The Story Of Cheese... And Salt... Sugar... and Fat... Oh My!

Did you watch the entire video above? So how did you like that piece of information? Lots-o-cheese got shoved into our lives for a different reason than you thought. Put's a new spin on why some of the processed foods are lurking on your supermarket shelves. Cheese became an "ingredient" because the government had caves full of cheese leftover from the dairy industry creating "fat free" milk. So just when you thought you were avoiding fat by drinking fat free milk the dairy industry sold you on the idea you must be eating more cheese! There are many curious stories surrounding the sick sad world of modern industrialized food. The CEO's do not eat their own food. Many of them get their food from organic farms. If you start to watch food documentaries, and read a few food books, you will sadly learn the truth about what you really are putting into your body, as well as the bodies of those you love. Knowledge is power...and to have power over your old eating habits, you need information you can use about the true story behind the "food stuffs" at your local supermarket. Eating does not only involve your mouth, tongue, and stomach. It involves your mind. Mind over matter. Mind over cheese. Is it possible to change our minds about what a friend calls "The gift from the Gods and food heaven" Cheeeeeeeeeeese?

Cheese is such a little thing in life. Or is it? Think about how many foods you have been eating since you were a child with cheese included. Hey, would you like extra cheese on that pizza? I am survivor of eating those cheese stuffed pretzels, peanut butter cheese crackers, cheese steaks, cheese fries, cheese dips, grilled cheese sandwiches, ham and cheese, cheese puffs, cheese omelets, and the list goes on and on. So cheese is not a little thing after all... It was and is, a big freakin' part of our modern lives! The average person now eats 33 pounds of cheese a year. Geezzz Cheeeeeeeese!

Most people look at me now, living my nutrient dense plant eating lifestyle, and say, "I cannot do that... I cannot give up cheese!" Well let me be honest... cheese was the very very last item to go of my unhealthy favorite foods. Little cans of dripping cheese for nachos was my go to comfort food of choice every week for years. Even when I finally gave up the canned cheese to get off processed foods, I then switched to "organic" mozzarella and provolone for a few months. Still I was loving the cheese, as this was during my transition and learning time, and that is okay. Not only did the eventual knowledge of what I was really eating change my mind, but my new and improved taste buds eventually rejected anything oily. So it was my taste buds that decided there would be no more cheese for me. This was a natural outcome of actually tasting and experiencing real food. When I first went into transition, I would often take the time to ask myself to really experience on all levels what I was putting in my mouth. What was the actual taste? What was the texture? What did I like about it? Those little questions worked every time. Try it yourself! Really experience the taste and the texture rolling around in your mouth and on your tongue. Talk to yourself! haha! Ask your self those questions. You might be surprised. I tried this with fast food chicken nuggets last year. Never ate them again. No problem.

For me cheese started to taste like oily rubber. It was tasteless. A big chewy blobby gob. Liquid cheese became an oooey-gooey oily smear. This was no longer food to me. Now imagine this chewy blob going down through your body. Oh my! Let's not even go into the awful things it does to your intestinal pipes. Surely I don't have to tell you about what it does to your arteries. Let's take a handful of that ooey gooey glob and shove it in a pipe. I definitely think it will stop the flow of whatever wants to move through the pipe. Now that's the picture to keep in your head, as you eat cheese. Your friendly giant corporations and your corporate government would like you to clog all the pipes in your body. This result helps their friend big Pharma. Win, Win, for them. Not so nice for you.

Salt, sugar, fat, Oh My! These ingredients may each be different, but the results are about the same...they are dangerous to your health! Yet you will find them eagerly waiting for you in just about every processed food at the supermarket, and in an over abundance. You are, or were, addicted to this stuff. Yes, that's the trick of it, and that's the corporate plan for you, and your friends. "They" have got to get those chemical laden foodstuffs to last for months or even years on the store shelves. And they have got to get you to buy that old stuff! So "they" just add any of the fat, sugar, salt, combinations they scientifically know you desire, to that cardboard food fakery, and people really do believe it tastes great. The industry calls it the "Bliss Point." Yes food is the drug, and don't bother thinking abut the cumulative effect from doing this everyday for years and years to your body. This magical food is a wonderful convenience too. You have no time to cook, or think... Right?  Well, they count on that. Just grab and go, and believe us that it's safe. They have been convincing you of this idea all your life.

