In this episode of Food as Medicine we talk about the changes in our food supply over the past 60 years as well as two shocking toxic ingredients in everyday foods.
Our food supply has changed more in the last 60 years than it has in the previous 10,000. It's really important to understand what's happened. We're not eating the stuff our great grandparents ate anymore. For example, you have to eat three apples today to equal the nutrient value that's in one apple from 1940.
Our biggest problem is that we have so much soil depletion that we're creating barren soil. When we have barren soil, we have weaker plants. Weaker plants need more pesticides. That's a huge problem because we are ingesting all of those harmful pesticides.
We've also industrialized our food supply. We went from an agricultural food supply to industrial with processed foods.
Now let’s get to the chemicals in our food supply.
Did you know the same chemical used to make Silly Putty is in regular fried fast food items? It's called dimethylpolysiloxane and it's a silicone byproduct that acts as an anti-caking agent, anti-foaming agent in the oil of french fries. This is the same chemical they use as caulking in aquariums. The FDA approved it in 1998. But this chemical is illegal in Europe, they regulated it out years ago.
The next big toxic ingredient is a byproduct called wood pulp, a cellulose found in most conventional shredded cheeses, frozen waffles and ice cream. It acts as a stabilizer or a thickener in those. This wood cellulose is basically bleached sawdust, you wouldn’t want to sprinkle that on your food would you?
When these toxic ingredients start to stack up in our bodies it causes a litany of autoimmune disorders, food sensitivities, and neurological problems and just general malaise.
It’s also slowly deteriorating our intestinal tract causing leaky gut (intestinal permeability). If you're not digesting your food, you cannot be a healthy person.
And that's the beginning of so many health issues.
We created a program around this called Gut Thrive in 5 to heal and seal that leaky gut because so many people are suffering with this.
Collectively we’re putting many toxic ingredients into our bodies unknowingly but if you can educate yourself, then you can have a better life and have more power over your health based upon the food choices you make – and help others too.
Learn more to become an informed consumer and to protect yourself by watching all 4 parts of our food politics series.
Part 2: Exploring The Potential Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods
Part 3: Taking on the Big Food Companies
