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The Importance of Protein

by admin

Did you know that aside from water, protein is the most abundant compound found in the human body?  Protein is found in every cell and tissue, and along with healthy fats, protein plays many critical roles in keeping you alive and healthy.

Most of our bodies’ proteins are structural. The most obvious proteins that most of us would recognize are muscles.  Muscle tissue attaches to bone, and when they contract they allow us to move.  There is also specialized muscle that controls organ functions such as your heart contractions, digestive movements, and elimination functions.  Although bone is predominantly calcium, the mineral is held together with protein. Nerves are mostly fatty compounds, but protein is the framework that holds nerves together.  Blood vessels, our organs, and our skin all have structural proteins.

The importance of protein intake for humans has been known for a very long time.  Without it you would lack the building blocks needed for all tissue repair, critical enzymes and hormones you need for all of your metabolic functions, and antibodies that help your body defend against infections. Proteins are vital to all living processes and undertake a wide range of functions quintessential to sustain life.  Thus, proteins are one of the most important nutrients required by your body and must be consumed in adequate quantity and quality in your diet.

What are Proteins?
Proteins are large molecules that are made up of smaller chemicals called amino acids.  Humans need 20 different amino acids in order to produce all the proteins that your body requires.  As it turns out, your body can make adequate amounts of 10 of the amino acids on its own, but in order to get enough of the other 10, you must get them from the food that you eat.  This is why consuming protein is essential by definition.

Proteins in food fall into two categories:

1. Complete proteins: These proteins come from animal products such as chicken, fish, beef, bison, venison, duck, turkey and pork, and they contain virtually all the essential amino acids needed to help keep our bodies fit and healthy.

2. Incomplete proteins: These are found in plant foods such as grains, nuts, beans and vegetables, and provide a limited array of amino acids. Incomplete proteins must be eaten in larger quantities and combinations for you to obtain all that is needed for optimal health and function.

Obviously, animal products are your best bet for adequate protein intake, but this does not mean that if you are a vegetarian you will die of protein deprivation. Vegetarians may get enough protein by combining foods such as vegetables, beans, lentils, and brown rice, to name a few. However, it typically does take more overall caloric intake to get adequate amounts of protein if you rely solely on a vegetarian diet. This can be problematic for attaining ideal weight, blood sugar management, and optimal health. That being said, the quality of animal proteins is VERY important and therefore, being careful and knowing the source of any animal protein you consume is critical to avoiding the adverse health effects associated with grain-fed, hormone-, antibiotic-, and chemically-laden meats.  Remember, whatever the animal was fed is what you’re eating and what ultimately ends up as a building block for your body.

Dietary Sources of Protein

Bonfire-recommended/approved animal sources (complete proteins):

Naturally raised, pastured/grass fed, organic  beef, pork, lamb, goat, bison
Wild meat: venison, elk, turkey
Free range organic poultry, duck, turkey
Eggs (from healthy chickens)
Wild caught fish

Bonfire-recommended/approved vegetarian and vegan sources of incomplete proteins include:

Vegetables
Legumes
Tofu
Nuts
Seeds
Fruits

Other sources of protein are certainly out there. However, dairy, grains and products produced from them such as whey protein are not ideal because of the inflammatory effects of these foods.  Stick to the excellent, healthy sources of protein listed above whenever possible.

How Much Protein Should I Eat Every Day?
There is no one size fits all recommendation for every single person, although more research is being done on this topic.  In the U.S., adults get an average of 15 percent of their calories from protein. For a person who requires a 2,000-calorie-per-day-diet, that’s about 75 grams of protein. According to the Harvard School of Public Health, in healthy people, increasing protein intake to 20 to 25 percent of calories can reduce the risk of heart disease if the extra protein replaces refined carbohydrates such as white bread, white rice, or sugary drinks. Cutting back on highly processed carbohydrates and increasing protein intake improves levels of blood triglycerides and HDL, and so may reduce your chances of having a heart attack, stroke, or other forms of cardiovascular disease. It may also make you feel full longer, and stave off hunger pangs.

 

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA): Why to Buy Your Food Fresh and Local

by admin

Did you know that most of the nutrient content in fruits and veggies is infused by the plant into its particular fruit or veggie during the last few days of vine ripening?!