This insider information can be found in a new book titled "Salt, Sugar, Fat: How The Food Giants Hooked Us" which shares how the food industry leaders have been intoxicating you into a life of unhealthy eating. Ingredients are maximized to addict you to these foods, and get you to be a 'heavy user' of the commodity. The book is written by The New York Times Investigative Reporter and Pulitzer Prize Winner Michael Moss.  It was Michael who made the informative video above about the story of cheese. I love that cheesy video! 

Are donuts and pizza what grew on trees hundreds of years ago? Oh modern packaged foods, why do people think you are the only thing to eat? Alas so many people strangely believe food comes in a box, can, or a bag, and that product which has been on shelves in warehouses for months is better than the real thing. This belief in fake food stuffs has been systematically done over generations. Look at the old ads above. A good documentary to watch about this subject is "Hungry For Change."



Yes I realize there are those who see my new healthy lifestyle choices as extreme or odd. How did we get to the point where people think that the real food that grows on trees, or up from the ground, is the weirdo stuff? Marketing 101 folks. Look...there is an entire aisle in the food store dedicated to soda. Soda is pure empty calories, and diet soda is actually dangerous. In every food store across the nation there are cases upon cases of soda... a mixture of sugar water, high fructose corn syrup...chemicals that rot the brain and cause disease. Watch any sporting event and what do you see? Soda and Beer commercials. Ironically those are the products I literally grew up surrounded by, as my father was a beer and soda distributor. I played among the boxes in the warehouse as a child. We always had a large supply of soda in every flavor at our house, including blue soda. I loved it. As a teen I thought the color was cool and the taste was sweet. Good...right? What did I know, I only learned what I lived. It took informing and arming myself with the truth about the food industrial complex to get unhooked from the monster. This new book talks about a famous company that in its quest to rapidly increase profits would like us to drink more soda than water. No, it's not really to make your life more beautiful, or give the world a hug. It's your money for nothing, money for sickness in a bottle. I am the weirdo for saying that.

 

Oh I can hear the naysayers now. Don't say I can't eat soda, diet soda, cheese, and my salty n' sugary snax (also owned by the same soda companies). For goodness sakes, how will I live? "No, I cannot. I will not. It is not possible." 

Transitioning off of processed foods is a continual process of letting go of the old ways, it is not all or nothing, done at one time. Don't give up on 'you getting healthier' for a false idea of 'what you think' the restrictions will be. Use my 'Substitution' and 'Avoid' pages to get started, and help you to move away from addictive processed food stuffs. How about saying, "I cannot live being fat and sick everyday," or "I cannot live sticking myself with an insulin needle," or "I cannot live taking copious pills everyday to live," or "I cannot live having my chest cut open by a surgeon," or "I cannot live with the huge doctor and hospital bills I will have to pay from eating cheap junk everyday," or "I can not live... if I am dead..."

We do need to change our 'mindset' about sugar, salt and fats. These are the ingredients that damage all parts of our bodies, cause disease, and eventually kill people. After my cancer diagnosis Dr. Furhman told me no more dairy, sugar, salt, oil, or meat products. I had serious disease, and I have to get serious with what I eat. It was not hard for me, because I had already been transitioning off of these addictive foods for months. Perhaps if I had gotten my breast cancer diagnosis months before, it may have seemed like a devastating thought to not eat cheese anymore from that point on. Fortunately I had already replaced the old salty and sweet snacks with many new options, and that list keeps growing! Since I already knew and experienced far tastier foods, I had no problem with his statement. One out of three people will get a cancer diagnosis, perhaps it would be good for you to consider making changes now before you endure a medical crisis. So hang in there! Just give yourself time to try the new things to eat that are the healthier options. Try something new each week, and get rid of something old each week. I have been there and done this, over time it gets easier. The first week or two may be difficult. Just get yourself a bunch of new options to put in your pantry and refrigerator. Eventually you will actually be craving the new whole foods too. Instead of processed foods being 70% of our diet, how about making them just 20% instead. Does that seem doable?

