Skip to content Malka Reichman’s
Food Pyramid
for healthy living
*organic only
2 principals this chart was created with:
1. Ease of access
This marvelous world was built with Divine wisdom in every detail and it can not be that a food meant for daily living would be as complicated as slaughtering a chicken, cleaning it and then cooking it in order to make supper. Clearly chicken was not intended to be a daily supper. Eating chicken every day is only even viable nowadays because of commercialization and refrigeration. Commercial chicken that is fed GMO feed and has growth hormones and antibiotic is carcinogenic and causes disease. It is no health food. Also, cooking animal protein on high temperatures, like pan frying or grilling, causes HCAs and PAHs which are carcinogenic compounds.
An apple is easy to eat. You pick it off a tree and it is ready to go. That seems intuitively like a food that is sustainable to eat everyday for breakfast. Beans that can be dried after harvest and cooked on demand are a food that is sustainable to eat everyday for supper.
2. How a person feels after eating the food
Meat from grass-fed animals is meant to be eaten, in moderate portions and on special occasions, like once a week. But, animal protein is a heavy meal and is very calorific. (GMO grain-fed animals have very unhealthy meat because they have the wrong ratio of omega 6 vs omega 3. Grain-fed beef on average has an Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio of 20:1. Grass-fed beef has a ratio closer to 3:1, well within the 4:1 guidelines of a healthy diet.)
After eating a meal of vegetable bean quinoa soup you can get up with energy instead of needing energy to digest the meal. A plant-based meal gives energy instead of taking away energy to digest it.
My food pyramid is very different than the standard corporate sponsored food pyramid,
which leads to all degenerative diseases. Mainstream nutritionists and dieticians follow the standard corporate sponsored pyramid, which is advocated by the government.
For example, beans are a resistant starch. They keep a person’s blood sugar levels stable for hours, are full of antioxidants that prevent cell damage, prevent disease and aging and prevent digestive cancers. However, beans are insignificantly represented on the corporate food pyramid. And instead carcinogenic ultra processed grains like boxed cereals are the bottom base of their pyramid. Beans is a basic food for sustenance that needs to be eaten every day for proper health and satiety. (Canned beans are full of aluminum and are a factory processed food.) I am referring to organic dry beans that are soaked overnight in filtered water and then boiled. So beans is prominent on my food pyramid.
To be called real food, it needs to be completely unprocessed.
Processed foods in a factory are stripped of all nutritional value and become carcinogenic. Also, over 2,500 chemicals for taste improvement and food preservation can be added without being required to be listed on the label. When a bottle of orange juice has a label that says 100% juice, you know it’s actually full of chemicals because it lasts weeks in the fridge, but if you would juice oranges yourself, it would last just 2-3 days in the fridge. Real food is only single ingredients like an organic raw sweet potato and a bag of organic red rice. You can then cook and prepare it in your own kitchen with as many real food ingredients as you want.
It’s important to realize that eating no processed food is even more important for the very young and old. Baby cereals are full of heavy metals and are ultra-processed foods with no nutrition. Baby jars are completely devitalized from nutrients like any other processed food. Steamed brown rice, quinoa, fresh banana, sprouted oatmeal, sweet potato baked whole in the skin, and a baked apple are easy examples of baby food you can make in your own kitchen, that will last a week in the fridge. The same applies to older people. They should not be eating processed foods in a resident home that are ultra-processed, not organic, and full of toxins and sweeteners, with no real nutrition.
Dr. Weston Price was a dentist from a hundred years ago who went around the world for ten years to try to discover what foods to eat for good teeth. He photographed the teeth of what isolated groups of people looked like and recorded their diets. The photos of groups of people who ate a completely unprocessed diet show perfect white teeth with no cavities and perfectly formed jaws with enough space for the teeth. Even old people had perfect teeth. They had no dentists and tooth brushing, both of which have no impact on preventing cavities. These people were also free from contagious and degenerative diseases. The diets in the many places varied based on what grew naturally and what animals they had access to, but the common thread was that it was a completely unprocessed diet.