Think about this from a biological perspective.  Plants don’t just make fruits and veggies for humans and other animals for no reason.  And they don’t do it because they are being nice and providing food.  Just as with all relationships, there must be benefit on both sides for the relationship to work and continue to exist.  Plants want the same two things that all animals want, and that is to survive and reproduce.

You may be asking, “What does this have to do with eating locally?”

In order to get the latter of those two things accomplished, plants make seeds.  However, plants need time to make mature seeds, seeds that have everything they need to become a viable offspring.  Plants begin to infuse the fruit or veggie with all the nutrients that make them attractive to animals at the same time that their seeds are ready to go out into the world and make new plants, all during the last days of vine ripening.  This mechanism is brilliant, because animals are attracted to the wonderfully colored, ripe food.  Humans are animals too!  The beautiful colors naturally drive us to want to eat it!  The plant and animal both benefit from this process.  The animal takes the food and gets energy and nutrients, while the plant gets the animal to take the seed or seeds to a new location, bettering its chances of reproducing.

Waiting for a fruit or veggie to “ripen” at the store or at your house isn’t quite the same as vine ripening.  It is actually rotting.  It is the rotting process that breaks down the more complex sugars into simpler sugars that make the produce softer and sweeter.  Don’t be deceived – there are no more nutrients in store bought fruits and veggies once this process starts.  Once the fruit or veggie is picked from the plant, no more nutrients can be infused into it.  When food is picked prematurely, it is harder and travels better, but it also has far fewer nutrients.  Local foods have much less distance to travel, and therefore can be picked when they are ready, changing their composition for the better.  This is a major reason why it is so critical to eat locally.

Another reason to buy locally is that it is GREEN!  The carbon footprint involved with transporting food is much less because not as much fossil fuel is used.  Getting an apple from your backyard or the local apple farm not only tastes way better, and is more nutrient dense, but also hasn’t produced tons of pollution to get to you, as it would if it came from Washington State or South America.

Local farms are usually smaller and produce polyculture crops, meaning many different fruits and veggies.  This is healthier for the land, for the plants, and for you and your children.  Growing one crop in a huge industrial monoculture depletes the land, causing the use of petroleum based fertilizers (that’s right, gasoline-like products are used to grow your food…mmmmm).  The lack of diversity also sets the scene for disease.  Having plants grow and reproduce as nature intended makes healthier plants with more resistance to disease.  In turn, less (if any) pesticides need to be used.  Think about it:  if it is designed to kill one form of life (insect or other), it isn’t good for you or your children to gobble up.

CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  It is a term used by small farms that have a direct relationship with the people who eat the food that they grow.  As with any seller-consumer relationship, knowing the person you buy from most always enhances the service, the relationship, and the product  (think of the service at mom and pop shops versus giant corporations).  Getting your produce from a CSA can be a little more expensive, but the quality and variety of produce you can get is incredible!  Variety is important for your health because different produce has different nutrients.  We are designed to eat a variety of foods, not just bananas, apples and oranges.  Depending on your area, you usually pay for the entire season up front, and then you pick up your weekly share of fruits and vegetables at the farm, or there is a local drop-off site once a week.

Learn more about the questionable practices of industrialized farming in America throught Michael Pollan’s books: In Defense of Food & Omnivore’s Dilemma.

 

Mindful Eating: Understand the Mind-Body Connection and Take Control of the Way You Eat!

by admin

If you were given a container of popcorn to eat during a movie, do you think you would eat more popcorn if the container was bigger?  Or do you think you’d eat only however much you were hungry for?  Researcher Brain Wansink tells us that you do, in fact, eat more if the container is bigger.  In fact, he has done numerous studies on how much popcorn people eat in a movie theater.  He has even made sure that the popcorn was stale and tasteless.  Guess what happened?  People still eat lots of popcorn, always much more than they think they are eating.  They eat even more of it if it’s in a gigantic container.  And they eat it even if it doesn’t taste very good. More →

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Never Eats: The Top 10 Disease-Producing Foods

by drpaul

When attempting to make change, the rule is to add positives first – meaning, start adding good habits first, then later work on getting rid of destructive habits.