Less cheese is a start. I use nutritional yeast and hemp seeds on my veggie filled naan pizzas now instead of the old style cheese. We love it! For my hubby's part, he now mostly eats goat cheese with crackers when he feels a need for cheese. This seems to be a better alternative for those in transition, as it's drier and not oily like processed cheese foods. Dairy from cows contains too much fat, hormones, antibiotics, and possibly GMO's from the feed they ingest. Dairy creates inflammation in the body. Since the body has to deal with the inflammation, the body does not have the time to do the work of keeping you well by fighting off other things...it's too busy with cheeeeese.

Anyway after 14 months if I eat any products with fat or oil in them. I can now feel the oil coating my mouth. You know, it's that same feeling you get in your mouth after you've eaten some greasy fast food fries, especially if they were cold. As the body becomes clean, I have found that it will let you know the dirty low down naturally! Certainly makes it easy to get yourself to eat even cleaner. I had to recently stop eating my favorite lentil chips, because I can now feel the oil.

Sugar and salt and fats! Oh my! So how is your food future looking? Do you think it is time for you to stop the corporate madness, and your addiction to their fake foods? Knowledge is truly your power. Read about how they got you hooked, and give up the conditioning. Watch some food documentaries. Begin cutting back, and then eventually eliminating, and replacing these unhealthy choices. Start substituting alternatives each week for your family, till you have only the healthy choices in the house. It works. I was in the grocery store with my four year old grand daughter recently. I pointed out the display of big Honeycrisp apples. She walked right over, picked one up, and took a big bite out of it! Right there in the store! THAT is exactly how a child is supposed to react to seeing healthy real food! I loved it!

Being that this blog is for people in various stages of transitioning from the regular supermarket processed foods, I will not leave you with a broken heart about your processed snack love-life. You will still find on my recipe page a naan pizza that uses organic cheese. On my shopping list page I included a list of package foods at the bottom of the post that we have used. There are organic non-GMO chips and crackers you can eat on occasion, or during your transitioning phase. For example I happen to like Garden of Eatin blue sprouted chips, Seedlander crackers, and Mary's flax crackers when I need some crunch. For sweet snax I like Kind brand bars, Kits Organic Fruit and Nut bars, and Go Raw's mini Carrot Cake Super Cookies. So your packaged snack life is not over! But it is not a pass to gorge on this stuff either. When you visit your local organic snack aisle be sure to read the back labels of even the organic processed foods. Look out for the sugar, salt, oils, fats, chemicals, soy, carrageenan, and msg. The least amount of ingredients the better. Big corporations are behind many national organic labels. Make sure it has the green USDA organic label and hopefully says Non-GMO as well. Always be aware of what you are putting in as the fuel for your wonderful body. This is what gets you around in life, you would not run your car on soda and fat.

Having fresh fruit, and a small handful of unsalted nuts everyday is a healthier alternative to cheesy puffs. Instead of cheese, use salsa or hummus with your chips. Instead of chips use celery and carrots for dipping. Need ice cream? Freeze a ripe banana for 24 hours, mash it up, and add berries or nuts. You can be sure that I will be eating a vibrant colorful helping of fresh high nutrient organic plants, enjoying fresh green smoothies, and green juices too. That's deliciousness for real. No chemicals. No extra salt, sugar, or fat needed. Natural sweetness! I hope you consider giving up the excess salt, sugar and fat in your life, and getting out of the unhealthy corporate paradigm! Eat real whole foods most of the time, be healthy, and glow. If we are what we eat, ...I'd rather be a peach than a blob of sugary, salty, fat, any day!