When Dr. Price went into the cities, he saw kids with teeth that were stained, broken, missing, and crooked because of overcrowding teeth and with cavities. He recorded their Western diets of sugar, flour and modern processed vegetable fats. (This means that making food in your own kitchen using flour milled in a factory means the food is still processed food. The flour in the factory is stripped of the germ and vitamins a person needs to live.) The people eating this processed diet also had contagious diseases and degenerative diseases. Price also showed photos of cavities that self healed with new layers of dentin, after a diet change. Teeth should not be drilled into by a dentist. Processed foods cause cavities by the body becoming demineralized by needing to use calcium and phosphorus from its bones to remineralize after a sugar rush. A nonstop sugar rush after eating refined flour and sugar will devitalize the teeth and the entire body. The body will prioritize the bones over the teeth and the teeth will become first to demineralize from processed foods. If such a diet continues, after the teeth demineralize, the rest of the body will demineralize which will cause degenerative diseases like bone decay, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and dementia. Below are just two of the many photos of people’s teeth from the different cultures that Price photographed for his book.
On the left, New Zealand primitive natives, the Maori, have had the reputation of having the finest teeth and finest bodies of any race in the world. On the right, modernized whites of New Zealand, claimed to have the poorest teeth in the world.
On the left, primitive Aborigines of Australia. Note the magnificent dental arches and beautiful teeth of these primitives. On the right, first modernized generation of Aborigines. Note the characteristic narrowing of the dental arches and crowding of the teeth. This is primarily due to faulty development of the maxillary bones from poor nutrition.
Photos are copyright Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation, originally printed in Dr Weston Price’s book ‘Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.’
Why organic only?
Non organic food has seeds that were genetically altered in a lab. Some genetically altered seeds are created to be able to withstand the huge amounts of glyphosate being sprayed without dying like the weeds and some are genetically modified to create their own herbicides. Non organic seeds are ‘Frakenseeds’ and the food that grows is ‘Frakenfood.’ Non organic food is also sprayed with dozens of toxic pesticides like glyphosate which cause cancer, infertility and systemic inflammation. Glyphosate also interferes with cellular protein synthesis resulting in serious degenerative diseases like cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Animals and animal products that are labeled organic means they were fed organic feed only. Read more on why non organic food is so unsafe in books ‘Seeds of Deception’ by Smith and ‘Toxic Legacy’ by Seneff.
Vegetables need to be the basis of daily intake
Vegetables break down into phytochemicals and micronutrients that a person needs to live. Raw vegetables and fruit are also full of fiber which helps a person eliminate properly. Vegetables and fruit prevent cancer, diabetes and heart disease. They are more filling they might seem. A balanced meal is an organic sweet potato baked in its skin, some slices of romaine lettuce and some chia seeds for omega 3 fats. In the US, it is myth that we need animal protein to have a ‘balanced meal.’ There is protein within many plants and there is more protein in kale than in steak. A cow eats grass all day and is very muscular. The cow is exercising, getting sunlight and fresh air and eating raw greens. Humans do not need animal protein to create muscles!
It is very important to have a wide variety of different vegetables because each vegetable offers so many important life sustaining properties. For example, purple onion contains quercetin which is an antioxidant which has anti-inflammatory effects like reducing swelling, kills cancer cells, controls blood sugar and prevents heart disease. Cooked beets are full of vitamin C, potassium, and folic acid. They support the health of your brain, heart, and digestive system, help alleviate inflammation, and possibly slow the growth of cancer cells. Just a sample of 2 vegetables to demonstrate that vegetables deliver a mighty heath punch and they are no simple food. Vegetables are what the body needs to be able function properly on the cellular level.
Some basics on choosing vegetables and fruits:
Rotate what you eat as not to develop a food sensitivity which can come from overeating a strong fruit or vegetable. Just because you have a mango fruit tree does not mean you should eat a mango a day! One or two mangos a week would be the maximum mangos a person should eat, and the same from a strong fruit. It is also important to rotate vegetables and fruit you eat daily because of certain plant properties that can become harmful if overeating them, like oxalates in spinach and kale. Another reason to eat a variety of them is that there are so many different plant chemicals that help the body and you can benefit more from eating more of them. ‘Eat the rainbow’ means try to eat a range of colors in fruits and vegetables since the different colors are signs of different phytochemicals and nutrients. An apple a day is ok because it is not such a strong fruit, but maybe 5 days a week is better than everyday. And you can rotate from green to red apples within those 5 days.
