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Foods to avoid
(A general overview)

It may be a cliché, but it is absolutely true: you are what you eat.  Your body uses the food you eat to build, repair and generally function.

The new fad is ‘five a day’ of either fruit or vegetables.  The problem is, the proportions are not specified.  Moreover, there is a problem with the ‘fruit’ part.

Fruit itself is not actually good for you, however much people want to believe it, because all fruits are filled with sugar, fructose to be exact.  More than that, modern day fruits are cultivated to have a higher sugar content.  In the past, apples would have tasted slightly bitter and strawberries would not have tasted anywhere as sweet as they do nowadays.

Sugar in any form is bad.  There are several types, but the main ones are processed sugar (white), fructose (found in fruits), glucose (found in carbohydrates like corn) and lactose (found in milk).   Only a small amount of it is used in the immediate to give you energy and the pancreas has to work overtime to convert it into something useable: fat, which is stored, not used.  This is why people on high carbohydrate diets tend to be overweight.

Sugar is actually a poison and is so bad that the white blood cells in your body that are normally used to fight infections will go after sugar before they will go after viruses.  Sugar is also more addictive than cocaine.  Tests done with animals showed that they would go for the sugar in preference to cocaine, even when both were available.  Cocaine only lights up part of the brain, whilst sugar lights up the entire brain.  So it is not the fact that your body wants or needs sugar, it is that your brain is addicted to it, craves it.  The next time you want something sweet, remember it is just your brain trying to trick you into having a ‘fix’.

Second to sugar in their addictive qualities are carbohydrates.  These include such things as pasta, bread, potatoes and rice.  All of these turn into sugar when they are digested by the body which makes them highly addictive.  This explains why so many people find it difficult to come off a high carbohydrate diet.  However, it is possible to do.  I have done it myself.

The most overused carbohydrate in our society is wheat.  It is used to make many products: pastries, bread, pasta, noodles and it is also used in many sauces, so always look at the ingredients.  There are many problems with wheat.

Firstly, the wheat that is consumed today is not the same as the wheat our ancestors ate.  It has been bred to yield more and in a shorter time.  Secondly, certain chemicals are used to speed up ripening so that a second crop can be grown within a year.  Thirdly, the new breed of wheat has a far higher gluten content.  Gluten is a protein found not just in wheat, but also in barley and rye and it causes most people a lot of problems, but because these problems are not obvious, people don’t realise they have them.  I will write more on gluten intolerance and ceoliac’s disease in a separate article.

Gluten can also be found in oats due to the way they are harvested.  Unless, specifically stated as ‘gluten free’, this means that the machines used to harvest wheat, barley and rye, have also been used to harvest the oats.  The oats will not be different, just the machines used to harvest them.

Another overused food in our society is potatoes.  Potatoes are part of the nightshade family, as are peppers, aubergines and tomatoes.  The deadly nightshade is a plant which, as its name suggests, is deadly.  All of the foods that are part of the nightshade family are mildly toxic and should only be consumed rarely as a general rule.

Corn, which is another carbohydrate, is not easily digested by the body.  Moreover, there is the risk that it is genetically modified (GM), even in the UK.  There is strong evidence to support the idea that GM foods are carcinogenic, meaning they cause cancer.  As for corn syrup, which is found in sweets, sauces and other processed foods such as salami, this has been highly processed and should be avoided as much as possible.

Soy is also problematic.  It is found in so many different products including chocolate.  Soy is predominantly oestrogen-based.  Oestrogen is a female hormone.  When overly consumed by women it can cause imbalances in the body which may include fibroids.  When consumed by men it can cause many other problems.  Avoid soy milk like the plague.  Soy milk is the toxic derivative of the soy bean and is carcinogenic.

Finally, I would like to write briefly about pasteurisation.  Some foods that are pasteurised include milk, eggs and honey.  The process of pasteurisation requires heating the food to a high temperature to kill off bacteria.  The problem is, it also denatures the food, essentially killing everything good about it.  Pasteurised milk, for example, has very few nutrients in it and ultra-high temperature (UHT) milk has no nutrients in it whatsoever.  This pasteurisation and, therefore, denaturing of food causes a lot of problems for people’s bodies as the body has to use its own resources to digest it, hence the body reacts negatively and you get such things as lactose intolerance.

Now that we have established what is not good for you and briefly why, find out what you CAN eat in Part II: The good foods.

How quickly do you digest your food?

Do you prefer a vegetarian diet or a protein-based one?  Do you find that meat just sits in your stomach or do you thrive on it?

Let me explain why:

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of ‘metabolism’ is as follows:

“The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life”

In other words, how quickly or slowly you digest your food.  There are three basic types of metabolism, known as ‘metabolic type’: Fast, slow and balanced.  There are many other types in between, but these are the main ones.  Each of these types have certain foods which their bodies thrive on and others which cause problems (even if they are not obvious).

A fast oxidiser (we use oxygen to metabolise our food, hence the term) is someone who digests their food quickly.  Because of this, a fast oxidiser needs food that will take a longer time to be digested.  This includes good quality fat such as unpasteurised cheese and high density protein such as beef and lamb.  Certain types of fish can also be consumed, but as a general rule, it ought to be eaten only rarely as it is not dense enough.  There are also certain vegetables that a fast oxidiser can and cannot eat.  For example green beans and cauliflower are good, but, ironically, broccoli and cabbage are not well tolerated by a fast oxidiser, even though they are part of the same brassica family as the cauliflower.

