What’s the Big Food Enemy These Days?

By Travis Wade

I get asked the question “What is the big enemy these days? Is it sugar? Still sugar?” Nope. There’s something far worse than sugar these days, but sugar fits under the category. The answer is white food.

White Trash

I’m talking about certain fats like shortening that never goes bad or trans fats also known as hydrogenated fats that are to be banned. The government has given food companies lots of time to phase out trans fats so you must watch out for them yourself for now. At least it’s agreed that trans fats are something that should never be consumed internally.

Grains are in this category. Although grains are not genetically modified they are still sprayed with glyphosate. If you don’t know the dangers of glyphosate have a look at this article.

Even some grains that aren’t sprayed are still not good because they have been hybridized and developed over the years to have lots of calories and little nutrient. The flour is refined so much it’ll last forever and it is higher glycemic index than sugar. It mixes with the amylase in your saliva and turns to glucose before you even swallow it.

Of course, sugar is in this category too, but the worst thing about sugar is that it’s almost all genetically modified. A few things these types of foods do is they feed cancer, they cause inflammation which in turn increases sickness, they feed the bad bacteria of the gut, they increase insulin resistance causing diabetes and Alzheimer’s; they generally make people unhealthy and overweight.

What You Should Eat

My number one recommendation is to use food to get as much nutrient as possible. Eat as nutrient rich foods as possible. Always take the broccoli and spinach over the french-fries and ketchup. White foods take up room where you could have been putting good nutrients instead of empty calories mixed with toxins. I always tell my clients you’re either eating poison or medicine; it’s your choice with every single mouth full.

People in North America eat a lot of garbage for breakfast. People have been trained to believe this is what you should eat for breakfast. I like wine, but I don’t drink it for breakfast. If you’re someone that eats any kind of grain including oats or corn for breakfast and you can’t understand why it’s so hard to lose weight, then you need a paradigm shift. It’s time to change your beliefs.

Drop these highly addictive foods. According to Dr. Mark Hyman the food industry has discovered how to reproduce taste buds and they are very excited because now they can test to see what substances react on the taste buds in order to make their foods even more addictive. Are these foods harmful or make people fat? Look around you…

So, what do you eat? What foods are rich in nutrients? Have you heard of cruciferous vegetables? Kale (blanch these vegetables to reduce the oxalic acid [free radicals]), spinach (try to get organic if you can afford it, they are very high on the dirty dozen list), broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and asparagus. All the green leafy vegetables are very high in nutrients and fibre, and low in calories. Eat lots of colorful vegetables. They are our best source of carbohydrates because they are rich in the nutrients our bodies need.

So how do you get your calories? Fat. Not cheesecake. Not trans fat like margarine. Not shortening. I mean good fats. This might be another paradigm shift for some people. I know we have been taught to believe that fat is the enemy and causes heart attacks and raises bad cholesterol.

Ancel Keys

The study by PhD. Ancel Keys called the Seven Countries Study was the basis for this information. In the Seven Country Study, there were countries like France and Switzerland that had a high fat diet and lower heart disease that weren’t taken into consideration. In 1984 Ancel Keys did a follow up study that showed no link between fat and heart disease.

Ancel Keys did another study where he used 9000 people from a mental hospital and put half of them on vegetable oil and the other half on saturated fat in the form of butter. The people with the butter had higher cholesterol and less heart attacks. This study was hidden in Ancel’s basement for many years because it contradicted his theory.

The right saturated fats are good for you because dietary cholesterol is the precursor to hormones. Also, fat is used as building blocks for the body and used for energy. It is a much cleaner burning fuel source with way less oxidative stress on the body than sugar or carbs.

Eat fat. Good fats like avocados, nuts and nut butters (not peanuts, those are a bean), coconut oil, grass fed butter, fat from grass fed free from hormones and antibiotics meats and seafood, and high quality olive oil. Especially at breakfast time.

I wish you lots of health, love and happiness!

Travis Wade

The only holistic personal trainer in Edmonton