Think Before You Eat!
This is one of my original articles I wrote about being aware of how you eat, and what you eat. Taking time to prepare, eat, and digest your food is equally as important as what is in our food. This is so important When trying to maintain health, or when preventing problems in the body, from aches and pains to disease. I thought this would be a good article for Breast Cancer Awareness month.
“LET FOOD BE THY MEDICINE!” Perhaps you’ve heard this quote before, but do you remember the man who said it? No- not Eddie Basha! It was Plato. Even then, the wise ones knew that our bodies were built to eat food not only to satiate our appetites, but to heal and prevent disease. Over time, we have come to look at food as a way to fill our bellies, give us energy, or calm our nerves. Yes, this does happen when we eat, but why not look at the MAIN reason we eat, to fuel our bodies. Remember the golf cart analogy in my first article? Again, we wouldn’t THINK of using inferior fuel in our vehicles, then why put inferior fuel in our bodies? Patients of mine know I promote healthy eating….not just healthy food. The eating experience does not only involve the quality and quantity of the food, but the entire experience itself. When we eat, it’s important to set enough time aside to chew and digest the meal. The first step in digestion begins with chewing, and the salivary enzymes need to prepare the food for further digestion in the stomach. Likewise, the stomach acids need time to prepare the food for the small intestines, and so on. (You know where it goes from there!) What I’m getting at, is take time for the body to do its work. When we don’t allow the digestive system to work on its OWN TIME, we develop problems in other systems, as a result. You diesel drivers wouldn’t DREAM of starting your vehicle and driving off with a cold engine. You know the consequences of that! It would mean a trip to the mechanic in the future for sure. Think of your digestive system as your diesel engine. Warm it up-allow it to work properly, so YOU won’t be going to the doctor, or “mechanic” in the near future looking for another remedy for a new problem. All of out body systems need fuel, or nutrients to function well. By not fueling properly, how long will this machine work properly?
One of the common denominators in all forms of healing, whether medical or alternative, is to allow oxygen, (via the blood supply) to travel to the affective area. This promotes healing. Should this “area” of the body be heart, lung, reproductive, or ANY other vital organ, blood must be readily available for that organ to heal and regain its optimum function. Should the body’s main blood supply be routed to the digestive system three or more time a day, because of eating too fast, and not relaxing while you eat, then how will this blood flow to the affected organ? It will therefore be compromised. Even a major component to the Macrobiotic way of life, which is commonly recommended for cancer patients, and those with other debilitating diseases, is to eat slowly, digest properly, and choose the proper setting in which to eat. This allows the blood to flow readily to the affected area as mentioned above. Eating in front of a television, while driving, or while doing anything else for that matter, takes away from the digestive process. Take time, set a quiet, unrushed setting, and enjoy the experience.
Know what you’re putting into your body. READ LABELS, ask at restaurants, and take time to seek out products with the fewest additives. It’s not the occasional chemical that sneeks into our favorite treat once in a while, it’s the daily bombardment of preservatives, artificial colorings, and pesticides that linger in our organs that can cause insidious malfunction over time. Labels are on everything now, even fruit! The processors place a small sticker on each piece of fruit, and if you were wondering what those numbers mean- here it is. A small sticker with four digits means the fruit was grown conventionally, with standard pesticides and growing techniques. Labels with five digits starting with an 8, indicates that the food was genetically modified, and labels with five digits beginning with a 9 indicate the food was grown organically without the use of chemical pesticides.
By just reading your labels, you can KNOW what you’re putting into your machine. Remember, there are NO WARRANTEES on your body, so take good care of it. It was the only year they made that model, and they threw away the mold after it was made!
What’s In Our Fish?
Here we are close to election time, and many are talking about environmental issues. This is not a political article, or even a political subject this month, but I thought I would clarify some of the environmental BUZZ TERMS thrown around in our grocery stores and eating establishments. Maybe this will help you understand, and make a more educated decision about the food you buy and feed to your family. Aside of nutritive value, there are some choices you can make to help the environment, economy, and even another’s quality of life.
