Toxic Foods – NaPodPoMo – Self Powered Healing

In this episode of Self Powered Healing, I’m going to talk about food and the toxins and problems with our modern food supply. I always like to suggest that food itself is not the problem. The problem is more about what has been done to our food in recent years. That’s why we have so many different diets that people are trying. We have keto, we have low carb, we have high fat, we have carnivore, we have vegan. On and on it goes. They’re all trying to correct problems that were created by the food industry. And they’re doing it because of the resulting problems that these changes to our food have caused such as obesity, diabetes, increased allergies, ADD, ADHD, and chronic inflammation, which ultimately can lead to other chronic diseases.  

A large part of the problem is processed foods. To me, actually, a processed food could be anything that is not a whole food. The processed foods that are the biggest problems are all the pre made foods that you find in the middle of the grocery store, you know, the frozen foods that are all ready, you just heat and eat, or the cake mixes, the chips, the cookies, all of those things, they’re processed.  

And that’s why it’s suggested that you shop the perimeter to avoid those processed foods. But I want to talk about why you would want to avoid them. First of all, there’s a number of ingredients that are added to them, ingredients that may not be the healthiest for us. Things like preservatives and food dyes and flavor enhancers. Some of those ingredients are toxic and could cause cancer and ADD, ADHD, and other problems. But the FDA allows them, because the quantities are low, so it might be a little bit in a particular food. The problem comes in for someone who’s actually eating a diet that’s primarily processed foods, because those little tiny amounts will add up.  

Another thing that they have done is, the FDA has this acronym GRAS, which means generally regarded as safe, and in recent years they have allowed the manufacturers of food to decide what is generally regarded as safe.  

Next up are some of the things we do to our food throughout the process, and one is GMOs, or genetically modified organisms. Those are where they have purposely modified the genome for that product. And the biggest problem with those, to be honest, is that they’re not tested. They will squirm when you start asking them for testing information because it just doesn’t exist.  

The next thing is the herbicides and fungicides and pesticides and they cause problems for humans. The worst one might be glyphosate, which is extensively used as an herbicide, and as well, it’s used as a desiccant or drying agent for wheat. Glyphosate is used to dry wheat, but it’s also the generic name for Roundup, and there are class action lawsuits out. against Roundup because it causes lymphoma. How is it possible that it’s okay in food, if we call it glyphosate, but if it’s Roundup, it’s going to cause cancer?  

Another thing that they do when they’re raising animals, especially cows and, for, um, milk production, RBST and RBGH is what you’ll see on a label. And it’s, that’s for recombinant bovine somatotropin and recombinant bovine growth hormone. They’re both used to increase the milk production from cows. The label says, “no significant difference has been found in milk from cows treated with artificial hormones.” Those are interesting phrases there because there’s nothing there that says whether it’s been tested and how it, it impacts humans. On the other hand, it’s also been linked to cancer, so one can avoid both herbicides and glyphosate and RBST with buying organic.  

Something else that has come to light in the last several years regarding, uh, seed or vegetable oils. These are all highly processed oils. Um, and the processes are quite chemically intense and they result in some highly inflammatory foods, which are not good for us. They’re mostly a 20th century invention, which allegedly makes us healthier. Although I think they do it mostly because they can make it cheap and they certainly have not helped us become healthier. You find them in the grocery store. They’re quite plentiful, but you also find them in processed foods and in used by restaurants, mostly because they are cheap. Those can include. Your corn oil, vegetable oil, and canola oil.  

The interesting thing is, that many of the ingredients we find in our food here in the U. S. are banned in other countries, especially Europe. I don’t have a list, I don’t have an exact number. I’ve seen numbers that suggest it’s a thousand, but who knows for sure. But they do exist and they are not allowed in Europe. And it turns out that certain companies will have two different recipes, one for the product sold in the U S and one for the same named product sold in Europe. Two examples there versus Kraft Mac and Cheese. They sell a product here in the United States that’s got colors to make it that bright orange color and probably some flavor enhancers as well. And then the version sold in Europe has omitted those ingredients. They go to a lot of trouble to make two different varieties of that.  

The other one is Kellogg’s Froot Loops. The ones that you buy in the United States, the red and yellow and green are all bright colors, but in the European version, they have to eliminate those dyes that make those bright colors. Now Kellogg’s will tell you that they do it here because children prefer the bright colors, but I think they like the sugar more.  

And that brings me to another ingredient, the last one for the day. It’s, about sugar. Sugar itself can be addicting and sugar is worse when it’s not connected with fiber. But the industry is required to list food ingredients in order by weight, the heaviest weight in the product would be the first thing listed and on down the line. And so in order to keep sugar from being at the very top of that list, they use different sugar products. There’s, there’s a whole list of, I have a hundred names and there may be more by now for ingredients like xylitol and inositol and all these things that are basically sugar, but they don’t come up at the top of the list. Sugar can be addicting, fattening, and cause diabetes. And it’s in very many processed foods and in most foods in fast food restaurants. You could pick a particular famous restaurant, fast food restaurant, and go to their website and dig and find the ingredients list and just see how many things have sugar in them, up to and including their french fries.  

So now you’re aware, hopefully, of some of the toxins that are found in our food. And up next, I’ll talk about what ideal eating might look like.  

Thanks for listening today. If you have any comments on this episode or on the whole NaPodPoMo concept in general, you can visit this page to leave comments either on this page or at SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024. You can also find a listing and link for all November’s episodes on that same page: SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024.  

By the way, Self Powered Healing is still looking for interviews with people who want to share a story of healing. Do you have a healing story? I would love to hear about it and see if maybe you could share it on our show. So if you’re interested in sharing, then visit selfpoweredhealing.com/share to schedule a chat.  

You aren’t committing at this point. You’re just having a chat with me to see what’s going on. It will be confidential unless or until you decide you want to share. And if you get there and there’s not a convenient time for you, send me a message because we’ll always find a time.  

And remember this always,  