Time to Open Your Eyes and Mouth

It’s important to note that what we put in our bodies today will not only effect our immediate health, but our health down the road whether that be heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc. Did you know that every year, more than a million Americans die from diet related diseases?¹  That’s an outrageous number! One amazing aspect of nutrition that I love and find absolutely fascinating, is that we can prevent and recover from chronic disease with proper food intake. The amount of food we eat on a daily basis, the food that we choose to eat and other practices such as daily exercise, sunlight exposure and water intake can all help to prevent or recover from disease.

One thing that I always tell my clients or anyone that asks, is when in doubt, whole foods are the way to go. Whole foods have never proven us wrong. They are from the earth, meant to be consumed. And these ultra-processed foods that are commonly advertised in America, are not only produced in a laboratory but they have not been around long enough for scientists to study the long term effects of the toll they have on our bodies. As of today, 6 out of every 10 adult Americans have at least one diet related chronic disease and the number just keeps rising.² Chronic disease is at an all time high but so is the amount of ultra-processed and processed foods that are being consumed. I mean everywhere you turn there is an advertisement for Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonald’s, alcohol, chips, soda, you name it. It’s really quite sickening. These products are made with ingredients that no one could even pronounce. Ingredients that are used for cleaning products and killing pests (only to name a few) are among the most common ingredients that are in processed foods. Yet, there is not a care for our health within the processed food industry because the greed within this industry is too vast to care. Yes, there are controversial studies that state the ingredients can be consumed in small amounts but why consume them in the first place if we knew the truth about the effects that they have on our bodies. Why stick around and be the guinea pig when we know that whole foods do not contain cancer or chronic disease causing ingredients?

It’s time to wake up and see that these chemically made ingredients are not the way to go! Whole foods have been around of centuries but highly processed foods have only truly been around since the industrial age. Life began to get busier so the food industry had to improvise but its gone a little too far. However, it’s never too late to make a change! It’s been proven that an adherence to a diet that consists of healthy food choices and exercise has been proven to add an average of 10 years to an individuals life.³ So next time you’re at the market seeking a guilty pleasure you may want to ask yourself how many times is “just one more time” truly worth it?

Citations

1. Mayne S. Improving Nutrition to Turn the Tide on Diet-Related Chronic Disease. FDA. Published online March 24, 2022. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/fda-voices/improving-nutrition-turn-tide-diet-related-chronic-disease

2. Gropper SS. The Role of Nutrition in Chronic Disease. Nutrients. 2023 Jan 28;15(3):664. doi: 10.3390/nu15030664. PMID: 36771368; PMCID: PMC9921002.

3. Fadnes LT, Celis-Morales C, Økland JM, Parra-Soto S, Livingstone KM, Ho FK, Pell JP, Balakrishna R, Javadi Arjmand E, Johansson KA, Haaland ØA, Mathers JC. Life expectancy can increase by up to 10 years following sustained shifts towards healthier diets in the United Kingdom. Nat Food. 2023 Nov;4(11):961-965. doi: 10.1038/s43016-023-00868-w. Epub 2023 Nov 20. PMID: 37985698; PMCID: PMC10661734.