The fast oxidiser’s main diet should consist mainly of protein and fat with some vegetables and very few carbohydrates, if any, such as potatoes and pasta.  This could be considered as a modified Atkins diet.  In fact, carbohydrates should be considered a treat.  Onion and garlic are also not tolerated, but, personally, as a fast oxidiser, I have never allowed that to stop me as they enhance meals so well!  If a fast oxidiser just ate carbohydrates, they would find themselves constantly hungry.  They would have one meal, say bread, porridge or fruit in the morning, and would feel hungry only an hour or so later because these foods are digested very quickly.  They also turn straight to sugar in the body.

As much as a vegetarian diet may be morally right for a fast oxidiser, it is not physically right for their bodies.  However, as long as their lack of high density meat is substituted with lots of good quality fat, they should fare reasonably well.  A person’s body is very good at adapting, as well, so as long as good quality food is being supplied, it will be able to function well enough, but not necessarily optimally.

A slow oxidiser is someone who digests their food slowly.  This means they cannot tolerate high density protein and do a lot better on fish and vegetables, including salads.  A slow oxidiser’s diet should consist of all the opposite foods from that of a fast oxidiser.  Carbohydrates are well tolerated by slow oxidisers and can be made a good part of the diet.  A porridge would last well for a slow oxidiser and they would not feel hungry until lunch time.  On the other hand, if a slow oxidiser ate something like lamb, they would find it would sit in their stomach for hours and feel most uncomfortable, so a vegetarian diet would be ideal for a slow oxidiser.

A balanced oxidiser is someone who digests their food neither quickly nor slowly.  These people can eat almost anything with no adverse effects.  They also tend to be more tolerant to gluten than most.

All of this is general and not specific.  Every person is unique and has their own specific needs.  There are some fast oxidisers who cannot tolerate certain meats for example, so do what feels right for you.

A very basic way of finding out whether you are a fast or slow type is to see how you react to sugar.  A fast type would have a sharp increase in energy after consuming sugar, along with the classic sharp come down afterwards.  A slow type would be able to sustain the increase in energy for a much longer period and would not have any side effects.  Also, judge for yourself: how do you feel when you eat meat?  Sated or uncomfortable?

To find out more specifically what metabolic type you are, please contact me for an appointment by emailing me at: contact@chiverstherapies.com

Happy eating!

Friend or Foe?

Do you consider ‘Cholesterol’ akin to a swear word?  Do you believe cholesterol causes heart disease?  Would you be surprised to learn that current trends are turning away from this belief and people, including doctors, are beginning to realise that cholesterol is, in fact, good for you?

Experts are now starting to accept what many have long be stating: that cholesterol is good and does not cause heart disease, but rather it is bad food and stress that are the problems.

Cholesterol is used by the body in many different ways.  Among them are the following:

1. It is used to make Vitamin D;
2. It is used to make almost all your hormones;
3. It is the glue that keeps your cells together and thus your entire body together;
4. It makes up the majority of your brain; and
5. It is generally protective and is the first thing that arrives at the site of a wound, even before clotting cells. This is an important factor with regard to the levels of cholesterol in your body as I will discuss below.

In fact, cholesterol is so important to the body that the body actually creates it itself in the liver.  The food you eat plays very little part in how much cholesterol is in your body because the body will only use a very small proportion of it and discard the rest.  You could eat as many eggs (which are filled with cholesterol) as you wanted and not raise your cholesterol levels to any significant level.  Also, if the body uses any cholesterol from your food, it will decrease production of it in the liver accordingly.  There is always balance depending on how much the body needs at that time.

There is such a thing as good and bad cholesterol, but not in the way that most people generally understand them.  People are told that cholesterol that goes to the heart is bad and the cholesterol that moves away from the heart is good because it is taking cholesterol away from the body and you want to get rid of as much of it as possible.  But, with everything you now know cholesterol does for the body, that would be disastrous.  The less cholesterol a person has in their body, the sicker they become.  In old people particularly, the more cholesterol you have, the better you feel and the longer you tend to live.

This is because cholesterol protects the body from harm.  The more stressed you are, the more cholesterol you will have in your bloodstream.  The more wear and tear in your body, the more cholesterol is produced to heal the wounded sites.  So if you do find that you have too much cholesterol in your body, think of it as a warning signal telling you that something is wrong and the body is reacting to it by increasing the amount of cholesterol.  It could be that you are unwell in some way and the moment you get better, cholesterol levels will decrease because it is no longer needed.

Good cholesterol is stable and found in saturated fats like butter and animal fat, whilst bad cholesterol is oxidised and found in processed foods like vegetable oils (margarine) and powdered milk.  Think of all the confectionery that is eaten every day which is made with powdered milk and all the cheap fast food like chips that is consumed every day.

If you eat cheap food, you will have cheap health.  Help yourself by consuming good quality food as much as you can and that includes saturated fats that contain cholesterol.

The tide is finally turning.  Cholesterol is now gradually being recognised as no longer the enemy, but rather a crucial element to health.