In today's society, both partners often work full time, often leaving them without any time or inclination to prepare wholesome nutritious meals for the family. Unfortunately, the easiest way out is to look for shortcuts by purchasing processed, refined and packaged food. In order to increase the shelf-life of packaged foods, food companies may end up removing many of the vitamins, minerals, fiber, fatty acids and essential nutrients. They add taste enhancers, colors, emulsifying agents, preservatives and many other additives to make the food look appealing and last longer.
What is Refined Food? This is simply food that has been leached off almost all essential nutrients and coated with chemicals. Refined food is well packaged and includes all type of white flour products including breads, biscuits (made with maida), macaroni, pizzas, white pasta and ready to eat soups, amongst other things.
Please remember 'fresh is the best'. Frozen or home canned come a distant second. Bottled and packaged foods should be much lower in your list. Also, many artificial sweeteners are cationic and very dangerous. The best sweeteners will be unprocessed raw honey, or stevia (that too the green powdered or the unprocessed drops). Palm sugar or coconut sugar are my personal favorite.
Refined and chemically processed food suppresses the immune system, which in turn prevents efficiency of all body processes. Infact, there are around 60,000 coloring, flavoring, preservatives, taste enhancers, emulsifiers, texture balancers and a multitude of other type of food additives that serve to poison our bodies. No wonder chronic degenerative diseases are increasing every year and the drug companies are getting richer and citizens getting sicker.
If we sit down today to check, we would realize that more than 50% of the food we eat on a daily basis is processed. It's no surprise how certain diseases that never existed in the past are now a way of life.
Eliminate Refined Sugar and Refined CarbohydratesTake charge of your health and eliminate table sugar, sucrose or any additives that ends with "ose" (maltose, lactose, fructose). Just keep in mind that refined food and sugar are always depleted in fiber and this simply slows the progress of foods passing through the intestine, which makes one most susceptible to constipation, hemorrhoids, varicose veins, colon and rectal cancers. Also, with the slower transit time through the colon, more time is allowed for putrefaction (rotting) of the refined food to occur in the colon. This allows more toxins to be absorbed by your body.
Raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are living foods. When cooked with love and care, they energize and nourish our bodies. Choose healthy cooking oils, alternatives to refined flours or white rice, and other ingredients to make sure that your diet benefits your body. It is also important to make sure that we cook our food in a manner that retains the nutrients, rather than destroy them. Food in its purer form, will always be healthier. Switch to health, it is a conscious decision, and one that will benefit your family in the long run.
About the Author:
Shilpa Arora ND is a renowned Health Practitioner, Nutritionist and certified Macrobiotic Health Coach. She has to her credit Doctorate in Natural Medicine. She is currently based in Delhi NCR region, successfully running her Nutrition Studio with individual consultations, offering life style programs supported by the most up-to-date clinical research.
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