Chapter 14
The True Importance of a Clean, Whole Food, Chemical-Free Diet
As my family continues on this journey, and the more I’ve studied, the more shocked and outraged I’ve become at the food industry. They’ve built their industry around our poor choices and capitalized that into a whole host of “food-like substances” that are so different from the truly nourishing and healing foods our grandparents made and enjoyed.
Now we spend our days being constantly hungry and unsatisfied. We crave unhealthy things because our food is being genetically modified, and that compels us to eat more of what is killing us. As bold a statement that might be, it’s that truth.
We weren’t created to crave Pop Tarts, sugary cereals, cakes, and cookies. These products are intentionally designed to trigger our brains in such a way that we literally can’t help ourselves. These products are everywhere we look; 80% of the grocery store shelves are filled with them. How are we supposed to make a change to our health when this is ingrained into our American lifestyle?
It really can be difficult to make changes, but not impossible. My best advice is to make using clean, non-GMO food a top priority. Food, how we get it, what it is, and what’s in it really isn’t something we think about. As our health continues to decline, I think it’s absolutely imperative that we push other things a bit lower on our priority list and put our food choices at the top. Not only should we know what we’re putting inside of us, but we really need to look at how it got there, too.
In researching whole foods, I couldn’t believe the list of products grown by genetic modification. To be totally honest, I didn’t even understand why this was happening. When it comes down to it, this isn’t about food color or seedless varieties, as I’d once assumed; this is all about money. Crops are being modified via gene splicing to make them virtually un-killable by pesticide, so the food companies can make bigger profits. It’s expensive to farm organic, and cheap to spray mass-produced pesticide poisons on the crops. This genetic modification is being done by the biggest chemical corporations who, it’s important to note, also make many of the drugs used to treat our countless illnesses, most of which have onlycropped uprecently. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions here.
The scariest issue is that, to date, there have been ZERO long-term independent studies on the safety of GMOs to humans. None. Nada. Not one. Also alarming is that GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds often infest the fields of farmers who aren’t even using them, which causes GMOs to spread like wildfire. Researching this has scared the shit out of me. Will our grandchildren live to see and taste natural, God-made fruits and vegetables? As childhood cancers begin to rise alongside the inclusion of more and more chemicals and GMOs in our foods, I’m scared about the nutritional choices of future generations.Please, be informed about what you’re feeding our children. Don’t trust our food industry to put your health, or the health of your family, as a priority. This lies in our hands.
Jack and I have personally made changes about how our money and time is spent. We try to make the health of our family our top priority, and I urge you to do the same.
When you go grocery shopping, I highly recommend finding a local farmers co-op or market in your area, or shopping at organic, non-GMO grocery stores like Whole Foods, Spouts, Aldi, or Trader Joes. The other important thing is to read the labels. Below are some tips you might want to keep in mind when you go to buy your groceries:
Shopping Tips
The most important foods to buy that are organic/non-GMO:
dairy
meat
corn
zucchini
yellow squash
leafy greens
berries
bell peppers
apples
celery
cherry tomatoes
cucumbers
potatoes
grapes
hot peppers
peaches
eggs
tea and coffee