In the meantime, you can certainly start eliminating the bad stuff from your life, from your cupboards, from the choices you’re making each and every day at each and every meal.  The first rule:  out of sight, out of mind. More →

Whole Grains: How do grains affect the human body?

by admin

Grains are almost single-handedly responsible for the removal of omega-3 fatty acids in the modern diet.  That’s right, those little fats that have been getting tons of press lately are as important as suggested, and maybe even more so.  There have been over 2000 studies done on omega-3 and for good reason: the omega-3s in our diet (or the lack thereof) have massive implications on our health.  It all boils down to ratios: the ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids in your diet is so crucial, it goes down to the cellular level.

Omega-3 Fatty Acids:  Essential!
Here’s the breakdown:  There are certain fats that we need to get from our diet, called essential fatty acids, and they are used for many different things in our bodies.  One of the big ones is the way they make up our cellular membranes.  We have something called a phospholipid (phosphate + fat) bi-layer that makes up our individual cell walls.  The lipid part is made out of a delicate balance between Omega-3 and Omega-6 fats. More →

What’s in your Water? – Determining the Quality of Your Water

by admin

You want to make sure that you have the clean, pure water that your body is designed to consume.  The water you are drinking, however, while it may not be making you ill immediately, more than likely has some interesting things in it.

What is in Your Water?
Bacteria such as e. coli.  Chlorine and other chemicals used to kill bacteria.  Chemicals from environmental pollutants.  Toxic heavy metals.  Microorganisms such as Giardia and Cryptosporidium.  Organic chemicals like solvents.  Even residues of other people’s prescription medication – gross! More →

Fuel: Planning and Preparation

by admin

Critical Thinking:  Realizing that every bite moves me either toward health or away from health.  Therefore, if I don’t plan and prepare those bites, I will inevitably fall into eating convenience foods (also known as die-fast foods).

Best Practices:  Plans for all meals (we do this for you, and provide alternatives!), and shopping lists (we’ve got that covered for you too!).

Vital Behaviors:

• Set aside 30 minutes on Saturday or Sunday to plan your meals and shopping for the week ahead. Then create your shopping lists and decide which day or days you will go shopping at your nearest Whole Foods Market, Trader Joe’s, Costco, and local farmers’ market.  If the nearest Whole Foods Market is closer to your work than home, you may have to shop during your lunch hour or after work. Yes, this means you may even have to put a large ice chest/cooler with ice into your car that morning before you leave for work (we never said it would be easy, but it’s worth it!).

• The first couple of times you go through this process, it may seem like a burdensome, time-consuming hassle – but fear not, you’ll get quicker at all aspects of it in no time.  Always keep in mind the alternative is unacceptable (meaning eating convenience food/fast food/disease food).

More Helpful Resources:
Master Shopping List
Critical Concepts: Food Shopping

Blood Sugar – Understanding the Effects of the Modern Diet on Blood Sugar Levels

by admin

The typical modern diet and activity level creates regular occurrences of unhealthy blood sugar levels in your body.  Blood sugar is a term used to describe the amount of the sugar glucose that is in currently in your blood.  Glucose is the primary sugar, or carbohydrate, in your body.

When you eat food, nutrients are absorbed from your food by your digestive system.  They are then transmitted to all of your bodies’ tissues through your blood.  Your body uses a series of mechanisms to keep the concentration of sugar (and other substances) in your blood within certain ranges.

Certain organs, such as your brain, run almost exclusively on glucose.  So your body keeps blood sugar levels from dropping below a certain threshold, or level.  However, your body also strives to keep glucose from rising to levels that are too high.  See a chart of the range where your body keeps your blood sugar levels here. 

High Blood Sugar Levels

Clinically, constant spikes in your blood sugar damage your body.  There are both short-term and long-term effects of high blood sugar.  A single, sharp rise in blood sugar will create a large insulin release, preventing fat burning, promoting fat storage, and also will result in fatigue and fuzzy-headedness.  Constant, chronic high blood sugar levels are the defining characteristic of Type II Diabetes.

