Toxic Food? What To Do!

You know, it’s scarey out there when you’re looking for good clean food. The chemicals, pesticides, toxins, and altered substances in our food are making us sick. Maybe some iffy ingredients once in a while would be OK. Maybe our bodies could rid us of the toxins we ingest if it were just a few. Now, though, babies are being born with 200 or more chemicals in their little bodies before they draw their first breath. If more are added every time we eat, how will the body ever get rid of all those toxins?

This cumulative toxin load is sending many of us into ill health. This is showing up in so many different ways, it’s hard to keep track. My suspicion is that it shows up in which ever place in the body is the weakest. For some it is allergies; for others it is diabetes, heart trouble, obesity, and lung trouble; and in others it is behavioral issues from ADD/ADHD to Depression. I know this may sound far fetched, so check it out yourself.

I looked up sodium benzoate in Wikipedia, a very common preservative for acid foods including fruit juices and soda pop. When combined with ascorbic acid it breaks down into benzene, a known carcinogen. When combined with certain food dyes, it has been linked to hyperactivity.

OK. What to do. Well, the answer is to change the way we eat. That feels like a very tall order! We go to the grocery store and buy the things we know our family loves, the foods we love, and just want to grab it and go. In our busy lives we don’t want to have to think about anything else. We’ve got the routine down and want to leave it all on auto-pilot. But we are getting sick, especially our children!

Since I know a lot of people in this predicament I’ve decided to devote a series of blogs to this topic – not the toxic part – the part about how to change. So let’s get started. What comes first?

1. Talk to your family and take a poll of their all time favorite foods. Find out what each person feels is the ideal meal and write it down.

2. Convert all the processed foods into their whole food equivalents. (Potato chips becomes sliced potatoes plus oil and salt.)

3. Have each person make an ideal menu for one day. Make this into a list of the basic ingredients – or have them do it if they are old enough.

4. Keep it simple!

Let me give you an example. I like spaghetti with garlic bread and salad. I find organic sauce on sale for $2.99 which is less than most of the other brands.  Most pasta is just wheat: $1.00 a pound (remember less ingredients is better). I read the bread package and find that house made Italian and French breads have the fewest ingredients, pick the one with no canola oil at $1.99, and move on to the salad. The only hurtle in this meal is the packaged salad dressing. Make your own or get a plain olive oil vinaigrette. Also use butter with no hormones, or olive oil, with the garlic to spread on the bread. Dried garlic is better than the chopped preserved garlic.

Honestly, the most potentially toxic foods are the most processed and have the most ingredients.  Think about your foods and what you are putting in your mouth. Go back to the basics. Most of our comfort foods are all basic anyway, so learn how to make them from scratch with whole foods and you will actually save money!

Most of all, start small. Each change is one step in the right direction, so just do it. You can move a mountain with a teaspoon, you just have to get a spoon and begin!