leads to early and painful osteoporosis, or the thinning and fracturing of your bones. In addition, most table salts are laced with iodine. This in itself presents a whole new set of health problems. We make use of nutrient dense Himalayan salt, sparingly.
White Flour Products
All the good substances (bran and germ) is removed from flour during processing. Then it is bleached with a deadly chemical called “alloxan“, a bleaching agent similar to Clorox. This compound destroys the beta-cells of the pancreas, leading to type 2 diabetes.
Finally, some coal-tar-derived (carcinogenic – cancer causing) vitamins are added and sold to the unsuspecting public as “enriched”. White flour makes your blood sugar rise more than refined sugar. Intestinal infections are a direct outcome of white flour consumption. It is hard to chew, puts pressure on the digestive system and is extremely low on fibre. Mixed with low-quality rice flour, it has no nutrient a growing child requires. Further complicating the matter is the addition of soya in all commercial flours – it is a cost saving factor for the manufacturers. Soya flour again inflicts a whole new set of imbalances upon the body, not the least of which is thyroid dysfunction.
Wheat bread has recently been introduced as the “healthier option”. Do not be deceived. Studies have shown that wheat is contaminated with a germ called mycotoxin. When consumed in high amount, this germ can be lethal and has been reported to cause rheumatoid arthritis, miscarriages, headaches, infertility, slow growth development in children and irritable bowel. Moreover, wheat converts to sugar rapidly and accelerates aging in people with low metabolic rate. Your safest option is to purchase stone-ground flour and bake your own fermented sourdough breads or make other healthy breads as shown on this website. also visit our Nutrition For Life page – Whole Grains for some additional information.
Meat and Meat Products
We are taught that meat is high in protein and iron, and is good for us. However, this cannot be further from the truth… most commercially produced meat today, whether chicken, beef, pork or lamb, have received hormone treatments of one kind of another. Besides making the meat tender, these hormones are used to escalate the animals’ growth and increase their milk or production yields.
These hormones which are estrogen-dominant, have been found to be linked to breast cancer, fibroids, ovarian and cervical cancer, and endometriosis in women. In men, the common symptoms are prostate and testicular cancer, loss of libido, impotence and breast enlargement, just to name a few.
Antibiotics are also used widely on these animals to prevent infection and to enhance growth—all in the name of higher profits in shorter time. Diseases of the digestive system have directly been linked to meat consumption, and more critically, the risk of heart disease and cancer of the stomach and colon.
But remember, most of us are in more danger of too much protein intake than too little. Excess protein is a contributor to osteoporosis, over-acidity and many other common health problems. Studies on low-carb/high protein diet have shown a marked increase in acidity overload to the kidney, increases the risk for stone formation, and decreases calcium, increasing risk for bone loss. Another reason why we should avoid meat is the stress that it puts upon our digestive system.
| DBM COMMENTA better choice for protein in substituting meat would be beans, lentils or whole grains.Try to eat organic whenever possible. AND DO NOT EAT SOY OR SOY PRODUCTS / FAKE SOY MEAT. |
Vegetable Oils
Polyunsaturated oils, which include vegetable oils like corn, soy, linola, sunflower and canola are are made into cooking oils and are heavily refined and processed, rendering them toxic. For a long time now, these cooking oils have been mistakenly regarded as the “healthier” choice, but experts have now pointed out that this is a fatal mistake.
After refining and processing, these beneficial oils become oxidized as they get exposed to heat from the processing, resulting in the formation of transfats and damaging free radicals (this is a process called hydrogenation). To add insult to injury, manufacturers now add and ‘anti-oxidant” to these oils. This ‘anti-oxidant’ is in the form of TBHQ – which essentially preserves the shelf-life of oils and stops them from going rancid.
TBHQ is used in many foods, ranging from crackers to crisps to fast foods. It is also found in certain brands of pet foods, as well as in cosmetic and baby skincare products, varnish, lacquers and resins. It is used in the stabilisation process of explosive compounds. The risks and side-effects of this preservative product far outweigh the benefit of it being used as a highly unsafe preservative ingredient. Tertiary Butylhydroquinone, or TBHQ as it is more commonly referred to as, is in fact a chemical preservative which is a form of butane. It is used in foodstuffs to delay the onset of rancidness and greatly extends the storage life of foods. It’s no wonder that certain fast foods and convenience foods seem to last a lifetime on the shelf these days.