Related Resources:

Why Gourmet Cupcakes Are Evil

KidsHealth.org: When Blood Sugar Gets Too High

National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse: What is Diabetes?

Blood Sugar Stability

Reuters on Curbing Diabetes

Bonfire Fuel Principles

by admin

A comprehensive list of what Bonfire Health recommends in regards to…

Eating Vegetables and Fruit:

• Well People consume an abundance of whole plant foods (vegetables and fruit) as close to their natural form as possible, as often as possible.

• We choose to eat foods that are high in phytonutrients, antioxidants, fiber, vitamins and minerals.

• Our diet-style includes plentiful fiber, both soluble and insoluble.

• We prefer wild, organic produce (fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds).

• We choose to limit starchy vegetables and legumes.

• We strive to maintain a net alkaline load.

Eating Meat:

• Well people choose lean, organic, free-range meats and wild fish.

• We “earn” our animal protein based on our holistic philosophy of genetically congruent living and the integration of our lifestyle choices in how we eat, move and think.

• We practice a natural rhythm in food choices (animal proteins/meats) in accordance with the environmental pressures and natural selection experienced by our genetic ancestors to ensure optimal digestive function.

Eating Fats:

• We choose to consume abundant, healthy fats, and seek to maintain an ideal Omega 3:Omega 6 ratio.

• We choose to avoid all hydrogenated oils and trans-fats and eat healthy saturated fats.

Eating Carbohydrates:

• We choose to consume primarily abundant vegetables and some fruit.

• We choose to seek high nutrient dense carbohydrates that carry a low-glycemic load.

Drinking Fluids:

• We primarily drink pure water in abundance.

Taking Supplements:

• We recognize the value of appropriate, high-quality nutritional supplementation including a natural, whole food supplement, a pro-biotic supplement, and an essential fatty acid supplement with Vitamin D.

On Calories and Weight Loss:

• We choose to maintain an ideal energy balance by consuming only the number of calories necessary to support lean muscle mass and maintain optimal cell function.

• We seek to maintain an ideal weight through genetically congruent lifestyle choices.  We choose to create the healthy body that we desire, and we do not seek to avoid or move away from the body that we do not want.

• We eat an average of 5 times per day:  3 meals and 2 snacks.  We choose low-glycemic load snacks to achieve optimal insulin sensitivity and good health.

Eating and the Environment:

• We respectfully recognize our responsibilities in stewardship to the planet and its inhabitants, and therefore practice an environmental mindfulness in our dietary choices regarding animal protein production, industrialized farming, local fare, fair-trade, global economics and environmental impact.

Fasting and Cleansing:

• We choose to fast intermittently and cleanse pro-actively as appropriate, in order to establish a natural resting rhythm and digestion pattern.

Frequently Asked Fuel Questions:
This diet seems really strict. What gives?
What are the advantages of the Bonfire diet-style?
Is this diet style hard?
A lot of foods I regularly eat are not listed in your recommenations.  Why is that?
I thought whole grains were healthy? Why aren’t they in your recommendations?
Got milk? Why no dairy?
I thought I needed dairy for calcium to build healthy bones and teeth?
What about alcohol? I thought that a glass of red wine each day lowers your risk of heart disease?
I’m a vegetarian.  How can the Bonfire diet-style work for me?
Your recommendations seem high in fat.  Isn’t that unhealthy?
I don’t think I can give up caffeine.  Isn’t coffee good for you?
What about juice? It made of fruit, right?
So what supplements should I take?
Does everyone at your company really eat this way all the time?

This diet seems really strict. What gives?
The principles listed here are our official recommendations as your trusted wellness experts. These principles are a guideline. Health is not destination; it’s a journey.   What we have laid out here is the best-case scenario, something to strive for.  The tools that you will find within the program will help nudge you in the right direction, making the challenge easier and enjoyable. Do we expect every single person who reads these recommendations to never eat grains, dairy, sugar or alcohol ever again?  No, not really.  But it would be nice. What can we say, we’re idealists. That, and we really can’t, in good conscious, recommend that you eat any food that will not propel you towards health.

