The State of the Nutrition Address

Welcome to the State of the Nutrition address, I believe this will be much more interesting and arguably more important than the State of the Union address! The Health of our country depends upon more people becoming aware of what’s gone wrong with health in America, and how relatively simple it is to reverse.

We are going to talk about where we are in our health in this country, and what happened to get here. Then we will explain what you can do to chart your own path forward. People need to take control of their own health. Our medical system is the best in the world at keeping you alive when you are sick, they will fix you when you are broken, but one thing we aren’t so good at is nutrition and using food to build the immune system and prevent sickness before it happens. Screening is the closest thing and that is simply early detection it’s not prevention. Our body’s are made to be well, they just need the right food.

In order to change the state of our health, we need to look back in time to see what happened and what caused the shift in our health and then compare it to what we now know about how our body works and the nutrition it needs. By doing this you may be surprised at how simple the cause of our poor health is and more importantly, what we can you do to change it and improve your health dramatically. Let’s get started!

Just 50 years ago, the health of America wasn’t anywhere near as bad as it is today, let’s go back in time about a half century and see what happened. In  the 1970s the USDA released the food pyramid as the recommended dietary plan of the land. It recommended large amounts of grains as the basis of our diets then fruits and vegetables and at the top the smallest portion was protein and fat. This was based on a series of studies that claimed fat to be unhealthy and would cause weight gain and heart disease. The result of the food pyramid was a low fat “revolution” in the 70s and 80s. We adopted of many low-fat alternatives such as margarine and hydrogenated oil. In addition, people started eating highly processed low fat foods such as breads and grains as a large portion of their meals.

We now know reducing healthy fats in your diet leads to essential fatty acid deficiency. (EFA,  also known as omega) Deficiency in omega fats can lead to all kinds of diseases including heart disease, depression, dry skin and eyes, fatigue, lower immune system and hormone problems. Low fat diet’s have also led to lower protein intake. Fat and protein often go hand in hand, so when eating less fat, you often eat less protein. Protein is one of the most important nutrients your body needs for building strong bones and muscles. It is the building blocks for many of your body systems.

• Contain enzymes use for chemical reactions in the body including metabolism
• Cell signaling
• Use for antibodies in the blood
• Use for hemoglobin in the blood
• Helps with blood pH balance
• Used for cellular structure
• Used to produce hormones
• Used to build muscle
• Used to manipulate DNA processes and repair 

In 1936, the US Senate commissioned a study on our countries soil. The results showed that many health problems could be attributed to the fact that our soil no longer provided plants with minerals that are essential to human nutrition and ultimately, our health. Senate Document 264 of the 74th Congress, 2nd Session, 1936

Minerals need to be in a very specific bio-available form in order for our bodies to use them. They have to be combined with a protein. Protein is attracted into cells because of it’s opposite charge as a cell. It is absorbed through the cell membrane. The protein brings the mineral along with it into the cell. There are 17 main minerals our bodies need and many people do not get 8 of them in sufficient quantities. Vitamins are still in food, but are co-enzymes with minerals. If you are deficient in minerals, then the vitamins in food are often not utilized. When you add the minerals to your diet the vitamins in food can then be absorbed by your body. 

Minerals are used in many ways in your body, and mineral deficiency could be the cause, or at least contribute, to almost any health problem. Here are a few health issues or symptoms that mineral deficiency is known to cause: 

• Muscle cramps
• Lack of energy
• Low immune system
• Hormone imbalance 
• Hypertension
• Skin and hair problems
• White spots on fingernails
• Yeast/fungal infections
• Slow healing cuts
• Foot odor
• Diarrhea
• Vision problems
• Stunted growth

Now let’s take a look at what we now know to be true about how our bodies work and what we know about the top four health problems: obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

How did the low fat revolution effect obesity?

Annual cost: $210 billion per year

Obesity is largely a sugar problem. The human body stores excess glucose in your blood as fat. Glucose comes from eating carbohydrates, which are foods such as bread, pasta, cereal, rice, fruit and many other foods that contain sugar or grains. Eating too much of these types of foods causes excess glucose to be in your blood. Your body fixes this by storing the glucose as fat. Continued consumption of too much carbohydrate leads to continued fat storage and eventually obesity. Sugar is one of the most addictive substances on the planet, and it sabotages our bodies. When consuming moderate or higher amounts it promotes disease and clouds your brain and thought processes.

