What your shopping cart reveals is what I studied on several of our trips to the US. As I am retired, my wife and I travel quite a bit in the US and find it interesting to watch what people place into their shopping carts.
Typical shopping cart I have observed
The typical shopping cart in a US grocery store seems to consist of white bread, pizza, bacon, hamburger meat, potato chips, cookies, cornflakes, grapes, celery, peppers, strawberries and apples. In addition many people buy prepared breaded chicken strips, milk and an assortment of fruit yogurts.
I like to comment on each of these items, what I am thinking and what precautions you need to be aware of.
White bread and pizza
The problem with white bread and pizza is the wheat, which nowadays is Clearfield wheat. A chemical company from Germany was able to chemically modify the genes of wheat in the 1960’s and 1970’s; in addition they used radiation of the seeds. The farmers liked that the new wheat (called Clearfield wheat) grew with stronger roots, shorter final stems and much larger grains so the yield per acre was higher. This type of wheat was patented under the name of Clearfield wheat and sold all around the world. What was not publicized at the time was that the gliadin content increased manifold from the composition of wheat strains used for thousands of years before. Gliadin gets rid of the glue like substance between the gut cells and causes leaky gut syndrome, something that I heard mentioned at many lectures at several of the Anti-Aging conferences of A4M in Las Vegas. This leads to exposure of immune cells to foreign proteins from the gut, which causes the immune system to hyper react with autoimmune antibodies. As a result, many persons react to wheat with indigestion and digestive problems. They may believe that they react to gluten. It is true that Clearfield wheat also has a higher gluten contents. But any tests for celiac disease will come up empty.
We don’t want to eat this as bread, burgers or pizza: but all of them are baked with the wheat that has been chemically force-hybridized into Clearfield wheat.
Bacon and hamburger meat
A prospective study of 72,113 women over 18 years found a definitive relationship between dietary patterns and cancer and heart attacks. A prudent diet with a high intake of vegetables, fruit, legumes, fish, poultry, and whole grains had a very low cancer and heart attack rate. Conversely a Western diet consisting of high intake of red meat, processed meat, refined grains, French fries, and sweets/desserts led to a higher cardiovascular mortality risk of 22% and a higher cancer mortality risk of 16%.
There is another question you should ask: is it grain-beef or is the beef grass-fed?
Meat from grass-fed beef contains 5-times the amount of omega-3 fatty acids compared to corn- or grain-fed beef. Another issue is corn, if that is fed to beef cattle. There is obviously a deliberate marketing drive claiming that corn-fed beef would have a superior taste.
This link shows that the producers only care about their profit and how much of corn-fed beef they can sell. They do not mention that corn is a GMO crop, so this feed is somehow incorporated into the meat. No one has done long-term experiments to ensure that this meat is safe to eat. Moreover, we do know from measurement that corn-fed meat contains much less omega-3 fatty acids and much more omega-6 fatty acids than grass-fed beef. Cows are meant to be grass-feeding animals. If you want to stay healthy, eat grass-fed beef, but do not consume too much or you put yourself at risk for gout from purine metabolites. Corn-fed and grain-fed beef cattle have a lot more infections including liver disease. To control this, the animals are receiving antibiotics. These antibiotics end up in the meat, which can produce superbugs. These superbgs can enter into humans through the food chain.
Bacon is another food that is not only full of saturated fat, but it contains additives, such as sodium nitrite. Give the matter some thought before you put hamburger meat and bacon into your shopping wagon!
What’s wrong about potato chips, cookies, and cornflakes?
1. Potato chips
Potatoes are rich in carbs, but they are empty carbs. Their glycemic index is in the 70 to 80 ranges. I avoid any carbs that exceed 55 (the upper limit of the low-glycemic index). Strangely enough by the time potatoes are processed into potato chips, the glycemic value is only 51, but this is deceiving. The potatoes have been processed in fat and with tons of salt. We now have a product that surely will be bad for your arteries and cause high blood pressure over the long haul. Another important fact is that potatoes belong to the 12 dirty dozens fruit and vegetables that are heavily sprayed with pesticides (see below).