What are the advantages of the Bonfire diet-style?
Getting cancer or heart disease are not just parts of getting old.  The modern lifestyle is a promoter of chronic diseases like these as well as diabetes and dementia.  These are highly avoidable and even reversible if you make the correct lifestyle changes.  The biggest thing to remember here is that our dietary recommendations are designed to work in conjunction with an overall wellness lifestyle.  How you eat, how you move and how you think are all equally important and effect each other. This diet style is specifically designed to propel you towards health and away from chronic disease, and it will do so if you are also following our recommendations in moving and thinking.

Is this diet style hard?
Change can sometimes be hard, but this diet style is delicious! The doctors who created Bonfire, their families, their teams, and their patients are a dedicated group of food enthusiasts!! No one wants a boring, bland diet. We would never ask you to eat that way, never mind do it ourselves. What we love is real food, not processed food-like products. Most people don’t even miss their old crappy diet. This diet will help you reach your ideal weight and propel you towards health and away from sickness.


A lot of foods I regularly eat are not listed in your recommendations.  Why is that?
News flash: not everything you’ve ever been told is true.  The government has laid out dietary guidelines that have been heavily influenced by food companies.  These guidelines trickle down through schools and doctor’s offices and sometimes even nutritionist’s offices. Grains and dairy are not health foods, even if the food pyramid tells you otherwise.  At Bonfire, we don’t stand to gain financially from you eating vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, fish and lean, meat from healthy animals. The only person, who stands to make gains from that, is you!  We are here to educate, inspire and guide you without lobbyists or the government standing in the way.  Our goal: to help you be as healthy as possible.

To understand more about the oh-so flawed Food Pyramid, click here. Or check out Marion Nestle’s book: Food Politics.

I thought whole grains were healthy? Why aren’t they in your recommendations?
In the big scheme of things, grains have not been a food that humans haven been eating for very long.  You can imagine how much effort it would take to gather up enough tiny grains of wheat to make bread. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were after calorie and nutrient dense foods.  Grains were neither.  It would have taken way too much effort to make bread with very little payoff. And these days, most grains are ground up into flour before being baked, which demolishes nutrients.  Hunting meats and gathering fruits and vegetables was the priority. And it should be yours too. Learn more about grains here.

Got milk? Why no dairy?
A better questionis why WOULD you eat dairy?  Did you know that no other species consumes the milk of another species?  Or that no other species even consumes their own milk past early childhood?  Dairy is a high-calorie, low-nutrient food, designed to help baby cows grow very quickly. Dairy is also a very inflammatory food and highly acidic. The idea of consuming dairy in the first place is the oddity. Our recommendations are based on how the healthiest people on the planet live. And with that in mind, consuming dairy is not is one of our recommendations. Got milk? No. Got health? Yes!

I thought I needed dairy for calcium to build healthy bones and teeth?
Strong bones and teeth come from eating organic vegetables and exercise, not eating dairy products (contrary to what the dairy industry has been skillfully advertising for years). Many dairy products are fortified (added in) with calcium, unfortunately the highly inflammatory nature of dairy makes it hard to actually build bone health through these sorts of foods.  Your body has a very sensitive optimal pH level for every tissue, every organ, every environment in your body.  When you eat inflammatory foods, your body releases calcium from your bones to balance the pH back.  This CAUSES osteoporosis.

Calcium is present in many fruits and vegetables. If you are eating a diet that is consistently rich in vegetables, you will meet your daily requirements.  If you skip inflammatory foods, you will be at a much lower risk for osteoporosis.

What about alcohol? I thought that a glass of red wine each day lowers your risk of heart disease?
People love to hear good things about their bad habits. Its true that red wine contains antioxidants. This is not enough of an advantage to account for the many disadvantages of drinking alcohol. Alcohol is literally toxic. It inflames the stomach lining, disrupting digestion.  Alcohol is essentially empty calories that are inflammatory and acidic. Alcohol attacks our stores of vitamins and minerals. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it encourages the body to lose more water than it takes on, speeding up the loss of fluid from your body, leading to dehydration.  Alcohol is also a depressant, meaning it can actually make you feel emotionally depressed. It also has addictive qualities and can also be quite costly depending on what you drink and how often. There are no arguable health benefits aside from antioxidants being present. And keep in mind this is for red wine only, not beer, not vodka tonics or Old Fashions, and certainly not in whatever sugar-laden cocktail is the drink of the day at your local martini bar. This too, is a commercial, sales-driven justification to trick you into consuming a product that you should actually be staying away from. And if you are eating a nutrient dense diet rife with fruits and vegetables as we recommend, then you are most certainly satisfactory on daily antioxidant requirements.  Do yourself a favor and pass.

