The idea that food has the power to affect the brain is a foreign concept to many people. Up until two years ago I would have been one of these people. What if I told you though that swollen throat, red face, hives and itchy tongue are just as much of an allergic reaction as depression, anxiety, food addiction, fatigue, and brain fog.
What I’m about to tell you may shock you, but I promise that it will be the most valuable information you’ve ever received. You have food sensitivities.
Okay. Hard part’s over. What does this mean?
Do not panic. EVERYONE has food sensitivities
This is the part where you get excited.
Knowing this means you now have control over areas of your life, that until today, you left up to chance. I have just given you the solution to CURE not only physical symptoms (bloating, bad skin, weak back, to name a few) but to abolish mood swings, anxiety, lack of motivation, irritability, and more.
You don’t believe me. You don’t think its possible that you have had control over these areas of your life this entire time. Let me rewind a little.
As defined by the dictionary, food is any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, and promote growth. Hmm. Interesting. So what about the foods that do not sustain life, provide energy, or promote growth? Yes. These foods exist and you probably eat them everyday. But don’t worry the dictionary added in a second definition of “food” in case what you were eating didn’t do any of the above things. This new, additional definition is “anything serving for consumption”. ANYTHING? That’s comforting……
So now that we see that ANYTHING can be classified as food, let me further explain why you and every other person on the planet has a food sensitivity.
Up until 1910, processed foods had never been consumed. We can thank the creation of artificial trans fats in 1890 for the beginning of this up roar. It was in 1890 that German chemist Wilhelm Normann discovered that by treating liquid vegetable or fish oils with hydrogen gas he could make them solid, or semi-solid at least. Flexible, long-lasting, and cheaper than animal fats, partially hydrogenated oils quickly became popular in the form of margarine, shortening, and frying oils (which would be why I stick to olive oil, and coconut oil).
When the 1930’s rolled around women had grown tired of preparing meals from scratch. So what did they do? They turned to canned and frozen foods. Soon, even more products were invented. None of which were healthy. I’m talking about your Yoo-Hoo, Reese’s peanut butter cup, Kool-Aid, Welch’s jelly, and Velveeta. God, do I wish Velveeta was good for me.
As the Great Depression loomed on families were forced to make more with less. So producers got creative. They created condiments, aka extra sugar to put on food. They also created some of your favorite candies. Basically, they made food that would last longer than ever before and would be even cheaper to produce.
I won’t lie, they were smart. They were biochemically creating foods that would allow the US to survive one of the greatest economic downfalls **with the only price being your well being**. They continued to do what they saw fit.
By the time WWII was over in the 1940’s, new “convenience foods” had been introduced. With new military findings, food’s such as cake mix and instant coffee were made. Before long, America was introduced to it’s first “fast food restaurant”. This is the part where I wish I could just yell- STOP! Stop you’re about to ruin everything! But unfortunately I was not born until 1994, and even if I was alive…. how do you stop a billion dollar industry that is uninterested in seeing past anything but their profits.
At this point farmers were using irrigation and fertilization to maximize their crop yield. Unfortunately this meant sacrificing the vitamins and minerals in those plants. It wasn’t the farmers’ faults though. They didn’t have much of a choice. If they didn’t use high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, modified corn starches, etc. they could say goodbye to their government subsidies.
With a financial incentive, farmer’s continued to irrigate and fertilize their crops in this manner. At this point in time people began to realize something was wrong, but the US justified their actions by issuing guidelines for adding iron, vitamin B, thiamine, and riboflavin, which they produced in their labs and then proceeded to inject into the crops. They assured us though that this would offset the nutritional deficiencies. LOL K.
Hello 1950’s. What’s new? Well to begin, the establishment of new highways, a growing popularity in television, and the invention of the remote control. All of which contributed to a boom in advertising. What were they advertising though? Easy, they were advertising ready-to-eat foods that could be purchased at any local convenience store, and with the invention of the microwave these foods were even more appealing. The 1960’s followed quickly after this and it focused mostly on the experimentation of food. The biggest experiment, which was soon implemented, was irradiation.
For those of you that don’t know, irradiation is the application of ionizing radiation to food. As you can imagine, this process is bad in more ways than one. Irradiation damages food by breaking up molecules and creating free radicals. These free radicals kill some bacteria, but they also bounce around in the food, damaging vitamins and enzymes. Free radicals can then combine with existing chemicals (like pesticides) in the food to form new chemicals, called unique radiolytic products. A lot of information but the point is that by the time the food gets to the consumer, it contains little more than empty calories and no natural nutrients.
When the 1970’s rolled around easy to cook/microwave meals were all the hype. Think Hamburger Helper. At this point the FDA had banned the popular food coloring red dye no. 2 because studies showed that it might cause cancer. FYI it can. Along with this, red M&M’s were also banned (but they came back 11 years later after enough of a fight was given WOMP) With Americans packing on the pounds new ‘lite’ fads came about. As if Miller ‘lite’ was somehow good for you… there’s a reason hangovers exist.
From here on out, it just gets sadder. In 1980 the artificial sweetener aspartame was approved by the FDA. Later, the first genetically engineered crop plant, the tomato, was invented. Yes. The tomato was made by scientists… yum. Unfortunately, all this led to was the USDA approving ketchup as a vegetable.
…And I’m the crazy one right?
Lean Cuisine frozen dinners were devoured as people searched desperately for a way to maintain a healthy weight. What people didn’t realize was that by turning to foods such as these, along with foods containing the newly created chemical olestra, they were only further worsening their health conditions. This is because when our bodies take in food, our gut prepares how to digest it based on how the food tastes. If it tastes sweet, our bodies get ready to digest a high caloric food, releasing hormones to process the fat and calories. The problem is, when our body is getting incorrect cues that something is sweet or fatty, and then those calories don’t come, our bodies become very confused. Adapting to this new sweetness without calories, the body does not produce the correct hormones when a sweet or fatty substance is then actually consumed.
By the year 2000 we had reached the decade of “low fat” and “lite”. People tried so desperately to unwind the years of damage done. The problem was, they were still doing it wrong. How could anyone know that though? They couldn’t learn the correct way because god forbid people found out the truth the government could kiss a billion dollar industry goodbye.
ANDDDD here we are. Eighty years later. With food coming from assembly lines, abused animals, antibiotic injected livestock, and biochemically enhanced crops. Here we are, in 2015, with a bigger change in our food industry in the last 50 years then we’ve seen in last 10,000. With some of the highest rates of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, ocd, autism, and ADHD. Here we are with foods that were never supposed to be engineered, let alone consumed.
You have food sensitivities.