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In this podcast I’ll be exploring once again my favourite topic Real Food:
- I’ll share which fake processed pretend food-like products you should never eat… ever
- I’ll be offering a master list of real foods that you should be eating plenty of on a regular basis
- Finally, I’ll explain how to best use this real food manifesto for your individual goals
CLICK HERE TO LEARN WHAT ARE THE BEST FOODS TO GET YOU LEAN
Remember the definition I gave in the previous podcast describing what real food is.
“Real food is any organic and natural plant or animal that fuels and nourishes the human body with energy and nutrition.”
Well the first group of foods I’m about to share now are the exact opposite because they are not food, but are marketed to you as being food. You should never and I mean ever intentionally buy, store at home or work, eat or even think about including these fake processed pretend food-like products in your diet and your life. No human, no mammal, no animal, no plant on this planet should be consuming these products.
That’s not to say that you won’t ever be exposed to these pseudo-foods these fake foods, but you can at least minimise the damage they cause to your body and health by reframing how you look at these foods and changing your perspective from seeing foods to seeing crappy industrial commercial products instead that do nothing more than expand and fatten your waistline as well as the bottom-line of big corporations.
First pseudo-food are industrial seed oils also marketed as healthy vegetable oils.
- Canola — aka rapeseed
- Corn
- Soya
- Cottonseed
- Safflower
- Low-oleic sunflower
- Peanut and groundnut
- Rice bran
- Grape seed
These oils all come from seeds, grains, and legumes, not from vegetables. The way these oils have been manufactured, produced, processed, stored and packaged damages the delicate fatty acids in the oils making them go rancid. Rancid oil is off, it’s stale and dead and when you eat rancid oil you get turned off to life as well.
Ever wonder how they turn a liquid oil like canola into a solid? By using biochemical processes such as hydrogenation and transesterification companies can do amazing things. Too bad the end products are one molecule away from being plastic! So next time you see hydrogenated or transesterified on a label you run. Run literally like your life depends on it.
So do not eat industrial seed oils or any product made with them such as:
- Margarine and other buttery spreads
- Sauces
- Salad dressings
- Mayo
- Chips
- Baked goods
- Gluten-free foods
Virtually all processed food-like products have been made with these damaged rancid industrial seed oils. Also a lot of restaurants and food outlets fry and cook foods with these industrial seed oils because it’s cheaper and they believe they’re doing the right thing in terms of giving customers a healthier end product.
Now if you have a heart healthy program in your country you will see a lot of these fake foods with a heart healthy mark on them. Again don’t believe the hype and the marketing. In New Zealand where I live we have the the Heart Foundation Tick programme where over 1100 products (products!) in 62 food categories have purchased the right to proudly display the healthy red tick. Yes it’s a paid for service. Unfortunately most of the products use industrial seed oil as the main ingredient.
Be alert, be wary, but don’t be afraid because now that you know better you can do better.
Next pseudo-food is regular table salt. Table salt has been processed and stripped of its minerals and trace minerals meaning there’s no micronutrients in table salt as there is in naturally occurring salt leaving behind a very bright white powder. Also there are anti-caking agents and other chemical additives added to table salt to prevent it from sticking and clumping together.
Table salt, not natural sea salt, is associated with blood pressure issues. Your body requires natural salt for many bodily functions such as keeping your water, sodium, and potassium levels in balance.
Salt should not be a pure white colour. It should be grey, pink, red, any colour besides white. It should be of the ocean and earth it came from. It will be full of Earth minerals and trace minerals as well as Earth energy and information.
You’ll find table salt in extremely high amounts in processed and packaged fake food-like products, salted butter (unless it says sea salt on the label), in takeout and fast foods, and even restaurants use the cheaper salt.
I love my New Zealand sea salt and Celtic salt is another great sea salt. Rock salt like Himalayan salt is awesome too.
Instant coffee is pseudo-food number three. Instant coffee is to organic whole bean coffee as a McDonald’s Fillet ‘o Fish burger is to a baked fillet of wild-caught salmon served over mesclun salad drizzled with lemon juice and extra-virgin olive oil.
Instant coffee is junk food. Usually the worst of the worst coffee beans, the bad, the ugly, the deformed are ground to make instant coffee. Also the way it’s processed and stored leads to a build-up of mould and microorganisms that create toxic products, which they happily leave behind in the powder. Personally I find instant coffee just tastes like crap.
Another thing to keep in mind for those with coeliac disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity is that instant coffee has high cross-reactivity with gluten meaning your body may process instant coffee the same way it processes gluten.
So instant coffee — don’t even go there.
Fourth pseudo-food I believe that no life should be consuming is pasteurised milk. What is pasteurisation? Pasteurisation is the processes of heating a liquid to kill all the microorganisms in it. Well that’s actually marketing. That was a legitimate reason back in the day when cows were literally living in their own filth. But the reason pasteurisation of any food is still used today by the food industry is so that fake foods have a longer shelf-life meaning more sales, more money, and a new BMW or Audi for food company executives.