I’m a vegetarian.  How can the Bonfire diet-style work for me?
Vegetarianism is brave and honorable.  It is very, very difficult to do it in a healthy way. The major difficulty is posed in access to enough protein. This leaves the body wanting more and a common mistake if for people turn to grains or sugary foods. We do however attempt to provide vegetarian and vegan menu plans for Bonfire.

Your recommendations seem high in fat.  Isn’t that unhealthy?
There are vast public misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding fat.  Inflammation in your arteries is what causes plaque buildup. Your body repairs nicks with plaque like a band-aid. Over time, if you continue eating inflammatory foods, you will continue to build plaque.  This process has nothing to do with cholesterol. Learn more about fat here.

I don’t think I can give up caffeine.  Isn’t coffee good for you?
Caffeine is a tough one. Caffeine dehydrates your body, which is terrible for you!!  Maintaining hydration is one of the most important health steps you can take.  This combined with the fact that most people take their coffee with milk or cream and sugar?  Not to mention that caffeine intake can disrupt your vital sleep patterns. All in all, a recipe for disaster.  If you can manage, try to keep the caffiene intake at bay.

What about juice? It made of fruit, right?
If you were a hunter-gatherer a million years ago, if you wanted an orange, what do you think you would have done?  Would you have sit and peeled 8 oranges and then eaten them all at once?  No!  You’d peel and eat one.  And likewise you shouldn’t be downing fruit juices.  If you want to achieve your ideal weight one of the most effective approaches is to eliminate your intake of liquid calories. All the fiber has been removed and all the sugars are concentrated. It is not a natural way to ingest fruit.  It spikes your insulin and a glass of orange juice can have as much sugar as a glass of soda.  That being said, if you occasionally want something other than water to drink as a treat, here are some tips.  Make sure to buy juice that does not have any sugar added. And pour your glass ¼ of the way full with juice and then fill the rest with water.  This will reduce the glycemic response as well as slow the fructose intake.  It is also a tasty way to up your intake of water for the day.

So what supplements should I take?
Bonfire recommends the following supplements be taken every day:  An Omega-3 fish oil, a Whole Food Supplement, Pro-biotic Supplement and Vitamin D.   This is the best way to ensure that you are giving your body everything it needs. To learn more about essential supplementation click here.

Does everyone at your company really eat this way all the time?
Yes. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Stealthy Sugars: Understanding Your Body’s Response to Sugar

by admin

Ever walked through the breads section in a store and thought “mmmmm?”  Ever noticed how sweet the smell is?  That’s because breads (even whole grain), along with other processed grains such as pastas, tortillas, pitas, etc. are really fairly simple, fiber-less sugars disguised in a more fluffy form.  Why is that a big deal?  Well, here is the gist.

Processed foods (foods no longer in their natural form, the only way you eat grains) have very little fiber and therefore a huge glycemic load.
This means your stomach digests that food down to sugars that enter your blood stream very quickly.  The problem with that is that historically, in nature we would never come in contact with a food like that (except maybe honey and that would only be around seasonally, along with some angry bees).  Pretty much all other natural foods (i.e. from the earth:  veggies, fruits, nuts, seeds, lean meats) are loaded with tons of nutrients, one of them being soluble fiber which slows the absorption of those sugars into your blood stream.

Where are you getting your fiber?
A common misconception is that cereals and whole grains are a good source of fiber, but when compared to fruits and veggies, they pale in comparison.  Per 1000 calories, processed grains have roughly 6-24 grams of fiber, whereas fruits have 41 grams and vegetables have a staggering 185 grams! (Paleo Diet for Athletes p 101).  Slowing the absorption of sugars is important because high blood sugar is stressful to the body.  One of the major reasons high blood sugar is stressful to the body is its negative role on your immune system function.