The truth is, coconut oil which have been regarded as unhealthy is the better choice for cooking. Unlike most unsaturated oils, coconut oil does not turn toxic when cooked. Other alternatives are virgin (or extra virgin) olive oil for light cooking or sauteing, or grapeseed oil for high heat cooking. See: Food For Life:Fats & Omegas or download Advanced Nutrition.
Fast (Fried) Foods
While many of us know that fast foods are bad, we don’t know just “how bad” they are, to stop eating them. We spend our hard-earned money on the very things that are killing us, then our lifetime savings on medical bills. We think that the main danger of frying was that fats cooked at high temperatures produce oxidants that cause cancer. But we have news for you. Scientific research has found another cancer-causing substance called acrylamide, in foods cooked at high temperatures, whether with or without fats. While the safe limit set for acrylamide in food is ten parts per billion (ppb), French fries and potato chips are found to contain more than a hundred times this amount! Acrylamide is produced when foods are browned or burnt, or cooked or processed using high heat. These methods include frying, barbecuing, baking, and even by microwaving. If you must cook your foods, choose to steam, quick stir-fry or blanch instead. This way, the foods will not contain oxidants as you do not burn your food. Additionally, if you include more raw foods along with these lightly steamed foods, your health will improve immensely.
These Are DBM’s The Time-Tested Recommendations For Food Or Drink Choices:
- Natural, unprocessed and organic – chemical/GMO-free
- No added sugar – except such as a small amount of honey, maple syrup or molasses. Under certain circumstances, the use alternative sweeteners such stevia or xylitol is acceptable, but first confirm with your DBM Physician/Practitioner.
- Avoid unhealthy artificial sweeteners, such as NutraSweet™ and Splenda™
- Select foods grown in your native environment – i.e. locally grown and seasonal
- UNpasteurized Goat/Sheep dairy products (only if recommended by Practitioner) and fermented foods;
- Try to eat at least one third of your food raw;
- Ensure healthy fats in your diet – including animal sources and Omega-3 fat, with balanced intake of Omega-6 fats (Eliminate typical grocery store polyunsaturated vegetable oils).
- Choose Foods containing High-Energy Electrons – See: Your Body – The Body Electric
It is of the utmost significance to our health that our diet contains the right fats in correct balance. This is a complicated topic, but to help you understand which fats to eat and why, see: Fats & Omegas
Our World of Food Today
It is a shocking fact that ~90% of the money spent on food in the U.S. is spent on processed foods [Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, 2002, Penguin Books]- most of us eat and drink only for enjoyment and sustenance, giving little attention to whether we are obtaining needed nutrients in the correct balance to maintain health. Although America is the richest country in the world, it takes the “prize” for having the highest obesity rate (30% of the population). With some effort, however, it is possible to make healthy choices that also fulfil our desire for pleasure when filling our stomachs.
The average American eats almost 1 ton of food per year – according to 2011 USDA data; this includes leftovers (food bought, served but not eaten); and of the 415 pounds of vegetables, a high proportion of these are starchy corn and potatoes.
This Is What We Are Eating Daily
The Pop-Up Called “What Are We Eating?”. It is commonly known as the SAD diet – Standard American Diet… BUT this doe NOT only apply to the USA. Poor diet and eating habits are the root cause of many of our health imbalances and pretty much EVERYONE on the planet is or has at one stage eaten a SAD diet.
This Is What We Should Be Eating – The DBM Plant Based Plate
Follow the link to see the recommended DBM Plant Based Plate. You will find other additional valuable information on these links – The 4-Food Groups as well as this page: Eat From The Rainbow
Depending on how much information you are looking for, you can find additional information on nutrition at a more advanced level by downloading our Advanced Nutrition PDF.
Photo credit: Daily Infographic