Cruciferous vegetables prevent cancer and have sulforaphane which helps a person detox. Examples are broccoli, cauliflower, mustard seeds, cabbage, kale and radish. Store bought frozen broccoli and cauliflower does not have sulforaphane because of the processing process. Buying broccoli sprouts instead of broccoli is a good way to avoid the bug problem with broccoli.
Tomato, pepper and eggplant are in the nightshade family and many people are sensitive to them. If someone is not sensitive to them, they can easily develop a food sensitivity to them if they are consumed too often by eating them raw or even as a cooked sauce. Eating them once or twice a week is ok if a person is not sensitive to them. Tomato and pepper is not a daily add-in in salad! Other ideas instead to rotate to add to the daily greens salad are radish, purple onion, scallions, pomegranate seeds, nuts and seeds like pumpkin seeds, beans like chick peas/ garbanzo or green peas, fresh herbs like cilantro, dill or parsley, avocado, cucumber and carrot. You can also eat the dark greens whole.
The darker the fruit or vegetable, the more potent is it. Dark greens have more nutrients than light greens. A purple onion is healthier than a yellow onion which is healthier than a white onion. The same concept is in fruits. For example, darker grapes like black and purple grapes have more antioxidants than lighter grapes.
Bitter greens like kale and dandelion help cleanse the liver and they are worth trying to get used to eating. You can hide the flavor by blending them in a smoothie or pureeing with sweet vegetables and flaxseeds to dry into seed crackers in a dehydrator.
Potatoes should be eaten sparingly since they create a spike in blood sugar. It’s important to eat them with the skin since it has the fiber and additional nutrients. Red potatoes create less of a spike than yellow potatoes and yellow potatoes create less of a spike than white potatoes. Occasionally, I will make a potato souffle (kugel) but i only use red potatoes, skins on (and hide in zucchini) and then shred them in a food processor.
Photo of vegetables in middle of fermenting on my kitchen counter; left to right purple cabbage, daikon radish shredded in a food processor with purple cabbage to keep it below the water line, garlic, cucumbers to become pickles, and on the extreme right is chopped fennel.
Why Fermented Foods Need to be Eaten Daily
Since the beginning of time, people needed to use fermentation to preserve foods. Just because we now have refrigeration, that does not mean we ‘beat the system’ to preserve food so we can live without eating fermented foods. The body was designed to need fermented foods to maintain health in every organ system. Fermented foods are the best ‘supplement’ out there to prevent cancer, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, combined with a diet of unprocessed organic food. There are many cases where fermented foods even healed these conditions after decades of an unhealthy lifestyle!
Simple, fermented sauerkraut played an important role in helping prevent scurvy, an affliction known in its day as the scourge of the seas, responsible for an estimated two million deaths between 1500 and 1800, on sailing ships around the world. Scurvy, a disease caused by extreme vitamin C deficiency, plagued sailors aboard long-distance sailing ships. Vitamin C helps the body produce important proteins and acts as an antioxidant helping to protect cell structures from damage caused by free radicals. For instance, commodore George Anson, who set sail with six ships for the Pacific in 1740 with 2,000 able seamen, returned to England with less than 700, the rest consumed by the disease. In 1753, Scottish naval surgeon James Lind noticed scurvy was invariably linked to those whose diet had been severely limited. He began testing various foods and noted that citrus fruits provided the quickest and most effective cure for the disease. Captain James Cook, one of these four captains, was given several different experimental foods to try aboard his ship when he left England for the South Pacific in 1768. Among them was 7,860 pounds of sauerkraut. Made by fermenting thinly sliced cabbage in its own natural juices, sauerkraut is rich in vitamin C, which — although unknown at the time — is the key to preventing and curing scurvy. While raw cabbage contains moderate levels of the vitamin, the process of fermentation multiplies these amounts. Fermented cabbage also resolved the concern of how to keep fruit or vegetables fresh on a sailing ship. With no real cure available, the British crown outfitted four captains during the 1760s with various potential cures in an attempt to find a reliable method to prevent scurvy through trial and error. Three years after leaving England, he returned back with not a single death attributed to scurvy.
