Your Dietary Health & Wellbeing ...

What are we doing to ourselves by eating what is literally poison!

Scientific evidence is overwhelming! Yes, the results and conclusions of each individual research program or study are very carefully presented and worded. Yet! all together they scream one thing, the lack of any effective regulation of the processed food industry or a governmental policy to safeguard each individuals health from this endemic epidemic of glossy plastic-cardboard wrapped industrial processed food......... Strong stuff? There is a lot more to come as I set out and summarise rational Stroud'y like viewpoint and beliefs.

For good health it is not quantity but the quality of food. Too long have we considered and labelled the three groups of macronutrients in simple terms of calories and grams of carbohydrates, fats and proteins per day. Totally ignoring the huge difference in the quality and density of the nutrient value of fresh foods versus that in industrial processed fast foods!

Now I am going to try to simplify further and just summarise how processed foods can be so poor in the control of content, there quality and nutritional density that they promote ill health - indeed history may class them as poisons!

Carbohydrates are composed of small carbohydrates called monosaccharides or disaccharides - simple sugars that are easily ingested into your body and the larger carbohydrates called polysaccharides or oligosaccharides that include fibers and starches that have much greater health giving value, aiding digestion, absorption plus elimination of toxins and waste products in the gastro-intestinal tract. Together they provide nearly half your energy supply.

Processed food often has too much simple sugar to give taste and sell product - the result an energy shock wave as we immediately ingest single sugars, the result a fluctuation in blood sugar that will soon leave us feeling tired, run-down and consuming another snack! Worse still, such frequent shocks will promote diabetes and other blood sugar dysregulation conditions.

Further danger is caused by the presence of the disaccharide lactose, a simple milk sugar in processed foods. Lactose requires its own digestive enzyme and hence the growing number who have Lactose Intolerance as we age. Where lacking the enzyme lactase that splits Lactose into two single ingestable sugars, means unfriendly bacteria ferment the lactose to produce acid which causes huge discomfort and is highly damaging to the cells of the intestinal tract lining - meaning less enzymes to cut the disaccharide sugars into digestible monosaccharides and so the cycle of fermentation acid digestion problems is ever perpetuated!

Root and seed foods can be rich in complex carbohydrate, energy stored as starch which is broken down into glucose when the plant grows. Amylose and amylopectin are the main food starches, they differ in the way all the sugars are strung together to form these complex carbohydrate macromolecules and so amylopectin is able to be more quickly broken down and digested. In natural foods these macromolecules are found folded together and encased in other macromolecules such as protein and fibre which have to be digested before the starch macromolecules. So this means it is slowly absorbed over a longer period providing a natural flow of energy to the body after a meal - with no huge rises and falls in blood sugar to tire you and endanger health.

Industrial processing will remove this natural complexity and packaging to separate macromolecules before adding what is created to a processed foodstuff to be folded or poured into its glossy plastic-cardboard skin. So the complex interaction during digestion is absent and starch is easily absorbed in a similar manner to the simple disaccharide sugars, to endanger healthy blood sugar control.

Polysaccharides or dietary fibres and resistant starch, are also a complex carbohydrate that is easily found in whole fresh and dried foods, here the single sugar molecules are bonded or welded together so that they cannot be digested in the small intestine. Instead they move through the small intestines to the large intestine completely intact, binding toxins to promote, protect then feed our healthy beneficial symbiotic intestinal bacteria, so speeding up the excretion of both toxins and waste. These symbiotic health giving microbes then produce short chain fatty acids (SCFA) to control cancerous colonic cells, reduce serum cholestrol, protect intestinal tract cell walls, maintaining healthy digestion and blood sugar levels. Again, food processing removes and damages a great deal of natural dietary fibre to increase the risk of cancers, intestinal damage, poor digestion, dysfunctional immune system, diabetes etc. etc. The answer is to eat apples with the skin on, brown rice, include bran in your locally milled porridge or cereal sweetened with magical prunes, eat more soya beans etc. etc.