The first subject we’ll talk about , is fish. Besides mercury and PCB’s, there is the issue of endangerment, and harming other wildlife in the process of catching the fish. We all know about dolphin safe tuna, so I won’t get into that. I will, however, mention the issue of farm raised verses wild. Salmon, for instance, is more popular now than ever, of course due to it’s cancer-fighting, heart-healthy properties I mentioned in last month’s column. The problem arises, when we see a label that reads, “ Maine, Washington, or Canada”. We tend to feel comfortable with those places, as why would they have any reason to farm-raise salmon, when it’s found naturally in those waters? Well, the bulk of salmon comes from those places today, and it IS farmed!! Alaska has banned salmon farms, for at least the following reason. One study of farm raised salmon in British Columbia, found that compared to wild salmon, they were higher in pesticides and PCBs! This, as you’ve probably heard, is the reason we do not recommend children eat it more than once a week. Net-penned salmon are their own source of pollution, as the pens fill with the salmon’s own excrement, therefore having to be bombarded with antibiotics. Wild salmon caught in Alaska is cleaner, healthier, and provides the fishermen there with the living they deserve to make. This is their trade, and by purchasing this salmon, you are also helping them make the living they deserve. Watch the shrimp too, check out the Arizona Sweet Shrimp, grown here in AZ, using NO antibiotics, or pesticides! Other fish to avoid, is cod, swordfish, flounder, orange roughy, Atlantic halibut, and more. To find out more on this subject, go to Seafood Watch‘s website, www.mbayaq.org/cr/seafoodwatch.asp. Remember one of my favorite sites, www.ewg.org? Go to the site, and search TUNA CALCULATOR, click on it, and answer the questions, and find out how much canned tuna you can safely eat in a week.
Another buzz term these days is Shade Grown Organic Coffee. Coffee grown in shaded areas is better for that country’s environment than that which is grown in the full sun. Those large plantations have clear-cut environments to grow coffee in easy to harvest rows. These varieties require MORE chemicals, and the deforestation has needlessly destroyed habitats for many plants and animal species. The huge plantations have caused coffee prices to plummet. These farms also do not provide the proper income for the farmers, causing them to go OVER THE BORDER to other countries to make their living. (SOUND FAMILIAR??) In one Mexican state, 500 families a week leave because they can no longer make a living.
Organic, Hormone-Free milk is yet, another buzz term we see on labels. Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH, is a generically engineered protein that increases milk production. Monsanto, by the way, holds the patent on rBGH! The dairy industry is dominated by megafarms, where cows are machine milked,(THIS CUTS VALUBLE JOBS!) confined mainly to the barnyard, fed hay and grain from fields sprayed with pesticides, and routinely given antibiotics to prevent disease. ( Milk from grass-fed cows, is higher in Conjugated Linoleic Acid, which has been proven to fight cancer in lab animals, and reduce body fat and build lean muscle in humans!) Economically, it is more expensive to drink organic milk, as the farmers have said, “..it isn’t easy . Someone has to pay for the added expense.” It also costs more to pay the help to milk the cows, and keep them grazing in open ranges. (What’s one less cocktail at the clubhouse?)
Well I hope this clarifies some things for you, it’s easy to throw these terms around, but I hope now you understand them. READ YOUR LABELS, TALK TO YOUR GROCER, AND ASK BEFORE YOU PUT SOMETHING IN YOUR MOUTH!
Dr. Leisa-Marie Grgula, D.C., Introduction
RAISING YOUR QUALITY OF LIFE WITH DR. LEISA-MARIE GRGULA
I’m sure most of you remember my talk radio program that aired up in the Verde Valley for 5 years by the same name of this column. For those of you who don’t, I hosted a talk show that touched on general health topics, with an emphasis on natural alternatives to drug therapies and surgery. I’m also a chiropractic physician, and owner of Accurate Care Pain Relief Center, previously in Sedona, and now here in North Phoenix, Arizona. This monthly column will basically follow the same format as the show, only questions will have to be written in, instead of called in. I will continue to pass along the latest news from articles of journals like, Journal of The American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, and more. I’ll make this information that comes through our media easier to process and understand. For example…just when you thought you were helping your colon by eating cruciferous vegetables, out came a study a couple years back stating that they were useless in the prevention of colon cancer. Where do these articles and studies come from? Who FUNDS them? And are they scientifically sound? These and many more questions will be answered as I help you to ask the RIGHT questions when hearing these soundbites on the 6:00 news, and how they affect your health and your own doctor appointments. As a practicing chiropractic physician for 15 years now, 14 of them here in AZ,I’ve gotten to know many people enjoying the carefree and active lifestyle we all came here to enjoy. The problem arises when our bodies don’t respond the way we’d like them to…or at least the way they USED TO! For instance, if you’re a golfer, and you’ve just purchased a high performance golf cart. Would you DREAM of not going to the dealer for every scheduled warrantee appointment and expect the machine to run at its best? NO WAY! Then why would you skip regular doctor check-ups, put poor quality fuel and trash into your body and expect it to run at its best? How long is your body machine expect to last by abusing it or even just not giving it the quality attention that it needs? Not very. If we’d just pay the attention to our bodies that we do our vehicles, we’d all be in better shape, and have the higher quality of life we’re looking for! Be sure and read this column each month, and I might even help you take strokes off your golf game…(no promises!)
Leisa-Marie M. Grgula, D.C.
Accurate Care Pain Relief Center
20235 N. Cave Creek Rd #110
Phoenix, AZ, 85024
602-493-2228