The human body contains trillions of microorganisms, outnumbering human cells by 10 to 1. (Because of their small size, however, microorganisms make up only about 1 to 3 percent of the body’s mass.) An adult has between 2 to 6 pounds of bacteria. These bacteria play a vital role in human health. Heavy metals, antibiotics, chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs damage and destroy these microorganisms. Many times after a round of antibiotics, a person will develop gut health problems or mental illness since critical bacteria were killed. Eating probiotic vegetables helps maintain the vitality of these critical microorganisms and may help restore the proper bacteria. No one knows what exactly is being killed with antibiotics and if the beneficial bacteria will grow back. (There are herbal alternatives to antibiotics.)
During fermentation, bacteria synthesize vitamins and minerals, produce biologically active peptides with enzymes and break down plant anti nutrients, or lectins. The complex work these billions of microorganisms do to the fermented foods makes the vegetables many times more potent and the vitamins more bioavailable. Green cabbage that has been fermented has 60 times the vitamin C as non fermented cabbage! Compounds known as biologically active peptides, which are produced by the bacteria responsible for fermentation, are also well known for their health benefits. Among these peptides, conjugated linoleic acids have a blood pressure lowering effect, exopolysaccharides exhibit prebiotic properties, bacteriocins show anti-microbial effects, sphingolipids have anti-carcinogenic and anti-microbial properties, and bioactive peptides exhibit anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-allergenic, and blood pressure lowering effects. As a result of these benefits and countless other work these bacteria do to food that humans haven’t discovered yet, fermented foods provide many health benefits such as anti-oxidant, anti-microbial, anti-fungal, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and anti-atherosclerotic activity. This means they can help heal allergies and other autoimmune disease, heal and prevent mental illness, prevent contagious disease from infecting a person by building immune health, maintain overall body health, maintain healthy gut function and help the body detox from chemicals and heavy metals. In a shorter list, this means more energy, looking better, better sleep, better mood and getting sick less. This is a long list of health benefits for something as simple as soaking a vegetable in filtered water!
Learn how to ferment vegetables with books ‘Fermenting Vegetables’ by Shockey and ‘Cultured life in a jar’ by Schwenk. The concept of fermentation is that by completely submerging a vegetable (or fruit) in water means that the inactive microorganisms on that food will be allowed to multiply and will cause fermentation in 5-7 days, depending on how hot the climate is where you live and depending on how sour you want the food. After it’s finished fermenting, it can stay fresh in the fridge for 6 to 18 months. The main essentials are to make sure the vegetable is completely submerged under water to ensure the vegetables turn sour properly, and to use sea salt to keep the environment stable. Adding bay leaves for their tannins to keep the vegetables crunchy and pickling spices and fresh garlic for taste and health benefits are optional in the fermenting process. If the vegetable floats on top of the water line and is not fully submerged, yeast (which is harmless but negatively affects texture of the vegetable) and mold (which means the batch can’t be used) can grow on top. Best to use a small neck jar so it is easier to keep vegetables locked below the waterline and a full cabbage leaf to lock the vegetables below the jar’s neck. In order for the microorganisms to grow, to be able to ferment, the water must be chlorine free. Unfiltered city tap water has chlorine. Using some brine from a previous batch will help boost a new batch of fermented vegetables instead of using a vegetable starter.
I think the most potent food is fermented garlic. Raw garlic prevents cancer, kills infection, reduces blood pressure, prevents dementia and builds immune health. By fermenting it, you have all the benefits of raw garlic with none of the drawbacks of raw garlic: garlic breath, being hard on the stomach or tasting too pungent. Fermented garlic has multiplied vitamin content of raw garlic and of course it is probiotic. Garlic can take double as many days to ferment as other vegetables to taste less pungent. Similarly, fermenting turmeric and ginger will make these potent herbs more medicinal. Turmeric and ginger get fermented using raw honey instead of water.
These are vegetables that people commonly ferment: green or purple cabbage to become sauerkraut, all different kinds of radish, cucumbers to become pickles, mustard powder and seeds, garlic cloves and carrots.
Processed cow dairy is very unhealthy.
Big dairy industry lobbies the government to have their useless to humans product – processed cow milk – pushed onto the public. Cow dairy is very unhealthy. It causes cancer because of the tens of foreign to human hormones which cause abnormal cell growth in humans, causes systemic inflammation and contributes to leaky gut. Also, cow dairy has calcium in it when it is in a cup on a table, but its effect on the human body is a net calcium loss. Cow dairy acidifies the body and the body uses calcium from its reserves to alkalinize the body. So the net calcium effect after consuming cow dairy is a loss. Unhulled sesame seeds and dark greens are good sources of calcium.
