You may think these common, everyday foods are healthy but could be doing you more harm than good. Read on to find out more about some of the food you most likely have in your pantry that could be doing serious damage to your health.
Breakfast Cereal
For many people a typical breakfast would be a quick bowl of breakfast cereal in milk. That’s made with whole grains, that’s healthy right?… Wrong!
Aside from being jam packed with sugars, and often full of artficial flavours and preservatives.
Breakfast cereals such as Corn Flakes, puffed rice, puffed wheat, shredded wheat etc. are all made using a process known as extrusion. Extrusion machines use high temperature and pressure. Grains are cooked and shaped with the one machine extremely quickly. This process changes the protein structures of the grain essentially turning them into toxins.
Extruded grains have been linked to organ dysfunction and nerve degeneration. In a study at Michigan University researchers split 18 rats into 3 groups, one group was fed on extruded cereal (cornflakes) and water, another on rat food and water and the third group was given the cardboard box the cereal came in and water. The rats fed on normal rat food remained healthy for the whole year. Unsurprisingly, the box fed rats died of malnutrition, but every single one of them lived until the last of the cereal fed rats. The cornflake fed rats became sick, they threw fits, bit one another, showed signs of schizophrenic behaviour and had convulsions before they died .
Organic cereal uses organic grains but they still use the same extrusion process, so in this case organic does not mean healthy. It just means that healthier grains have been used, the toxins are still present.
Unfermented Soy
Traditionally soy has been fermented to neutralise toxins before consumption. These days, to save time and money, soy is not typically fermented anymore unless it is made into products such as tempeh and sometimes tofu.
You will find soy in just about everything you buy in a packet or a box. People are even touting soy as a healthy vegan alternative to just about everything; cheese, yoghurt, ice-cream, milk, hotdogs and even faux bacon can be found made out of unfermented soy.
High temperature processing denatures and destroys the fragile proteins in soy, the bioavailability of the usually beneficial b12 then becomes virtually non-existent. Not only is our body completely unable to use the vitamin, it actually increases the bodies need for b12 and Vitamin D. Toxic D2 is added to many soy milks to try and compensate. Additionally soy food processing results in the formation of MSG (a widely known neurotoxin) and highly carcinogenic lysinoalanine.
Soy also contains phytoestrogens (dietary estrogen), which of course means consuming soy will typically increase your levels of estrogen. Many People claim this to be a good thing, especially for menopausal women, but phytoestrogens disrupt endocrine function and can cause fertility problems and an increased chance of breast cancer.
Soy phytoestrogens are also potent anti-thyroid agents. They can cause hypothyroidism and thyroid cancer. Soy formula has been linked to auto-immune thyroid disease in children.
Low Fat and No Fat Products
Many people believe that the saturated fat in dairy products causes health problems such as heart disease, when in fact there is no significant evidence to suggest this is true (it’s trans fats that are proven to cause this).
Health conscious people and marketing agencies have jumped on the low-fat band wagon thinking that it will help people lose weight and be healthier. The truth of the matter is that when you remove the fat content of milk, you remove much of the goodness. Vitamins and minerals are lost and so are enzymes which are essential in helping your body break down proteins. This can lead to intolerances and malnutrition. Without the fat needed to absorb vitamins and minerals, the nutritional value of the product is very small. Not only that but fat is where all the flavour is, taking that away makes dairy taste absolutely awful. This leads to all sorts of nasties such as sugars and flavours being added to the product to make it palatable.
Dairy fat is also contains oleic acid- which is proven to lower cholesterol, as well as a type of fat known as CLA ( conjugated linoleic acid) which lowers the risk of many cancers along with the vitamin A (in the fat).
Refined White Flour
Bread, pasta, biscuits, cakes, crackers all contain refined white flour and we are almost all guilty of eating them. Refined grains are pretty much devoid of nutrients, often alternatives to white bread, such as rye bread and wholemeal bread or pasta (dried pasta has often gone through the extrusion process mentioned earlier) consist of mostly refined white flour. Unless they say whole grain flour, they are not good.
When wheat is processed into fine white flour the outer shell is often removed, taking away much of the fibre, vitamin and mineral content are also destroyed. When most of the nutritional parts are removed, the flour becomes basically just another form of sugar in your body and we all know that sugars aren’t that great.
To compensate for the extremely low nutritional value, additives such as artificial vitamins are often added. These vitamins added vitamins have nowhere near as much bioavailability as the original vitamins in the grain, and the body is not able to absorb them.
Aside from the lack of nutrients in products made with these refined grains (especially wheat) are often full of toxic chemicals which have been used throughout the growing process. Seeds are usually soaked in fungicides before being planted, then sprayed with pesticides while growing, and once harvested the wheat is stored in bins coated with insecticides. After this mass chemical assault and once the wheat is ground it then goes through a chlorine gas bath, chlorine oxide is uses to whiten and age the flour. Ageing flour improves the gluten and makes it better for baking; it used to be aged over time, now it is quickly aged with chemicals. Then finally when the flour is made into a product, a big dollop of preservatives and flavours and other additives are thrown in just to make sure you’re getting your recommended daily dose of poison.
Artificial Sweeteners
We all know refined cane sugar is bad for us and in our quest for something better we have turned to poison. Companies are marketing products with artificial sweetener as a healthier alternative to sugar, particularly in soft drink. In many cases people who want to lose weight switch to artificially sweetened soft drink without realising that artificial sweeteners actually increase your appetite and they’re still drinking all the other nasties found in regular soft-drink.
Aspartame, one of the most common artificial sweeteners has been proven to produce M.S like symptoms in people who have used it for a prolonged period of time. Once the intact of aspartame ceases the symptoms start to disappear. Excitotoxins found in Aspartame excite your tastebuds and enhance flavours, but they also overstimulate neuron receptors depleting the neurons and killing them.
Aspartame has been strongly linked to nervous system disorders, brain lesions, migraines, anxiety and other mood disorders.
Saccharine stimulates insulin production in your pancreas, without actually putting sugars into your body for the insulin to bind to. This may increase your insulin sensitivity and actually increase the risk of diabetes. Both Aspartame and Saccharine are hard for the body to break down and will often remain in your liver for long periods of time. Increased toxins in the liver lead to liver damage.
There have been a lot of conflicting studies in regards to the effects of Aspartame and Saccharine on the human body, not surprisingly the studies that say they are safe are all funded by and done by companies like Monsanto, the very companies responsible for the creation of these chemicals.
Acesulfame potassium (Ace-K) contains Methylene chloride a known carcinogen linked to various cancers, visual disturbances, headaches, depression, liver and kidney damage, nausea and mental confusion.
Stevia is becoming increasingly common as a more natural artificial sweetener. They say natural as like sugar it is derived from a plant. Not a lot of scientific studies have been undertaken on the use of refined Stevia, but keep in mind that stevia is a green plant and the sweetening component is extracted from the leaves, refined and processed until it is a fine white powder. Does that remind you of anything?
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