2. Cookies
Cookies are a mix of various ingredients. Here is a recipe for cookies. This is even a better than average quality cookie recipe as they used unsalted butter as a fat source. In many recipes they use margarine, which is an inferior fat. It contains free radicals from the manufacturing process. It is derived from omega-6 fatty acid vegetable oils. But the worst ingredients of cookies are the nutritionally empty white flour and the sugar. Both together are digested, absorbed as sugar into your blood, and a huge insulin response occurs after you have eaten it. Even the cheap chocolate used for the chips is full of unhealthy table sugar causing your pancreas to overproduce insulin.
3. Cornflakes
As mentioned above corn is a GMO crop and we do not know the long-term effects of GMO food on humans. There are more and more reports about gut dysbiosis, leaky gut syndrome and autoimmune diseases as a result of the breakdown of the gut barrier. Pro-GMO advocates deny these possibilities. I play it safe and stick to organic fruit and vegetables. But cornflakes are also high on the glycemic index (between 77 and 93). Usually there is sugar mixed in, and the starchy component consists of empty calories. It is simply not a sensible food choice!
The dirty dozen: grapes, celery, peppers, strawberries and apples
It is known for some time that certain foods are more contaminated with pesticides than others. Some of these fruit and vegetables contain between 13 and 15 different pesticides from spraying, as this link describes. Potatoes are one of the top contaminated crops among the dirty dozen.
Why is it important to know which crop is contaminated with pesticides? Pesticides are immune disruptors. Vegetables that are supposed to be healthy for us contain residues from insecticides and herbicides that have estrogen-like activities called xenoestrogens.They are known to cause breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men.
Breaded chicken strips, milk and fruit yogurt
1. Chicken strips
Chicken are fed arsenic type antibiotics for faster growth.
The only way how to protect yourself from this contamination is by buying organic chicken, which I have done since 2001. Also, don’t buy breaded “anything” This brings us back to the wheat story mentioned under “White bread and pizza” above.
2. Milk
Milk in the US often contains antibiotics and genetically modified bovine growth hormone (rBGH), which can cause various cancers in humans as this link shows. Recombinant BGH is banned in Europe and in Canada.
3. Yogurt
Most people like fruit yogurt, which is full of sugar and fruit syrup. Plain yogurt, sweetened with a bit of stevia is healthy. But the moment it is adulterated with minimal amounts of fruit, and high amounts of sugar,this “fruit yogurt” leads to weight gain and hardening of arteries. The best yogurt product is organic 1% or 2% plain yogurt. Use fruit of your choice to make a real fruit yoghurt!
What Your Shopping Cart Reveals
Conclusion
Life is all about decisions. I like to make healthy food choices for myself. When I go grocery shopping, I notice that many people do not seem to give much thought to what they are purchasing. They likely also have never read the details about the type of facts I mentioned above. The ingredients that people buy at the grocery store are the ingredients of the Standard American Diet, a sad state of affairs indeed.
The key is to avoid wheat products because Clearfield wheat leads to leaky gut syndrome and autoimmune diseases. Next avoid processed foods and added sugar. What I have not mentioned above is the importance of cutting down on omega-6 fatty acids and to increase omega-3 fatty acids (fish, fish oil supplements). Omega-3 fatty acids are anti-inflammatory. Omega-6 fatty acids stimulate the arachidonic acid pathway leading to hardening of arteries and arthritis. This leads to stents of the coronary arteries and joint replacements of the hips and knees.
Avoid the dirty dozen of crops and buy them organic instead. Avoid milk products in the US; instead buy them organic to avoid exposure to recombinant bovine growth hormone.
It takes a bit of homework and re-education to eat healthy foods. Start reading labels! If a ten year-old cannot read the name of an additive, it should most likely be a signal for you not to buy this product! The more processed food is, the less nourishing it is likely to be. It is not a huge effort to educate yourself about products, but it does take time to steer away from old habits that are not the best for your health. Ultimately your efforts will pay dividends in terms of good health for years to come!