Processed cow dairy is much worse than raw dairy. Pasteurization kills the enzymes needed to digest the foreign proteins in the milk. Homogenization destroys the molecular structure of the milk using tremendous pressure so the fat doesn’t rise to the top.
To make things much worse, in the US, most milk from non organic dairy has RBST hormones injected into the cows so the cows should produce a measly 10% more milk. The cows who are injected with these hormones are constantly silk, so they get antibiotics. In order for Monsanto (the same anti life company that sells glyphosate and GMO seeds) to be able to sell their RBST hormones patented product to farmers, the FDA raised the allowable threshold for antibiotics left in the milk. So non organic milk and dairy products are full of RBST hormones and antibiotics, which cause cancer and other health concerns. You can read more on the cow dairy scam in ‘How Not to Die’ by Dr Greger and ‘Seeds of Deception’ by Smith.
Raw organic goat milk is healthy.
Raw goat milk from pasture raised goats is a healthy drink. And the products from that milk are healthy. It’s an optional-to-eat, tasty food. Also raw milk is a good relief bottle for an infant since it’s closest to human milk. (It is missing folic acid.) Infant formula is a toxic blend of corn syrup, ultra-processed and synthetic vitamins extracted by serious chemical solvents and then loaded with anti- caking agents like aluminum. The famous Dr. Robert Mendelssohn from 50 years ago, writes that infant formula is the ‘granddaddy of junk food’ and causes a range list of heath problems like gut issues and ear issues and of course doesn’t help a child develop properly.
The basics on healthy grains
Grains have a range of very important micronutrients and give a person energy. Unprocessed grains like raw brown, red or black rice, oats, quinoa, buckwheat, hulless barley, amaranth and millet. Oats can be purchased organic and sprouted by the brand One Degree. Sometimes Costco carries it. Or you can get it in Whole Foods. Flours from ancient grains like einkorn, spelt and kamut are very healthy if you mill the flour yourself so all the germ and bran is intact. The B complex vitamins in the germ are critical for brain function and the modern day man gets afflicted with cancer or dementia from a lifetime diet of denatured flour, devoid of these critical nutrients found in not sifted, unprocessed flour. Modern day wheat is a man made ultra-hybridized kernel and is not digestible because it’s a gluten monster from all the hybridization in the last century. Einkorn is the ancient wheat in it’s original form. If you don’t want to mill the flour yourself, you can buy it freshly milled and then store the flour rich germ in a freezer to prevent the germ oils from becoming rancid. The rising agent should be a leaven or starter (not yeast) since the bacteria in the leaven do critical work on the dough to make it digestible and healthy. Sprouted means the grain was soaked first and then dried (so it lasts). The sprouting process multiplies vitamin content and gets rid of lectins. And you can buy sprouted spelt, kamut or einkorn berries online and mill the berries into flour using a simple mill. The berries in their whole form last 3 years out of the fridge, stored in a dark cool place. Very important about grains: grains must be soaked in filtered water before using them, approximately 8-12 hours or overnight. Soaking (sprouting) increases nutrient absorption, decreases anti-nutrients and phytic acid, breaks down gluten (in grains with gluten), and increases enzymes and antioxidants. See more on sprouting on draxe.com.
Seeds are full of very important micronutrients and are much more filling than they look!
Eat a range of seeds like hemp, sunflower, pumpkin, poppy, chia, flax, milk thistle and unhulled sesame seeds. You can make a range of them into seed bars for breakfast by adding banana (you puree first), sprouted organic oats and raw organic honey. Unhulled sesame (comes in light brown or black color) is rich in calcium. Flax and chia seeds are full of omega 3 oils which are needed for brain and nerve function. Pumpkin seeds are very important for male prostate health and heart and bone health. They are also rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, selenium, beta carotene and iron.
Seeds should preferable be soaked for 4 hours before using them. Chia seeds will gel with the water and that chia gel becomes a great binder to make breakfast bars. Flax will gel but not as much as chia. Flax can also be ground in a simple coffee grinder like from Krups brand. Flax starts becoming rancid very fast so best to grind it and bake right away or eat it fresh in a smoothie. Eating flaxseeds without soaking or grinding will pass through the system completely and no nutrients absorbed. You can grind milk thistle seeds and add it to a breakfast bar or smoothie. Milk thistle helps the liver detox. It’s either grind or soak the seeds. Because once soaked, you won’t be able to grind them.
