Many people incorrectly assume they get adequate nutrients from the food they eat. Unfortunately, in todays world it is virtually impossible to get the necessary nutrients to sustain a healthy body and mind by just eating modern foods and drinking liquids.
This means that everyone must look at choosing the right food they eat, organic if possible, and supplementing their diets with multivitamins and minerals to assist in the journey to optimum nutrition.
In an ideal world this would be adequate, but very few people realize that modern lifestyles and current eating habits introduce anti-nutrients into our bodies that deplete nutrition. Modern food is devitalized by man made chemicals, pesticides, contaminants and food processing. These nutrient busters prevent nutrients from being absorbed or used by the body and in some cases promote their excretion. Many modern day diseases and deaths are not only caused by a deficiency of nutrients but also because of an excess of nutrient busters.
Most cancers, for example, are associated with an excess of anti-nutrients, like chemicals and free radicals resulting from smoking.
Unfortunately our lifestyles dictate the extent to which we are exposed to these nutrient busters. It is essential for us to reduce the exposure to anti-nutrients by assessing our lifestyles and the environment we live in, so we can fully understand how to manage this gigantic onslaught of nutrient busters and change our lifestyles accordingly.
How big is the problem ?
There are more than 3,000 man made food chemicals and over 20,000 pesticides registered in the US. American agriculture is reported as using 2.2 billion pounds of pesticides annually, that are used on more than 900,000 farms. The UK is reported as using 250,000 tons of food chemicals a year and 400 million litres of pesticides and herbicides sprayed on to food crops, pastures and surrounding areas. In addition billions of cigarettes and alcoholic drinks are consumed in the UK, not to mention the millions of antibiotics, pharmaceutical drugs, recreational and street drugs taken, and the industrial pollution of more than 50,000 chemicals pumped into the air every day.
Its no wonder we have health problems.
In his article The Amazing Human Being, Richard Penfounde starts by saying,
Human beings are the only creatures on earth that:
smoke tobacco
consume processed foods
drink coffee and tea copiously
eat fried foods continuously
drink cow’s milk throughout our lives
add sugar to our foods and liquids
add salt to our foods and liquids
continue to eat when we are not feeling well
consume social and medicinal drugs
We are the results of the products that we put in our mouths and often those that we do not put in our mouths. Our bodies are eventually shaped and our skin conditioned by these processes over a period of time. Every disease takes time to develop, often 20 or more years. Disease in our body varies from mild to moderate to serious and the progression is often so slow that it is not recognised at the time that it is happening.
The major Lifestyle nutrient busters
As optimum nutrition is the key to a healthy body and mind, we must be aware of how each of our lifestyles expose us to anti-nutrients and subsequent diseases and death.
The main problem is that these nutrient busters build up in the body, slowly over time eventually resulting in one or other serious disease. So before its too late, we must prevent this from happening by having regular check ups and appropriate tests. Richard recommends that it is very important to start a regimented optimum nutrition programme as soon as possible to start combating the nutrition busters onslaught.
You may also, depending on your specific circumstances, look at other appropriate tests like the hair-mineral analysis, food-tolerance tests, vitamin blood tests, the functional homocysteine test and a cholesterol test to establish your risk and to see if you have any specific disease symptom or nutrient deficiency.
For each of us to do a proper analysis of our lifestyles, we must however understand what these nutrient busters are, and make the necessary lifestyle changes to minimize or eliminate them.
Nutrient deficiency and depletion
There are many different nutrient busters that have negative affects on our bodies which can contribute to disease and death. Each contribute in a different way to the depletion of the nutrients we require to achieve and maintain optimum health.
Together with these anti-nutrient activities we must also understand that even refined foods that do not have man-made chemical additives or anti-nutrients, often contribute to nutrient deficiency as they do not have sufficient quantities of nutrients to sustain the body and mind. It is estimated that half of most peoples diets consist of these refined foods which means that the other half of their diets have to make up the full nutrient requirement. This isnt always possible or the case, for most people.
The result of all of this is that it is essential to be aware of these conditions and to eat according to our individual nutrient requirements, but more importantly to change our lifestyles to avoid nutrient busters where possible, and then to supplement the nutrients through our diets and an appropriate optimum nutrition supplement programme containing multivitamins, minerals, anti-oxidants, essential fats, phytochemicals and amino acids.
This is the only way to achieve optimum health.
So lets look at the major nutrient busters.
Lifestyle, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Living in a city or near an industrial area
o Eating fast foods regularly
o Smoking cigarettes
o Drinking alcohol
o Taking recreational or street drugs
o Taking birth control pills
o Taking antibiotics regularly
o Limited or no regular exercise
o Limited sleep
o Highly stressful lifestyle
The environment we live in, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Traffic pollution, time spent in heavy traffic
o Industrial air and water pollution
o Drinking water contamination
o Pesticide and herbicide utilization and distribution
o Living or working in a smoking environment
The food we eat, taking into account the effect of the following:
o Man made food chemicals, additives, preservatives and food colouring agents
o Genetically modified foods
o Consumption of fast foods, fried foods and fatty foods
o Food processing using heat
o Food browned or burnt using heat
o Fruit and vegetables contaminated by pesticides and herbicides
o Foods wrapped in PVC plastic film
o The consumption of tea, coffee, sugar, salt and alcohol
o Household drinking water from taps
The drugs we take taking into account the effect of the following:
o Pharmaceutical drugs and antibiotics
o Recreational and street drugs
o Birth control pills
The exposure to nutrient busters depends on your specific lifestyle and therefore defines the activities you need to take to minimize or eliminate the exposure, to assist in achieving optimum nutrition.
Richard Penfounde
Natural Health Advisor
www.naturallyhealthylifestyles.com