Now raw milk from any mammal is full of nutrition and energy and information that supports the growth of life. It’s full of naturally occurring macronutrients and micronutrients. It’s full of good microorgansims, the probiotics that keep the bad microorganisms, the pathogens from infecting and spoiling the milk. It’s also full of native enzymes that help digest and breakdown the milk.
Pasteurised milk that has been heated to kill the bad bugs has also killed the good bugs. So now you have a milk that’s lost its defence system and if pasteurised milk gets infiltrated by even a tiny amount of pathogens it spoils. It spoils quickly and it spoils hard because there’s no probiotics to protect the milk and fight off the bad guys.
Also the enzymes that would usually help you digest the milk have been destroyed and the macros and micros have all been modified and denatured to the point where a lot of people get sick drinking this stuff.
There’s no point to pasteurised milk it’s been killed, it’s a dead product.
Seriously raw milk is the only way to go.
Final pseudo-food to keep away from your life forever (forever ever?) forever is wheat. The wheat of today has been commercially purposefully hybridised and bred to be smaller and contain a lot more gluten compared to its distant ancestor that is associated as being the staff of life in biblical times.
Wheat producers have made wheat a lot smaller so that their industrial agricultural machinery can more easily harvest and process the grain. Plus they’ve dramatically increased the gluten content of wheat to make it a lot easier to bake with as gluten literally is the glue that makes baked products nice and doughy.
Problem is no mammal on this planet can fully breakdown and digest gluten. I will repeat no mammal on this planet can fully breakdown and digest gluten.
Gluten is a protein made up of a long chain of amino acids. So if you can imagine a pearl necklace as a protein molecule and each pearl being an amino acid gluten is a very long pearl necklace a very long protein molecule compared to proteins found in animal and other plant foods. Gluten will get partially broken down say to a smaller necklace, but our body only accepts individual pearls and extremely tiny necklaces and these larger protein molecules are what cause people with coeliac disease to digestively explode and for other people with non-coeliac gluten sensitivity to experience other non-digestive issues. For me my mind gets all screwy when I eat gluten.
Not only that, but many people are also allergic and sensitive to other components found in wheat.
So the wheat of today has broad health implications for humans due to the way it’s been modified and manufactured and farmed and is definitely not the same grain that was eaten by our pioneering agricultural ancestors.
As an alternative to wheat the best and highest quality grain you can eat is known as einkorn. It contains none of the many allergenic stuff you’ll find in wheat and yes while einkorn still has gluten in it, it is in a different form and in different proportions compared to the gluten in wheat meaning people who may not tolerate wheat or gluten may find einkorn doesn’t upset their body and mind so much. I haven’t tried einkorn as I’m gluten-free, but it’s on the horizon for me to try out to see if it works for me or not.
You can also eat barley, rye, oats, and spelt if you enjoy grain-based products.
Your mission if you choose to accept it is to make sure you don’t intentionally eat any of these five pseudo-foods. Chronic consistent everyday exposure to these fake foods will overwork your body to the point where one day it’ll finally give up. All because you haven’t been eating enough real food that would have the nutritional and energetic and informational resources to eliminate the fake foods from your body. If you eat plenty of real food on a regular basis then the nutrition and energy and information that you receive will make sure that any time you are accidentally exposed to fake pretend food-like products your body will have the resources to repair the damage caused by eating that crap.
I’m about to layout the real food manifesto, but first let me explain what a manifesto is.
A manifesto is a declaration of what you believe to be true.
A manifesto is also a platform and a base that one can use to build upon and improve any given situation.
This real food manifesto is what I use to heal myself and what I also use to help others reach their health goals. It’s not the be all and end all of healthy food recommendations as I’ll talk about later in the show, but it’s a great starting point for anyone who is just starting out on their health journey or is confused on where to go next.
Remember as I stated in the previous podcast on real food quality absolutely matters. You want real food that has lived by the laws of Mother Nature in its natural environment eating a species appropriate diet without added industrial toxic chemicals and with no genetic modifications.
Let me now list all the real foods you should be eating in order to get the nutrition and energy and information you need for your body, your mind, and for an awesome life.
