Meal Plans: food is something that was once alive and came from the land, sky, or sea
Things have to be real to be called food in my book. You know, apples, oranges, avocado, chicken, sweet potatoes, pork, shrimp, almonds, mangos. Chemicals, artificial sweeteners, colors, dyes, fat blockers, preservatives, pesticides, plastics, paint thinners, oven cleaners, weed killers, and spider spray just don’t count as food.
Have you ever looked up the uses for some of these chemicals commonly found in our “food”? And what exactly is Yellow #5 or Blue #6? What purpose do aluminum, sodium benzoate, quinolone, carmoisine, and tartarazine 19140 serve in a body? I was reading a package the other day and its second ingredient was Sunset Yellow FCF15985 (E110). I wasn’t sure if I was to bake, broil, or deep-fry “yellow,” so I decided to skip that ingredient for dinner.
Many of these chemicals are designed to add color to your paint or remove stains from your carpets, to build navy ships and bulletproof vests. They are not food! Therefore, they should not be consumed.
Use them to decorate your house and build bombproof shelters, but do not put them in your mouth. The American Medical Society has coined a term for these industrial chemicals found in or sprayed on foods: obesogens. These obesogens disrupt normal hormonal balance and inhibit lipid (fat) metabolism. Obesogens can literally make you fat! Sadly, and ironically, most “diet” packaged foods are loaded with obesogens.
Do not eat them. If you still feel the need to ask why and are not concerned that the accumulation of these toxins might someday kill you, then let me give you another little fact to chew on.
PORTRAIT OF A DIETER WHO DIDN’T EAT FOOD
I met Debi because Extra TV was doing a segment in which they wanted me to make over someone’s body. Debi couldn’t be more all-American—she worked as a special education aide for the school system, and her husband is a sergeant in the local police department. They have a son with special needs and a lot of stress in their lives. On top of all this, Debi had been trying to lose weight for years. She had spent thousands of dollars on diet programs, but because her metabolism had stalled, she would starve herself and if she lost three pounds, she’d view it as a miracle
I couldn’t help but feel so much compassion for Debi. She was a beautiful, warm-hearted person who just couldn’t understand why she couldn’t get healthy. She was exhausted, tapped out. Even more worrisome, she had high cholesterol and a family history of heart disease. When I met her, she had no idea what she was supposed to cook or eat or even what foods were good for her. She was existing on fat-free, sugar-free foods and 100 calorie preservative-filled snacks! When I showed her my recipes, she said, “But aren’t beans fattening? I haven’t had a mango in years. Isn’t almond butter 200 calories per tablespoon?!”
Her body had paid a heavy price for her years of dieting on chemical-filled diet products disguised as food. She was on cholesterol medicine (the liver breaks down cholesterol; it was too busy dealing with the chemicals to do this job) and feared she might have a heart attack and leave her children without a mother. What mom doesn’t secretly share that fear?
I put Debi on Fast Metabolism, and in fourteen days she ate a lot of food and she lost 14 pounds. She also looked ten years younger, and her doctor took her off her cholesterol medication—in just two weeks!
When you eat real food, it is full of nutrients and fiber. Everything in it can be used for some form of good by the body. Chemicals don’t have to be filtered out, preservatives don’t block nutrient absorption, and additives don’t create some bizarre science experiment inside of your body.
I am a nutritionist. All day long I get questions, phone calls, texts, and e-mails asking me if it’s okay to eat this or that. Honestly, I say yes to almost anything that is real food. But as your nutritionist you will never hear me encourage you to eat obesogens.