Proteins, the active structures of folded strings of amino acid molecules that build, maintain and constitute most the structure of your body, are involved in your every function. Our hard working enzymes are protein molecules - breaking down old tissue and rebuilding new, creating channels in cell membranes to let in the necessary nutrients and delivering energy to cells; Immunoglobin made of proteins are the antibodies of your immune system; Some hormones are protein; The digestive enzymes that metabolise and break down wastes and toxins; Blood coagulating factors are made of protein, hemoglobin carrying oxygen to your blood cells; They make up the matrix of bones, skin, nails, teeth and tissue; Collagen giving elasticity to your skin and the collagen fibril chain allowing cells to communicate - all are complex structures of innumerable amino acids! Then amino acids break down to provide us nitrogen and again energy.

Nine essential amino acids cannot be made in our bodies and we require them in certain ratios, therefore the damage writ by a diet based on processed food is difficult to convey: Stunted growth, poor muscle formation; Thin fragile hair and nails; Damage to the immune system; Etc. etc!

The lack of the complex essential amino acid profile and 'free amino acids' in processed food, damages and fosters poor health to an unknown degree, so promoting new forms of disease and long term ill health!

Now, we get to one of the least understood, the most complex and diverse food macromolecule, Fats! Forget the poor reputation and take a big interest in these! What constitutes seventy percent of your brain, are health promoting and often essential? Yes, fat!

Regret all those diets you have been on and every processed food in your diet? Well you will! The different physical properties of fats are why the body uses and requires so many. Fats keep your cells flexible and movable. Yet, high levels of saturated fats cause the cell membranes to become inflexible, to function poorly and leave DNA unprotected.

Hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats are produced by chemical process and are used in processed foods - to me they are something to be avoided totally as are lard, margarine and more recently butter. I stick to raw nuts, raw seeds, cold pressed extra virgin olive oil, flaxseed oil, soybean oil and just a little palm oil - which is really too high in Omega-6 fats.

There is a need for a properly balanced 1:1 diet of Omega-3 fats and Omega-6 fats. Where processed foods may have a ratio greater than 1:20 or worse, they can also include a lot of saturated and hydrogenated fats - so cancers, asthma, arthritis, bowel and cardiovascular problems will continue on the increase.

Food intolerances, toxic and allergic reactions are a growing problem, with processed foods containing high levels of additives, preservatives, dyes, carrier ,sulphates, gluten, flavouring agents, simple sugars, unlisted small amounts of processed pesticides and other residue foodstuffs.

Our own processing and cooking of whole fresh foods may also greatly decrease the nutritional value and health benefits. Visit Stroud's health shops, organic market stalls and whole food cafes, if you need to find out more on avoiding this.

Healthy, fresh whole foods that are organically grown and farmed, that provide complete naturally packaged and complex macronutrients, complete with there full quota of vitamins, minerals and other phytonutrients, that can be simply prepared are the answer we need!

SO, WHAT DO WE DO?

There is a culpable lack of real policy, regulation and action again? There is the usual governmental agency weak kneed 'counter advertising' on bus stops and such, the latest is 'change4life' - which says they know what damage is being wreaked, but won't act, we must! But isn't it ACTION, that is required for most of our countries ills.

One man with fundamentalist beliefs heading a political party can take us to War and did; Yet, these politicians for too long and likely for ever a dirty word, found reason to ignore and not act, concerning corrupt practices in the International & British Financial Business Community! Until the first institutional collapse that is; So now, it becomes yet more politic to not act and upset employers, like the hugely influential International Industrial Processed Fast Food Business Community! Even should its plastic-cardboard wrapped products be actively undermining the health of the indigenous national community, where the change in our diet and family values is likely greatest. Its politic to throw money at the NHS but ignore or give lip-service to the real underlying problems of family life and diet!

We need a radical National Agricultural and Food Policy. An impossible hope? Well with today's politicians and it having to be agreed in Europe, Yes! So action has to be local in villages and our old market towns. We cannot rely on the hope of a real National Leader or genuine Independent Members of Parliament who might ignore politics and Europe to actually act! Neither does the South West of England enjoy Regional Government, its all down to remote squabbling politicos in London and Europe, where talk is cheap but very well paid!

We need Local Action, Local Leaders...... So lets please debate it locally where it matters, on local and regional radio e.g. Peeky Blinders style on Stroud FM for starters? To find and support individuals, groups, cafes, societies, shops charities, local projects who are taking Action and have formed realistic ideas on how we can further come together and effect Health locally.

I suggest our debates be recorded and on air during day and night slots.

Thank you for reading my rant – please have your say by clicking 'comments' on the final line below this posting!

with love
Stroud'y

stroud_ey@yahoo.com