Fats
- Egg yolks
- Ghee
- Clarified butter
- Butter
- Lard
- Bacon fat
- Tallow — beef and lamb fat
- Duck fat
- Coconut oil
- Palm oil
- Cacao butter
- Macadamia oil
- Extra-virgin avocado oil
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Sesame oil
- Raw nuts and seeds
Proteins
- Organ meats — liver, heart, kidney, brain, pancreas etc
- Fish
- Seafood
- Eggs
- Wild game
- Lamb
- Beef
- Fowl
- Pork
Carbohydrates
- Sea vegetables
- Land vegetables
- Fruits
- Dates and dried fruits
- Raw honey — local
- Maple syrup — 100%
- Natural sweeteners — stevia herb, lo han guo, erythritol, xylitol
- Refined sugars — molasses, rice and pure glucose syrups
Grains (carbs)
- Organic white rice
- Non-GMO organic corn
- Pseudo-grains — actually seeds like quinoa, buckwheat, millet
- Whole grains — einkorn being the preferred choice
Legumes
- Green beans
- Peas
- Organic peanuts
- Fermented organic soy — natto, miso, gluten-free soy sauce, tempeh
- Other beans
Fermented foods (include but not limited to)
- Fermented cod-liver oil
- Sauerkraut
- Kimchi
- Kombucha
- Amasai
- Kefir
- Soy sauce — gluten free
- Tempeh
- Miso
Dairy
- Amasai
- Kefir
- Yoghurt — fermented for at least 18 hours
- Goat
- Sheep
- Buffalo
- Camel
- Cow
- Ghee, clarified butter, and butter oil — 99.99% fat
- Butter — unsalted, 80% fat
- Cream — 35-50%
- Cheese — 4-40%
- Yoghurt — 4-10%
- Milk — 4% fat
Salt
- New Zealand kelp salt — sea salt with added kelp
- Celtic sea salt
- Himalayan crystal salt
Herbs and spices (include but not limited to)
- Parsley
- Oregano
- Rosemary
- Basil
- Thyme
- Garlic
- Turmeric
- Ginger
- Cinnamon
- Cumin
- Nutmeg
- Raw unsweetened cacao powder — my personal favourite spice
Water
- Spring and artesian well water
- Filtered water — chlorine and fluoride filters or reverse osmosis, but you must add back minerals to RO water
- Bottled water — glass and stainless steel
- Coconut water — full of electrolytes
Phew! I will put this manifesto into a PDF document that you can download in the show notes for this episode. You can find that at wholeguidance.com/blog.
Everyone is different, we are all different. The way we think, the way we feel, the way we live our lives and also the way our bodies digest, absorb and assimilate, metabolise and detoxify, and finally eliminate the food that we eat. We all do it differently.
So while this real food manifesto is a great starting point for you on your health journey you have to listen to your body, read the signs and symptoms and go where it flows.
For example I said pasteurised milk is fake food and raw milk is real food, but if you find when you drink fresh raw milk you get skin outbreaks or gas or mucus building up in your body, don’t drink it. Maybe you’ll do better with higher fat dairy products such as cream or butter and if you can’t even do butter you may find you do just fine with high quality ghee or clarified butter which are virtually 100% fat with extremely low-to-no dairy proteins present.
Other examples are maybe you don’t tolerate cooked eggs and figure out you can eat raw egg yolks without any problems (that’s me!). Maybe you can’t do beef right now, stick to lamb or fish. Maybe seafood isn’t for you.
Another thing is macro ratios and serving size. You may find you do better on a higher carb diet due to the high-intensity exercises you perform on a daily basis. Perhaps high fat low carb works for you because you’re doing more low-intensity and more endurance based activities and you find eating this way gives you better clarity of thought and you’re able to focus on tasks longer without being distracted.
“There’s so much individuality when it comes to diet.”
One way to find out which foods and in what proportions work and don’t work for you is to listen to your body and take note of your body language.
Are you able to isolate any health symptoms you’re currently experiencing like acne, constipation, back pain, and migraines and blame it on a particular food or food group? For example I know that when I eat gluten while I don’t get any obvious digestive symptoms I do get pretty moody and my ability to think straight and focus goes down the toilet. Stinkin’ thinkin’ begins to brew and if I were to continue to eat gluten on a regular basis and become a chronic consumer of the stuff dark thoughts start to creep back into my life. I basically become a lifeless zombie with a foggy brain.
The elimination diet is the best tool around to help you figure out which foods promote your well-being and which foods turn you into the walking dead. Best book on this topic is The Elimination Diet by Tom Malterre and Alissa Segersten.
Okay so for macro ratios if you find yourself tired, feeling full yet hungry, and with sugar cravings after a meal you probably ate too much fats and protein. If you get a headache, don’t feel full and get hungry quickly, feel tired but wired you know like the jitters, with up and down mood swings you may have eaten too many carbs.
Keep a track of how you look and feel after every meal for 7 days and you may see a pattern emerging. The longer you keep track of this stuff and the more data and information you gather the better off you will be long-term as you can now make more well-informed food choices.
With this manifesto you could still blindly eat all the real foods on this list and not listen to your body and while you may experience some issues with your health you will not get anywhere near as sick as you would have if you were to eat foods according to some other recommendations, e.g. the Cookie Diet or the United States Department of Agriculture’s food pyramid.
Okay so this real food manifesto I hope will provide you with a clearer picture on what real food really is and what fake pretend food-like products you should never touch again.
Remember to listen to your body and eat what works for you in the proportions that fit your current lifestyle requirements and don’t eat what doesn’t work.
Hippocrates said:
“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food.”
Have you had your medicine today?
I would like to build upon that quote and say:
“Let real food be your guide and let your guide be real food.”
If you’re feeling lost in life try a morsel of real food. It will light up the path, your life purpose, that has been hidden from your view.
Real food has definitely enlightened my life.
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