What is the myth of a well-balanced diet?  We are told that we do not need vitamins, that we can get all the requirements from eating a balanced diet.  The myth is, most people do not eat a well balanced diet and the U.S. Food Pyramid” is erroneous in that the base is grains such as breads, rice, cereals, and pasta.  As we have learned in our study of the China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, the base should be vegetables and fruits.  But, with grains being the base in the Food Pyramid, we are loading up on a lot of calories that are often times empty calories.  Pasta really does not contribute to nutritious calories or vitamins and minerals.  Crackers, chips and white bread certainly do not contribute to our health.

Do any of these grains look very healthy?  No, not really.  What about people who have grain intolerance or allergies?  Corn is nearly impossible to digest both for humans and animals.  Let’s face it, the donut, while it taste good is not going to give you the nutritional support to have the energy you will need to get you through the day.

We have talked about diets in past posting, so I will not go into detail on the popular diets.  Diet is a four letter word that needs to be eliminated from your vocabulary.  “Going on a diet” is a term that sits one up for failure.  It suggest that at some point you will “get off” of the diet,  cross your fingers and hope that you do not gain the weight back.  “Going on a diet” also suggest that one is going to be hungry while on this new diet.  We are just setting ourselves up for failure when we do this.  So, why do we “go on a diet”?  What are the tools we need to have a healthy food source?

If we were getting the nutrients from the foods we eat, then we should not be seeing problems such as osteoporosis.  We should be getting the calcium we need for healthy bones from the milk and dairy products we eat.  However, we have learned in the China Study that large amounts of milk and dairy products contribute to cancer.  Many of the fad diets remove large food groups putting one at danger for vitamin and mineral deficiencies.  These diets also put us at a higher risk for cardiovascular disease, cancer and osteoporosis.

The second myth is that our food has the nutritional value needed to maintain health.  This is a grave mistake to think that our food today is as healthy as it was 100 years ago.

The problem with our food supply today is:

1. Our food travels over a great distance from the farm to market loosing nutritional valve along the way.
2. Our food is bombarded with the equivalent of up to 233 billion chest x-rays to kill bacteria and add shelf life.
3. A large portion of our dairy animals are fed genetically engineered bovine growth hormones.

To compound the problem there are environmental pollutions that are affecting our health.  The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that over sixty thousand chemicals have been dumped or buried throughout our nation and these chemicals are penetration our water supply.  Fortunately, certain minerals and vitamins are protective against some of these toxic substances.

A diet rich in carotene-containing foods, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, squash, kale, collard greens, chard and spinach, helps to prevent carcinogenesis and thus radiation-induced cancer.  With our food being radiated at the source of packaging and in our kitchens with the microwave, we are ingesting dangerous amounts of radiation.

Buy organic food products as much as possible.  When you buy organic you have eliminated a large portion of dangerous health problems.  “Organic is expensive!”, I hear you say.  So, are cigarettes and the all popular activity of getting a tattoo.  If you can afford to smoke and get yet another tattoo, you can afford healthy food.