Do you know how your food was produced?
Nowadays, the quality of our food is not as good as before. Even though we try our best to get quality whole foods as much as we can and lessening our intake of processed food, we might not even be getting most of the nutrients are body needs.
So, what is making our food less nutritious?
- the use of agrochemicals-pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and the consequences of their use on soil and water.
- factory farming results in decreasing the vitality of the soil. There is an important balance between in growing nutrient rich food (both plants and animals).
The practices of using natural techniques such as crop rotation, cover cropping, beneficial insects and other non-synthetic methods of pest control and fertilization increase organic matter in the soil, sequester carbon and support biodiversity.
Animals also contribute to the soil health being a natural fertilizers, bringing moisture, ammonia, carbon and minerals to the soil.
- the routine use of antibiotics in livestock that is used to promote growth and prevent disease is leading to antibiotic resistance in humans, making antibiotics less effective. This puts our elderly population and children at risk.
- animals fed on corn and grains allows them to gain weight faster, but such meat has less nutrients afterwards. Grass-fed meat is higher in key nutrients, including antioxidants and vitamins. It also has twice as many omega-3 fatty acids as regular meat.
Dr. Price indicated that these conditions are in fact not genetic but, rather, caused by a lack of vital nutrients during the formative period of development.
All those results in the nutrient depletion of our food sources: vegetables, meat, dairy which contain less minerals (iron, copper, zinc and others).
We need to look around and also look back on how our grandfathers were able to live in a harmony with ecosystem and keeping balance of soil, vegetables, crops and animals. Our food is not only calories on a label, it has to give us and our kids nutritional value.
How can we get more nutrients to our body?
what can we do to improve the nutritional value of food we eat?
- Avoid or minimize added sugars:
that includes:
* Convenience meals
* Sugar-sweetened beverages (soda,sweet tea, juice, sports drinks)
* Store-bought cookies, cakes and pastries
* Granola bars
* Ice cream and sweetened yogurts
* Breakfast cereals
* Refined grains
* Candy bars.
- Too much dietary sugar reacts with proteins and lipids in our bloodstream and forms advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which is damaging the structural proteins in skin collagen and elastin that make your skin get wrinkles faster. But not only that, AGEs play an important role in the pathogenesis of many age-related diseases (Alzheimers’s, diabetic retinopathy etc.)
- Too much sugar decreases our sense of taste (diabetics are less sensitive to sweet stimuli).
- Too much sugar impairs the body’s uptake of calcium and magnesium, it’s negatively affecting the mineral balance. Over-consuming of added sugars may result in a kind of ‘internal starvation’ (via leptin and insulin resistance) making body even more depleted in mineral.
- Avoid transfats:
* Margarine
* Store-bought cookies, cakes and pastries
* Shortening
* Microwave popcorn
* Frozen pizza
* Refrigerated dough, such as biscuits and rolls
* Fried foods, including french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken
* Non-dairy coffee creamer
Read food labels and avoid foods with partially hydrogenated oil listed as an ingredient.
Most trans fat are formed through an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil, which causes the oil to become solid at room temperature. Artificial nature of such fats during metabolism instead of benefits will just increases your LDL cholesterol levels and decreases your HDL cholesterol adding the risk of cardiovascular diseases.
I hope this article is helpful in spreading awareness on the nutritional value of our food. Making better choices on our food is surely a big step towards optimal health for everybody.
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