The Immune System
You see, your immune system is a powerful system of white blood cells (WBC) that police your body, finding and destroying foreign objects (bacteria, viruses).  Now these WBCs require, amongst other things, Vitamin C to function properly.  Think of the WBCs like the police force in a city and the Vitamin C is like the weapons that are given to the cops to deal with criminals.  Sugar (a.k.a. grains/bread) has a structure very similar to that of Vitamin C, so the Vitamin C absorption sites are blocked and the WBCs get bogged down with sugar and can’t get the Vitamin C that they need.  This has a terrible effect on the efficiency of your immune system.  Have you ever heard that a can of Coke or a candy bar decreases your immune system function?  This is why.

This is exactly why people are told to take Vitamin C when they are sick.  Vitamin C supplements boost the amount of that essential vitamin in our blood, allowing the WBCs a chance to get the weapons they need.  This does not mean that we should always be taking Vitamin C; it means we need to eat a diet rich in veggies and fruits because they are naturally loaded with Vitamin C and other nutrients, and their sugars are released much more slowly.  This natural way of eating keeps our immune system healthy, rather than treating a toxic super-sugary lifestyle.

Grains and Diabetes (Our Children’s Cancer)
Did you know that of the children born in the year 2000, 30% are predicted to be diagnosed with diabetes during their lifetime.  Diabetes Type II (Diabetes Melitus) is now the 7th leading cause of death in the US. Click here to see more statistics about Diabetes Type II.

It’s also completely preventable, avoidable, and reversible.

Insulin
When you eat sugar or processed grains (a muffin, piece of toast, bowl of pasta or cereal), your blood sugar spikes very quickly, causing your pancreas to put out insulin.  Insulin is a hormone that is required to allow sugar to enter into our cells.  You should think about insulin like a door man, knocking on the cell’s door to let it know that there is sugar outside for use.  Without the doorman (insulin), the sugar just floats through the bloodstream, causing eventual havoc on our tissues.  This is a brilliant system; you eat food, it’s broken down into sugars, and insulin gets it into the cells.  Here is the problem:  the western diet, with its high amounts of processed foods (grains, sugars, fiber-less food substances) and low amounts of vegetables and fruits, is the exact recipe to keep super high amounts of sugar in our blood.  This means that our pancreas is always stressed, producing more and more insulin, which then is constantly pounding on the cell’s doors yelling “Hey cell, there is some sugar out here, hey, hey HEY!!”   Well, cells are just like you and me, and that constant knocking is not only annoying but stressful, so your cells will down-regulate their insulin receptors (decrease the number of doorways for the sugar).  This down regulation results in something called insulin resistance.  Insulin resistance is when your cells become resistant to insulin, so they no longer listen to the doorman.  This is the definition of type II diabetes (Diabetes Miletus).

Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance results in a constant high blood sugar content which is damaging to our tissues.  In addition, insulin is used not only to get sugar into the cells, but it also it serves as a door man for many other nutrients.  This means that insulin resistance (DM II) causes nutrient starvation.  Once insulin resistant, our cells have a difficult time getting calcium, magnesium and a host of other nutrients because the door man has annoyed our cells for too long, and many of the doors have been boarded up.  Insulin resistance plays a role in many adaptive physiological processes, such as osteoporosis due to decreased storage of calcium, and high blood pressure due to decreased magnesium uptake.

Another interesting fact surrounding insulin resistance is that not all of our cells board up their doors (down-regulate insulin receptors) at the same rate.  First, our liver down regulates, then our muscle cells, but it is our adipose (fat) cells that are some of the last cells in your body to become resistant.  This means that your fat cells will continuously grow and store that sugar in the form of fat.

When we eat in the manner that we were designed to eat (hunter-gatherer; wild meats and fish, fruits, nuts, vegetables, seeds), our insulin or nutrient storage system works like it should, and we express health.  Diabetes II is 100% preventable, correctable and avoidable when we use our bodies as they were intended, by eating, moving and thinking in the manner which we were created/evolved.

For more info on diabetes:

How 6 People Got Rid of Their Diabetes in 30 days

The Paleo Diet

Dr Paul Kratka’s Blog Post on Insulin