Safe cooking oils
These oils are fine to use: organic extra virgin olive oil, tallow from grass fad meat fat that you can make yourself, organic cold pressed coconut oil (great in baked goods), butter from organic raw milk. Oils are not a healthy source of fat because they are an extraction from the whole food. This list contains oils that are ok to use because they are unprocessed or minimally processed. The Mediterranean diet is known to be healthy not because of the olive oil they consume, but because of the salads. Healthy sources of fats are foods that in their whole form contain healthy fats like avocado, walnuts and sardines (not in an aluminum can).
Cold pressed avocado oil has a low smoke point naturally and has flavor tinge like avocado. Avocado oil in Whole Foods or Costco are too processed to be healthy, since they undergo processing to have a high smoke point. (Processed avocado oil no longer has an avocado flavor.)
Dangerous free radicals are created when not following the proper smoke points in cooking oils.
Why is fish not on the food pyramid?
In a unpolluted world, fish is very healthy. But fish is not included on the food pyramid since fish now contains heavy metals and toxins. Farmed fish is worse than wild because they contain toxins like PCBs, dioxins and methylmercury. Fish from the Pacific Ocean is worse than fish from the Atlantic Ocean because the Pacific is polluted with radioactive Cesium 137, from the Fukushima nuclear spill in 2011. Wild Atlantic fish would be the best choice and only smaller fish to prevent bioaccumulation of metals. Smokestacks in China and India release metals from unchecked manufacturing waste into the environment. The rain then brings these metals from the air into the ocean. Heavy metals do not melt or disappear and they end up in the wildlife in the oceans.
Safe sweeteners
Raw organic unfiltered honey and pure, unprocessed stevia. Buy it at an herbal shop like mountainroseherbs.com; it should be a green color. Processed sugar causes degenerative diseases, damages the immune system, and causes cancer. One teaspoon of sugar in an adult unbalances the calcium-phosphorus balance in the body for 72 hours! The right calcium-phosphorus balance is needed to prevent disease. Simple carbs have the same negative impact on the body as sugar. Processed sugar is extremely addictive and is more addictive than cocaine. That is why cigarette manufacturers add sugar to tobacco, to make cigarettes more addictive. It takes two weeks after stopping to eat sugar for the intense sugar cravings to subside.
A note on salt and supplements:
Sodium works like a magnet to draw water into cells, which is critical for maintaining hydration. Salt also contains the electrolytes magnesium, calcium, and potassium. Since sodium is lost through sweat, adding a bit of unrefined salt to water is the way to rehydrate and maintain electrolyte balance after exercise.
Processed white salt is ultra-processed, bleached, stripped of natural trace minerals, and has added chemicals and aluminum to keep the salt from absorbing water and clumping. Processed foods have tremendous amounts of processed sodium which can cause health problems. Most salt in its natural state is gray or pinkish in color. Unprocessed salt is vital for body life functions. You can buy light gray salt called Celtic salt or pink salt like Redmond Real Salt or Himalayan salt.
Packaged vitamins in a bottle are harmful because they are extractions or synthetic and contain no enzymes. They are harmful for the liver. Vitamins are in the nourishing foods you eat. If you want to take supplements, they should be things in nature in their whole form that have unique, heavy duty benefits like:
Algae chlorella and spirulina, turmeric and ginger root you can buy fresh, dry nettle to make into a tea, unprocessed sea weeds like kelp, dulse, hijiki, arame (but not from the Pacific because of radioactive substances since Fukushima nuclear spill) which help the thyroid produce more hormones, unhulled sesame seeds for calcium, garlic you ferment yourself to prevent cancer and build immune health , bee pollen which has so many trace minerals and bitter greens like dandelion and milk thistle which help the liver detox.
What chemicals in food to avoid
Anything processed in a factory is harmful and has many unlisted chemicals. But if you are choosing between processed foods these are some important additives to avoid:
Artificial sweeteners
These are six artificial sweeteners approved for use in the US and they are all unsafe.
