Good Food, Bad Food?

Good Food, Bad Food?

After the last articles, you know you really are what you eat and how essential enzymes and a good diet is, but what is a good diet? What is good food? What is bad food? To follow is a list of good foods and bad foods and some of the roles they play in the body. (taken from Dr Gillian McKeith’s book – you are what you eat.)

Protein

Protein is used for building muscle tissue.

·         Good protein – Vegetable protein is easily broken down and digested in the body. Hemp is an excellent source of vegetable protein as is sprouted seeds, along with many others.

·         Bad protein – If your digestive system is week or just not as strong as it should be then protein from red meats is going to be difficult to break down, cow’s milk is also difficult for most people to digest, it’s very high in saturated fat, low in vitamins and the mineral content is out of balance with human biochemistry.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are used by the body for energy as well as brain function and mood attitude.

·         Good carbs – Rice, grains, fruit, vegetables and wholegrain bread. These healthy carbohydrates without added refined sugar and otherwise known as complex carbohydrates, they contain natural sugars easily used by the body.

·         Bad carbs – These include cakes, biscuits, chocolates, sweets and anything with refined sugar, flour or processed white rice. Dr Gillian McKeith says ‘’If you want to be fat and ill, eat bad carbs.’’ Eating bad carbs can lead to the storing of carb residues as fat and in turn could lead to diabetes.

 Fats

Some are essential, some are deadly, a confusing area.

·         Good fats - These will lower cholesterol, boost immunity, nourish the reproductive organs, skin hair and bone tissue and lubricate the body. These fats are so important they called them ‘essential fatty acids’ (EFA’s) Dr Gillian McKeith refers to them as ‘essential thinny acids.’  A few good sources of these fats are seeds – sunflower, flax and pumpkin, sea vegetables, fish, avocado’s and olives.

·         Bad fats - The effects of these fats can be fatal!  These are heavy fats that turn hard, block arteries and put you at risk of heart attacks and strokes. These are of course saturated fats. The best place to find these bad fats are cheese, red meat, pork and dairy products. But by far the worst source of possible early grave is hydrogenated vegetable fat. This is a result of a process that hardens liquid vegetable oils. These hydrogenated vegetable fats turn into even more dangerous Trans fatty acids which have been shown to cause heart disease, diabetes and cancer. These bad fats also deplete good cholesterol and increase the bad. Still fancy a little margarine on your toast? Unfortunately hydrogenated vegetable fat is in a wide range of foods including, chocolate, crisps, sweets, ice cream, pastries and baked goods.

Whilst in the swing of things I would like to mention two more things, they are processed foods and additives. Let’s start with processed.

So what are processed foods? These are foods that have to go through a process before getting to you, like plastic wrapped foods, microwave foods, meal in a tin, supermarket sandwiches, I think you get the picture. This type of food is no good for your body for so many reasons; one being the processing of foods will change the proportions of nutrients within the foods, meaning that by the time it gets to you it has little to no nutrient value whatsoever. Another reason is additives.

 Additives will always be a huge problem with over 3000 allowed by the food industry including sweeteners, flavour enhancers, nitrates, nitrites, preservatives, bleaching agents and the lists goes on, but are they all safe? Were told they are. When these little beauties find their way into our bodies from our ‘convenient’ foods they can cause allergic reactions, stress on the liver to produce such chemicals, many of which are cancer forming.

 Right now in today’s society with everything at our fingertips it’s never been easier to make better choices about our general health. In the words of David Wolfe ‘’Its either going to be this then we eat or its going to be this then we eat, this could be the most horrid chemical soup of all time or it could be the most extraordinary superfood of all time and it’s the same amount of work to get it into our mouths.’’ What will you choose?