The other reason obesity is a problem is lack of healthy fat in our diet, specifically Omega 6 and Omega 3. These fats are extremely important and are used by the body in many ways. One thing healthy fat does is satisfy your appetite. When you are eating foods low in healthy fats you will be hungry more often and eat more food and likely more than your body needs. Another cause of food cravings and over eating is lack of minerals in your diet. If you are deficient in vitamins and minerals, your body will signal hunger in effort to get the nutrition it needs, eating more food lacking minerals and fat only leads to a continuous cycle of eating and craving. This leads to excess food intake and obesity.

 Another component of obesity is our sedentary lifestyle. Unfortunately, most people can’t change this, because most people don’t have time to make exercise a second job. You simply can’t exercise enough to make up for sitting at a desk for an entire day. One hour per day doesn’t make up for the amount of energy not used through the day. While exercise is an important part of any healthy lifestyle, as our muscles need to move and be used for longevity, exercise really isn’t the answer for weight loss. In some cases exercise can make you more hungry and cause you to eat more than you used up in your workout. To truly be effective in losing weight you really need to focus on a healthy diet.

 

Obesity = Too Much Carbohydrates + Lack of Fats and Minerals

 

How did the low fat revolution effect diabetes?

Annual Cost: $245 billion

Diabetes is largely caused by the same problems as discussed for obesity. When your body stores excess glucose as fat, it uses a hormone called insulin to accomplish this, in fact, insulin is defined as a fat storage hormone. When people continue to eat diets high in carbohydrates, their pancreas essentially wears out producing so much insulin. Then the body has trouble removing the glucose from the blood resulting in complications and illness. Reducing carbohydrates in your diet, especially refined grains and sugar will help significantly to manage diabetes and even prevent it in the first place.

There are a few minerals, especially selenium that are known to be used in blood sugar management. While deficiency in minerals can aggravate diabetes or make it more difficult to manage, the main cause of this disease is diet.

 

Diabetes = Too much Carbohydrates + Lack of Minerals

 

How did the low fat revolution effect heart disease?

Annual Cost: $316.6 billion 610k die yearly, 1 in 4 deaths, by 2030 estimate $818 billion

While our medical system continues to focus on lower cholesterol, it has been known for many years that your cholesterol levels really don’t correlate with heart disease. In fact, cholesterol has some very important functions in your body! Cholesterol buildup is a symptom of a problem, it’s not the disease itself, which is why lowering cholesterol in your blood doesn’t actually reduce your risk of having a heart attack. Heart disease happens when your arteries are not flexible and elastic as they are supposed to be when they are healthy. The medical journal Lancet pointed out in the 1950’s that eating hydrogenated oils instead of healthy fats will lead to the deterioration of your arterial health and heart disease. What happens is when your arteries lose their flexibility they can crack like dried skin. Cholesterol forms a “scab” on your arterial walls, and if you don’t solve the problem, it continues to buildup and eventually becomes a blockage.

Hydrogenated oils are the bad fats that were invented as low fat alternatives. Since the oil is refined and processed (broken down) it doesn’t have to be claimed as fat on a food label. This is a high stakes game that is being played with your health. If you think about it, they took a healthy fat, ruined it so they don’t have to claim fat is in the product, so you can then believe you ate something with no fat, when in reality, you ate altered fat that is far worse for you than just eating the healthy fat to begin with. We now know the original fat was actually good for you. Reducing consumption of hydrogenated and refined oils will make a big difference. Making sure to eat healthy fats containing omega 3 and 6 will also help to keep your arteries healthy. Giving your body the nutrition it needs allows it to heal itself!

 

Heart Disease = Hydrogenated oil + lack of healthy omega 3 and 6

 

How did the low fat revolution effect cancer?

Annual Cost: $156 billion, 601k die annually, 1 in 4 deaths.

 

Nobel Prize winning scientist Otto Warburg discovered in the 1940’s that there are two main causes for the majority of cancer. The first thing he discovered is that cancer cells begin to grow when there is low cellular oxygen in the cells in your body. Healthy cells thrive in high oxygen, cancer cells thrive in low oxygen. When you reduce cellular oxygen by about 30%, cancer cells begin to grow immediately. The second part is that cancer cells are fueled by fermentation. Fermentation occurs when there are high levels of glucose in the body. We already talked about glucose and where it comes from, carbohydrates. What about low oxygen, how does that happen? As it turns out, omega 6 fatty acids transport oxygen from your blood into your cells.

Many foods today are processed or grown unnaturally. Fats are often removed from food in order for it to be shelf stable. Instead of going to the market everyday, we have mega grocery stores and stock up for weeks at a time. In order for this to happen, food has to be stabilized. One way to do this is to remove the ingredient that goes rancid, fat! Also, livestock used to have omega fats in them, but now we feed animals corn and soybeans, instead of grass varieties that they would eat naturally. As a result of the processing we aren’t getting the healthy fats that do important things like transporting oxygen to our cells! A low fat, high carbohydrate diet, is the perfect recipe for cancer.

 

Cancer = Low Oxygen from lack of good fats + too much carbohydrate

  

After looking at these four diseases, we can see that what at first seemed to be a healthy change to our diet has actually caused widespread disease. When you think about it, it makes complete sense. The fact that all four of these diseases began to spread at the same time you would expect that it be a single cause rather than multiple causes coincidentally happening at the same time. The idea that genetics caused this, which has since been disproven, never made sense, because a family’s genetics simply can’t change that quickly.

The simple truth is that the perfect diet to create heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity, there would be no better diet than one of refined grains and little fat. High sugar leads to obesity, diabetes and cancer. Hydrogenate oils and lack of healthy fat leads to heart disease and cancer. If you want to improve your health, these two things need to be addressed.

How do we fix this?

Now that we have taken a look back in time to see what went wrong, we can now look forward to the solution. We have two main problems, we are eating the wrong foods and we are looking in the wrong direction for the solution. The good news is that both of these problems can be solved, here’s how.

Our culture has become one of instant gratification, we want things now. We have become an Amazon Prime society, we want it yesterday! There is no difference when it comes to health. We feel sick, we run and get a medication to take away the symptoms. As long as we feel better, we really don’t care if the problem is still there, so long as we aren’t bothered by it. The first step to being truly healthy is to want resolution not just relief. My recommendations below are aimed at giving your body the nutrition it needs to be able to healing itself. Compete healing is not always possible, depending on the situation, but giving your body the nutrition it needs will always help! The easiest and cheapest way is to avoid the problem in the first place!

The food you eat can energize, heal, repair, build immunity and nourish. On the other hand it can also fatigue, damage and cause disease and depression.

We are eating manufactured foods and they contain trans-fats, high fructose corn syrup, additives/preservatives, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, genetically modified proteins linked to food allergies. It tells you a lot when your food doesn’t really get moldy anymore or at least takes much longer to do so… that’s because it’s not real food! If mold won’t eat it you shouldn’t either!

We have just seen the devastating effects of eating the wrong food. The easy solution, eat better! It’s simple but not always easy. Let’s face it, we have become addicted to unhealthy food. Changing your diet may be a struggle for you, but you can do it, it may take time. Don’t beat yourself up, just keep working on it and doing better.

To give your body the nutrition it needs here is what I recommend.

 

Whole-foods

Food shouldn’t be confusing, we are way overthinking it today… all of the studies paid for by special interest groups have cause mass confusion regarding food. One minute eggs are good, then they are bad, then good again… the same thing has happened with many foods. People need to forget everything they have heard and just rely on one simple rule, if a food comes from nature, it’s good for you, if it has been processed and altered, you’re better off without it.

When you read a book or see a documentary on food and they tell you, you should only eat certain foods, usually vegetables and fruit and to stop eating meat, run. These are produced by special interest groups trying to promote their ideas and way of life. If the producers or authors have your best interest and health in mind it will always talk about whole foods and eating food from nature, including fruits vegetables and meat being healthy for you and options for you to eat. If you personally have a conviction about not eating meat then you can find fat and protein elsewhere but you will have to try harder and pay attention to the nutrients you are getting. Vegetable protein is only 25% as digestible compared to animal protein and no vegetable sources contain all 9 amino acids your body needs, whereas all animal protein has all 9 making it simple to get the nutrition you need. The point here being if someone is telling you meat is bad for you, not only are they dead wrong, they don’t have your best interest in mind they have their personal convictions in mind.

Think about it, historically we haven’t had access to such a wide range of foods. People used to live on mostly meat and eggs in the winter months along with any vegetables they could store, and then a wider range of fruit and vegetables along with meat and eggs in the warmer months. Only modern technology has allow us to have the luxury of following any diet we can think of, but historically this was never possible or practical.

Calories – Do you really believe that all calories from food are the same? 1000 calories from coke are the same as from 1000 calories from vegetables, nuts or meat? A calorie is simply a measurement of energy that can be gain from food, nothing more. The caloric value is virtually useless, if you are eating real food the amount of calories doesn’t matter… you will feel full as your body was designed to do and that’s that. 1000 years ago people had no idea how many calories were in the food they ate, and we don’t need to know either.

Food labels can show 0 transfat and still contain up to .5g per serving. Be careful, best thing is to look for hydrogenated oils on the ingredient list.

Food was created for our bodies, we shouldn’t change it, we aren’t smarter than God or nature, whatever you believe in. Try to eat food that has not been processed, or very minimally processed. This would be meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit and dairy (if your body tolerates it). Organic is better if you can afford it, but simply getting away from the processed foods is going to be a huge step in the right direction.

Wholefood Recap

Eat food that has not been processed, or very minimally processed Meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds
and dairy (if your body tolerates it)

Supplements

Unfortunately, as we learned earlier, there are certain nutrients simply not available in food like they should be anymore. Minerals aren’t in the soils like they used to be leaving food lacking in mineral content. Animals aren’t getting nutrients they need leaving meats and eggs deficient in vital nutrients as well. You could potentially source foods grown and raised in ways that may give them higher nutrient content, but let’s face it… most people aren’t going to do that, this is I want it now America. The easiest, quickest and most cost effective way to make up for nutrients not in foods is to simply get a supplement. Easy enough, but what does the body really need? Your average nutrition store has thousands of them, do you really need all of those? Fortunately no, not even close!

 

The first supplement we recommend is Omega 3 and 6

Just as all fat was considered bad a few decades ago which led to many of our health problems today, omega-6 is now also being targeted as bad without distinction. This is a modern day travesty similarly to the misinformation about fat decades ago. The reality is that omega 6 is vital to our bodies, and one of it’s derivatives, GLA, is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent for your body. It’s even more powerful than any omega 3 as an anti-inflammatory. Omega 6 also supports:

• Flexible arteries
• Blood flow
• Blood pressure
• Healthy skin
• Healthy hair and nails
• Appetite fulfilment
• Lower Blood Sugar
• Anti- Inflammatory
• More Energy and Endurance
• Brain clarity and focus
• Better memory
• Used in hormones 

Many people overlook the important difference between parent and derivative forms of Omega oils. There are two main omega fatty acids your body needs and can’t make on it’s own. Those are LA and ALA commonly referred to as omega 6 and omega 3. These are the parent forms. There are also derivatives, or sub forms of omega three and six such as EPA and DHA. Your body can actually product any derivative it needs from the parent versions, however if you only have a derivative your body can’t go in reverse and make the parent from the derivative. Since your body needs 95% parent omega 3 and six and it can make derivatives from the parents, we always recommend supplementing the parent version. Only about 5% of the fatty acids used by the body are derivatives such as epa and dha. Fish oils are made up of only Omega 3 derivatives. While fish oil has many advocates, research shows that people have significant improvements when changing their daily EFA supplementation from fish oil to a more complete formulation of Parent Omega 3 and 6.

In 2009, the American Heart Association recognized the importance of Omega 6 for its powerful anti-inflammatory properties and the correlation between a lack of Omega 6 and the increased risk for heart disease. Fish oil supplements can also contain pollutants. Chemicals and heat are used to extract the oils from fish tissue, which can contaminate them. Top-quality fish goes to markets and restaurants; the rest goes to be processed into fish oil supplements and other secondary products. We highly recommend organic seed oils for Omega 3 and 6 supplementation. Seed oils are higher in quality and contain the parent omegas. Your body can also then produce any derivatives it needs from the parent form.

 

Minerals

The next most important supplement is a mineral. Minerals are simply not in the soils like they used to be, and we need them. There are several minerals our bodies need, but eight of them are commonly lacking in foods. We recommend focusing on these eight minerals. It’s also important to know that your body absorbs minerals through protein as we talked about before. Protein is attracted into the cell because of its opposite charge. Opposites attract! Minerals by themselves don’t have a charge and need the protein to bring them to the cell. The reason this is important is that there are many types of mineral supplements out there, but only one type is bonded to a protein. Chelated minerals are the ones you want. The chelation process bonds the mineral to a protein for maximum absorption. Others such as colloidal, elemental and ionic are not going to be used by your body.

Here are the eight minerals we recommend.