Aspartame (NutraSweet/Equal)
Acesulfame potassium (Acesulfame K, Ace K)
Neotame
Saccharin (Sweet ‘N Low, Sweet Twin)
Sucralose (Splenda, NatraTaste Gold)
Aspartame sold under the name NutraSweet and Equal is a very toxic fake sweetener chemical which breaks down into the body into three parts: phenylalanine (50%) which can be neurotoxic and cause seizures, Aspartic acid (40%) which can cause brain damage in the developing brain, Methanol (10% ) which is metabolized into formaldehyde, an obvious toxin. Methanol is a wood alcohol and is considered poisonous. Aspartame is considered a possible carcinogen.
Diet Coke and sugar free gum contain aspartame. Because of this, Regular Coke is preferable to drink over Diet Coke. (Coke is full of refined sugar, which causes cancer and all degenerative diseases. It also has caramel color and many other chemicals. )
A short partial list of the 92 long term immediate adverse effects of aspartame are anxiety, tinnitus, depression, dizziness, headaches, insomnia, death.
Artificial sweeteners actually cause weight gain and make it almost impossible to lose weight. The book ‘The Slightly Greener Method,’ by Harris explains more.
Nitrates and Nitrites
Nitrates and nitrates are used in cured and processed meats, fish and cheese. In 2006, nitrates and nitrites were classified as a probably human carcinogen. Processed meats have been linked to cause colon cancer. High maternal intake of cured meats have been linked to increased childhood brain tumors in their offspring. Nitrates can also disrupt thyroid function.
Celery powder is not a safe replacement for nitrates! It contains nitrates in concentrations equivalent or higher than those found in traditional sodium based sources.
Natural flavors
The ingredients in natural flavors do not need to be disclosed as they are considered trade secrets. Legally, natural flavors can include one hundred different chemicals. These chemicals can include preservatives, solvents and other additives. Food and beverage manufacturers are not required to disclose where these additives come from natural or synthetic sources.
Artificial flavors
Artificial flavors are created in a laboratory by flavor chemists,. They can be made up of any combination of nearly 700 FDA allowed flavoring chemicals or food additives that have been deemed GRAS. It can also be an additional 2,000 other chemicals allowed by the Flavor and Extract Manufacturers Association of the US.
High fructose corn syrup
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been linked to health effects such as diabetes, wrinkling of the skin, obesity and collagen aging. It was created to create a cheaper sweetener than sugar, made from corn. By 2004, HFCS ballooned to 42 percent of all caloric sweeteners. HFCS can also be contaminated from the production process where the HFCS is made with mercury grade caustic soda. Mercury exposure can cause memory and brain damage, kidney issues and heart function alteration.
Eating restaurant food is a source for HFCS.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG)
Monosodium Glutamate is the most widely used food additive in the world. It is found in many processed foods, including chips, salad dressings, sauces. soups, spices, takeout, vitamins and medications. MSG can cause obesity, headaches, heart palpitations, tingling feelings or face tightening. Some believe that MSG can affect the development of the nervous system to cause learning disabilities or ADHD, even years later.
Common MSG ingredients you’ll see listed on the label: hydrolyzed vegetable protein, textured vegetable protein, yeast extract or autolyzed yeast, MSG may also be hiding under the term natural flavors. These ingredients always contain MSG: glutamic acid, glutamate, monosodium glutamate, calcium caseinate, sodium caseinate, yeast extract, yeast food, yeast nutrient, autolyzed yeast, gelatin, textured protein, spy protein isolate, whey protein/ whey protein isolate, anything with the words ‘protein,’ ‘hydrolyzed,’ ‘hydrolyzed protein,’ or ‘protein fortified.’ Anything with the words ‘enzyme,’ ‘enzyme modified,’ or ‘fermented.’
Artificial Colors
Artificial colors are petroleum based dyes that make food and beverages colorful and more uniform color. Red No 40, Red 40, Yellow No 5, Yellow No 6 contain benzidine a known human and animal carcinogen. Blue No 1 crosses the blood brain barrier and can cause ADHD. Food can be colored using healthy options like turmeric, beets, strawberry powder, blueberry and matcha powder.
Carrageenan
BHT and BHA
Sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate
BHT and BHA
Sodium benzoate or potassium benzoate
Suggested book reading list
Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon (based on Dr Weston Price’s book)
How Not to Die by Dr Greger
Eat to Live by Dr Fuhrman
Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel
