A friend recently asked why so many of his work colleagues were being diagnosed with quite serious health issues. Without knowing their situations, this was not an easy question to answer.
As a general recommendation, a few dietary changes can often relieve many symptoms. These usually include elimination of wheat, dairy, artificially flavoured/coloured/sweetened foods, processed foods, GMO foods/ingredients, limiting alcohol and caffeine while ensuring adequate intake of purified water. Add a little exercise, rest and relaxation and they should notice improvements after only two weeks. However, when my friend suggests these he is often greeted with the phrase: “but my grandparents ate bread, drank beer and lived to an old age!”
This statement is correct. However, we need to consider that our grandparents grew up in a vastly different environment from the one we live in today.
- Many worked physically outdoors in natural light rather than spent their days sitting indoors.
- Many women were at home and cooked foods from fresh, seasonal produce.
- Meat came from animals grazing on grass rather than feedlots and fed on genetically modified corn.
- Meat and poultry were not fed growth enhancers or antibiotics.
- Fish came from the oceans.
- Children were given a total of six vaccinations – often not before the age of 5 (rather than nearly 22 vaccinations containing 118 antigens between birth and age 3)
- They lived in a world devoid of electronic equipment – no computers, laptops, tablets, mobile phones, mobile phone towers, high voltage power lines
- There were far less chemicals sprayed onto crops
- There was less stress.
- Sweet foods were indeed a rare treat instead of a daily thing.
- Foods were not genetically modified.
- Children stayed at home when they were sick rather than taking antibiotics.
The wheat used today is vastly different from wheat grown early last century. Scientists have found that gluten in GM wheat is structurally different from anything that occurs in nature. If food is information that helps our body function, grow and repair, what happens when our body can’t understand the food anymore? The increased consumption of grains has been linked to increased rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and even neurological, hormonal and mental illness.
The Harvard Gazette writes: “The milk we drink today is quite unlike the milk our ancestors were drinking” without apparent harm for 2,000 years, she said. “The milk we drink today may not be nature’s perfect food.” Earlier studies bear out Ganmaa’s hypothesis that eating dairy heightens the risk of some cancers. Butter, meat, eggs, milk, and cheese are implicated in higher rates of hormone-dependent cancers in general, she said. Breast cancer has been linked particularly to consumption of milk and cheese.
If we continue doing what we have been doing these past five decades, we will continue suffering the increasing incidence of lifestyle diseases which include diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, immune disorders and cancer. It is a choice for every individual to make.