Evolving Wellness^TM

Well it may be hard to believe for some, but half of 2008 has already passed by!

So how is your health doing?

Have you been keeping up with good eating habits?

Have you made physical activity a regular part of your daily or weekly routine?

Have you been sticking to your weight goals?

No matter what level our health is at, we all have to remember that achieving and maintaining optimal health is not a one time process or deal. On the contrary, it is a constantly evolving discipline that is facilitated by constant research and education. And the best part it is possible and accessible to all at any stage of their lives.

Thanks to ongoing reading and research, the past 6 months have brought about a few dietary changes in my own diet.

And so in this part 1, I would like to share with you 5 foods that I have cut out of my routine diet because even though they may have seemed healthy, really weren’t. Tomorrow, in part 2 we will continue the update with 5 foods that I have incorporated into my routine diet, due to their amazing health benefits.

5 Foods to Avoid on a Regular Basis

1. Refined Cereal

Well up until very recently, my weekday mornings consisted of refined cereals. No, not the obviously bad ones that everybody knows are bad for you thanks to all the sugar and artificial colors and flavors, but the ones that disguise themselves as good for us.

So instead of Lucky Charms or even plain old Corn Flakes, I would pick the whole grain, granola based, fruit and nut cereals like Post Honey Bunches of Oats or Post Selects, with my favorite being the Cranberry Almond Crunch.

Most of us would think that such cereals would provide a quick, convenient and healthy breakfast.

Well, upon further inspection, I just could not get over the fact that sugar is listed as the second ingredient in most of these and then appears in different forms at least 3 or 4 more times throughout the ingredient list. These are the cereals most of us do not associate as being the high sugar, kid cereals.

Unfortunately bad news - they are not any better.

The other thing that got me too is most of these cereals surpass the acceptable sodium amounts of 1:1 amounts of sodium to calories. So now I am eating too much salt and sugar for breakfast, great!

So I said good bye to these unnecessary additives by saying goodbye to all refined cereals.

2. Granola Bars

I am a person who needs to snack between breakfast and lunch (on healthy things) as my metabolism is very active in the morning. So granola bars where what seemed a common sense and healthy snack to incorporate into my workday routine.

It is obvious that chocolate bars are out of the question - with all the sugar and fats they have I don’t know how people do not get diabetic induced, heart attacks on the spot. Just kidding - I don’t think those exist. Anyway I do not remember the last time I had a chocolate bar - seriously.

The granola bars I chose, where never chocolate coated or chocolate bar wannabees with marshmallows, caramel pieces or the like.

I tried to pick low sodium, real fruit and nut based ones made using whole grains. Well all that was well until I got really honest with myself and faced the amount of sugar in these items. Ouch! They might as well be chocolate bars. Again, sugar was present usually in 4 or 5 different forms and interspersed throughout the ingredient list.

And on top of it all, they are a form of processed food, so no thank you. I would be better off making some home baked version of some healthy fruit and nut bars.

So bye-bye granola bars, no lost love there!

3. Salad Dressing

Yes I love my salads and up until recently could not bear the thought of eating them without dressing. Yes naturally, I picked the dressings that were low in fat and organic or as natural as possible, but who am I kidding?

Dressings are some of the worst examples of processed fat foods and please do not be tricked by the “low-fat” lingo. We have to use our common sense, how can a fat be made low fat? Hmmm, could it possibly have anything to do with chemical processing? I used to think they just watered them down as they try to make you think on the labels, but that is only half the story.

Well the truth is whether they are organic or not, low-fat or not, salad dressings are packed with more salt than one needs to get with their salad or at any other point of the day. And unless you buy a high quality dressing most of them still have high amounts of fats that may be saturated and even trans, not to mention the artificial flavors, colors and preservatives.

So squeeze some lemon or orange juice on your salad, perhaps sprinkle some olive oil or plain and simple add some fruits to your salad for a delicious sweetness and kick the salad dressings to the curb!

4. Refined Pasta

I love pasta! Did I mention I love pasta! And no I am not scared of carbs, as anyone who knows their carbs knows that they are your body’s ultimate fuel to make energy and are harmless as long as they are burned. Or are they?

Well, I have long ago replaced regular flour with whole wheat flour and tried to replace regular pasta with whole wheat pasta. But then I did something else, I tried the fresh, whole wheat pastas that are sold at our local grocery stores, instead of the dry and I was hooked.

Now when I compare that dry bag pasta to fresh pasta, I question how I ever could have eaten it - it just tastes so fake!

On top of that, white pasta is made with white, refined flour which makes the pasta a refined, or processed food. We know today that this wreaks havoc on our insulin production and because it easily releases sugars instead of starches is also to blame for the bad rep pasta has where weight gain is concerned.

So yes, I will pay the premium and buy fresh, whole wheat pasta because my health is worth it. And the next goal after that - try making homemade pasta!

5. Cow’s Milk

And for the finale, this is the big one - cow’s milk.

It is not that I loved it; I simply drank it like most other people on this planet because I thought I had to, mostly for the calcium. Well boy was I wrong.

We are conditioned from a very early age that “milk does a body good” right? Well not so much. Not only is milk, like any other animal product acid forming in the body it is also fattening and refined to the nines.

Over the past 3 months I did more and more research on whether we are really meant to be drinking cow’s milk as adults or humans for that matter and the answer kept coming back as a loud - no!

I have looked into many studies that prove that no other animal drinks milk as an adult, let alone one from another animal, aside from us. Even for kids the cow milk is questionable as it contains much more fat than they need for their early growth.

Thanks to Dr. Pam Popper, I have found that whole osteoporosis scare is just that a scare and there are hundreds of ways to get calcium in better ways, minus the saturated fat, from vegetables and grains. Not to mention have a healthy diet that leaves your body in an alkaline state so it does not have to leach calcium out of your bones in the first place.

I have learned that even if the milk is organic and hence does not come from hormone or antibiotic fed cows, it still contains many parts that are unnatural for our human body to deal with, one of them being the high amounts of fat. 2% milk does not mean it has 2% of fat but 35% fat - how is that for an eye opener? (CaloriesPerHour.com)

And to top it all off, it is not a coincidence that high amounts of the world population are lactose intolerant. It is an evolved trait that is serving them for the better, not worse.

So this is just a quick summary - but all the research added up: cow milk is just another economically driven industry and far from necessary for optimal health.

Conclusion

So there they are, the 5 foods that were part of my daily diet but no longer are. There are many more things that are disguised as “good” but really aren’t and we will discover them as we continue on this evolving journey where our health is concerned together.

Tomorrow, we explore the bright side through 5 foods that people may overlook, but should have as part of a routine, daily diet for optimal health.

Feel free to share any items that you have bid farewell to for the sake of your health and well-being.

 Semi-Annual Health Update Part 2

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