Healthy eating can be a very confusing topic, particularly in western countries.
And by “western countries” I actually mean 1st world countries that are predominantly white (except Europe), so all of North America, Australia, and a couple other places.
Why does the location matter? Because everywhere else if you are poor then you can’t afford the crappy food. But if you are poor in the regions I mentioned then crappy food may be all you think you can buy.
It’s weird isn’t it? Some of the wealthiest places have the worst diets because the poor always outnumber the rich.
I have always been at the lowest income bracket for my entire life so I have always had a less than stellar diet. We were so poor as kids that junk food was not really present but neither was strong nutrition because neither of my parents could actually cook.
With that said, I've also been obsessed with health since I was roughly 6 years old.
I used to wake up at 5am to watch the most low budget show hosted by a nutritionist. This obsession to learn about health never abated.
When I became pregnant, my desire to live healthy was reignited and I refreshed my knowledge of nutrition. Prior to this I had developed some terrible junk food habits, now it was time to clean them up but it had to be done cheaply.
After going through the cupboards and fridge I realized just how much of my diet was dominated by 2 things: sugar and wheat.
If those were removed it would clean up the diet by 90%.
Sugar was hard because when you eat it excessively you cause overgrowth of certain bacteria, those bacteria will demand to be fed by triggering cravings, strong ones. To say I’m strong willed would be an understatement but I still struggled at first, coffee and the occasional ice cream are what is left of the sugar in my diet.
To achieve lowering the sugar intake I stopped buying things like cookies or other “treats”, I also made sure to read the label of everything I buy to check for sugar content (sauces for example). Thankfully I’m not a big fan of most sauces that rely on high sugar content like ketchup.
Initially I also changed my coffee sweetener to stevia as well, to be honest I loathe stevia in my coffee!
Wheat was actually harder than the sugar because it is so pervasive! They add it to everything! Initially I ignored it in things like soy sauce but over time it became clear that I am actually allergic to wheat so I found alternatives that are gluten free.
For most people who find they have trouble eating wheat they don’t actually need to remove it from their diet, they only need to switch to organic. Glyphosate is sprayed on a few grain crops (like wheat) right before harvest as a “ripening agent”. It forces the plant to ripen grain in 1-2 weeks at a time that the farmer finds convenient. Unfortunately the glyphosate becomes embedded in the grain itself, when it is eaten the glyphosate then disrupts the gut bacteria very badly and over time can cause damage to the gut itself.
I realized I was actually allergic because of how my skin started to react when exposed topically and I would have autoimmune flares even if I ate organic spelt.
Removing wheat is the single best thing I have ever done for my health. My arthritis almost never flares, migraines are vastly reduced in severity, and it forced me to find nutritionally dense alternatives such as zucchini for pasta.
At almost 33 I am in better health now than I ever was in my late teens to early 20’s.
Sometimes it’s what you take out of your diet that changes your world.
This post is part of the Food as Medicine challenge