Boron (Recommended Supplementation – 2mg)

• Increases the effectiveness of other minerals
• Helps with joints and arthritis

Chromium (Recommended Supplementation – 200mcg)

• Works with insulin in the metabolism of sugar
• Brings protein to where it is needed in the body

Copper (Recommended Supplementation – 2mg)

• Converts iron to hemoglobin
• Essential for utilization of vitamin C

Iron (Recommended Supplementation – 10mg)

• Used in the production of important elements affecting the blood, muscles, and several important enzymes
• Necessary for proper metabolism of B vitamins
• Important for oxygen transfer

Selenium (Recommended Supplementation – 50mcg)

• Helps keep youthful elasticity in tissues
• Helps alleviate hot flashes and menopausal distress

Magnesium (Recommended Supplementation – 210mg)

• Used in the metabolism of calcium and vitamin C
• Converts blood sugar to energy
• Considered the “anti-stress” mineral
• Promotes cardiovascular health
• Helps prevent calcium deposits, kidney stones, and gallstones

Manganese (Recommended Supplementation – 3mg)

• Helps activate enzymes for proper use of biotin, B-1, and vitamin C
• Needed for normal bone structure
• Helps eliminate fatigue
• Aids in muscle reflexes
• Important in the formation of thyroxin, the hormone in the thyroid
• Important in the digestive and nervous systems

Zinc (Recommended Supplementation – 10mg)

• Vital to maintaining enzyme systems and cells
• Essential for protein synthesis
• Helps in the formulation of insulin
• Involved in blood stability; normalizes the prostate
• Important in proper brain function

 

Cleanser

Our bodies are bombarded with toxins from our surroundings. Whether it’s chemicals in our water, pollution in the air or additives in foods we get toxins in our body. It’s a really good idea to use a cleanser to help your body release them so that we are not making ourselves more prone to health problems.

The Ojibwa Indians in Canada have used a unique herbal blend for hundreds of years, and it is the most powerful and non-irritating cleanser we know of. Rene Caisse, a nurse, promoted the amazing formulation over 50 years ago and called it EssiacTM (Caisse spelled backwards).

There are two excellent books about the EssiacTM formulation: The EssiacTM Report: The True Story of the Canadian Herbal Cancer Remedy and of the Thousands of Lives It Continues to Save by Richard Thomas and Calling of an Angel by Dr. Gary Glum.

The Herbs used in Essiac™ have been known to have many benefits.

Burdock Root

• Increases circulation to the skin and helps cleanse epidermal tissue
• Helps eliminate impurities from blood, lymphatic, respiratory and urinary systems
• Beneficial for liver, gall bladder, kidneys and digestive system
• Rich in vitamin B-complex and E
• Helps regulate sugar metabolism

Sheep Sorrel

• Rich in vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, K and E
• Rich in chlorophyll, which increases oxygen content in blood and strengthens the immune system.
• Rich in potassium oxalate which aids in digestion

Slippery Elm Bark

• Extraordinary cleansing properties
• Has a lubricating property that helps protect membrane linings and joints

Turkish Rhubarb Root

• Impressive cleansing properties especially in the liver
• Another herb we recommend, not part of the Essiac™ formula is cats claw:

Cat’s Claw

• Exceptional ability to cleanse the entire intestinal tract
• Boosts immunity
• Powerful anti-inflammatory qualities
• Often decreases the pain and inflammation of arthritis

You might be wondering where can I get all of these supplements. Healthy for Life has developed a simple, convenient program that makes it easy for you to get the nutrition most commonly missing from food. The program consists the three products I recommend, Omega 3 & 6, a multi mineral supplement, and the detoxifier. Three products, that’s it! It makes getting the nutrition you need super convenient. Healthy for Life doesn’t sell the latest fad supplements, for over 20 years they have been helping people change their health for the better, using real food and these three products. The Healthy for Life philosophy is to get all the nutrition from real food that you can, and only supplement what you can’t get from food... and that became the Healthy for Life program. Healthy for Life fills the gap between the nutrition in real food and what your body needs.

 

That’s it, three things is all most people need!

Movement

The third and final piece to a healthy lifestyle is movement. It’s important as you get older to keep moving and working your muscles and joints. The more sedentary you become the less flexible and resilient your body will become also. This means more aches and pains, and a more fragile body. So find some things you enjoy doing and be consistent doing them.

 

Simple Solution

That’s it, eat better food, supplement missing nutrition and get out and do something fun! By doing this we resolve the problems from eating highly processed carbohydrate based foods and allow your body to have the building blocks it needs to heal itself and be well!

 

Get Started Today!