Conventional Wisdom Is Incorrect When It Comes To Healthy Eating

Conventional wisdom is often quite ignorant, yet most of us will hold to its truths harder than we do solid scientific evidence to the contrary. Below you will find some of the largest nutritional lies you may still hold as truth.

Organic Food Isn’t Worth The Additional Expense

One common misconception it that there isn’t a big difference nutritionally between organic and non-organic foods. IE. the vitamins and mineral content are the same, so why spend more?

There is truth to this statement. The vitamin/mineral content of a fruit/vegetable has everything to do with the soil it was grown in. From that perspective the soil is the same for most farms. Some have certified organic soils but that is more a description that it hasn’t been treated with any chemical agents. The fallacy in this argument is that there is a HUGE non-nutritional difference – ie toxicity.

Unfortunately, the pesticides used for produce and the hormones and medications given to animals raised for meat have a number of detrimental effects on your health.

• Chlorpyrifos is an insecticide found on apples, peppers, peaches and nectarines that may negatively impact behavior and brain function.
• Permethrin, used on spinach and other greens, may cause seizures or tremors at high levels and are even linked to hyperactivity symptoms.
• Pesticides consumption via produce is linked to infertility and elevations in almost all organic disease both men and women.
• Processed meats (lunch meats, salami, hot dogs) and corn-fed red meat increase the risk of certain cancers and heart disease.

These are just a few reasons why its best to go organic with your produce and proteins. Will it cost more? That depends on your time scale. If your only focused on the immediate now – yes a few cents or dollars more per item. If your focused on the distant future – its actually less expensive to buy organic than it is to manage an organic disease.

Solution: Buy organic when possible (and most risky).

Each year, the Environmental Working Group releases the a “Dirty Dozen” list, which details the pesticide content of non-organic produce. They also include the “Clean 15,” which are the food items least likely to be contaminated and the ones you can save money by buying conventionally with no significant detriment to your health.

Make sure you ALWAYS buy organic anytime you get anything from the Dirty Dozen list. The top five offenders are strawberries, spinach, nectarines, apples and peaches.

Likewise, the top five clean produce items for 2018 include avocado, pineapples, cabbage, onions & peas. When it comes to meats I hope you understand that processed meat is out. If you can’t purchase organic meats, at least purchase grass-fed and free range options, as these types of meats are more nutrient-dense and have less chances of being contaminated by medications.

Implanted New Truth: Buying organic may help you save thousands of dollars in medical bills later in life.

Eating 5-6x Daily Increases Your Metabolism And Helps You Lose Weight

This is a conventional truth that has become more popular recently and the idea is that by eating throughout the day you decrease sugar spikes, keep the metabolism on more frequently which results in weight and fat lost. This couldn’t be further from the truth and recent research is even suggesting that this causes your body to store fat and gain weight.

Implanted New Truth: Eating less often increases your metabolism and helps you to burn fat / lose weight.

It’s not so much the number of times you eat, but the total amount of food you eat and the times you eat the foods that is better for most individuals wanting to improve their health via better dieting.

Daily intermittent fasting (consuming only 2-3 intentional meals in a small eating window) allows the boy to burn fat easier and more efficiently because insulin levels in the body are lower when you eat less often.  The human body only enters a state of “fasting” after 12-16 hours from the previous meal.  So, by eating 5-6 meals throughout the day, you are actually postponing fasting and the fat burning associated!

An intermittent fast is easy to incorporate into your routine. For most people, skipping breakfast, and starting the eating portion of the day around noon, and ending around 8:00 p.m. is best. While it is tempting to believe that you will crash, or hunger will over power you, actually, the reverse is often true. When you eat higher fat, moderate protein meals you generally are satisfied longer. A recent study also found that in general, less frequent higher plant -based fat intakes promotes satiety, while challenging the concept that increasing the meals per day is more satisfying.

NOTE: If you are a female struggling with intermittent fasting, ie sugars and ketones are not improving, weight loss is not kicking in, other symptoms are developing, a recent conference shed some light onto this.  It’s possible that some woman may experience a disruption or upswing in hormone production when practicing fasting every day.  To counteract this, its suggested that you alternate IMF with regular clean eating (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) every other day at the least to avoid these problems to engage in Burst or Surge workouts on the days you eat three clean meals.

You can Correct Poor Diet with Supplements.

This is unfortunately a lie brought on by the vitamin companies of the world – perhaps to convince you that, like a medication, all you need to do is take your morning vitamin and mineral pills and you will be “healthy”.  Unfortunately the majority of OTC vitamins are synthetic forms of the naturally occurring vitamins / minerals that you would get if you ate real food.

A diet of processed foods, refined sugar, carbonated beverages, grains, and other foods that are man made foods actually depleted the body of essential nutrients which cannot be recovered no matter how many vitamins you take. This is often due to the damage processed foods do to your digestive system – which is needed to be in full function to absorb any vitamins you do eat/take.

Real food (fruits/vegetables, organic proteins, plant fats, and water) contain tens of thousands of phytochemical, fibers, proteins and fats that simply cannot be replicated into a synthetic pill or supplement.  Your best bet to ensuring you have good vitamin / mineral and enzyme levels is to eat a well-balanced diet rich with berries, vegetables, nuts and seeds, healthy fats and high-quality organic grass fed proteins gives you the majority of the nutrients you need.

High-quality whole food fermented supplements are good as a supplement, and are not designed to replace the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients you get from your diet.

Truth: The majority of your vitamins/minerals and nutrients should come from nutrient-dense, real foods.