America’s Feedlot?

 

Have you ever stopped to think that America is turning into one big gigantic feedlot–but WE are the cattle?

The American public is now living on a diet that consists mostly of corn, wheat, and soy products, very very similar to commercially raised cattle, chickens, and fish.

These industrialized big business agricultural products have been pushed into our food supply in thousands of insidious ways.

Starting with the thousands of packaged, processed items available at the grocery store, all the way back to the feed for commercially raised meats–it seems that corn, wheat and soy are on the ingredient list in some form if you look long enough.

Our diet is way out of whack.

It's far too heavily weighted with grain, and grain-based food products  and grain-fed meat, poultry, dairy, fish and eggs as well.

At least a third or more of your local supermarket’s 45,000 or so ingredients have corn, wheat or soy products or their derivatives in them.

The tricky part is the derivatives do not always say they come from corn, wheat or soy.

The biggest offender is corn. 

Corn is THE most abundant grain produced in America by far!

There is the ever-present high fructose corn syrup, cornstarch, corn flour, corn bran, dextrose, and much less obvious– leavenings and lecithin, mono-, di-, and triglycerides, the golden coloring added to foods, and even citric acid can all be derived from corn and corn bi-products.

Corn is milled, refined and restructured, and can become an amazing number of things, from ethanol for the gas tank to dozens of edible and not-so-edible food products.

Consider the thickeners in milkshakes, hydrogenated oil in margarine, modified cornstarch that binds the unrecognizeable meat in a chicken McNugget.

And then there is the unavoidable sweetener, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

This sneaky sweetener has invaded every nook and cranny of the food system.

Sadly, the commercial food industry has done a great job convincing the public that those 45,000 different items in the grocery store are real variety in food instead of clever rearrangements of the same basic ingredients with come chemical flavorings and food coloring to make it all different.

We have unknowingly become trapped in our own feedlots, and now are becoming a country of obese, sick  and apathetic people who care nothing about nutritional quality and the source of our food—simply because, “It tastes good.”

Unfortunately this very dysfunctional food system has also supersized appetites and created food addictions for the sweet and starchy artificially flavored 'food' creating big dollars for food companies in spite of the serious cost to our health and well-being.

And in America, most all conventionally raised meat can be traced back to corn: turkeys, chickens, pigs, and even cows (which would be far healthier and happier eating grass) are forced into eating corn.

Even our farmed fish supply is now becoming corn-fed, like the carnivorous salmon.

All of these grain raised meat then lose their natural nutrition and become full  of unhealthy, disease-causing fats.

There is a way to see exactly how much of your diet is from corn:

Corn has a very specific carbon structure which can be traced in any animal that consumes it.

If you compared a hair sample from an average American and a Mexican who eats a diet high in corn, you would be shocked to learn that the American would have a much larger amount of corn-type carbon in their system.

Todd Dawson, a plant biologist at the University of California-Berkeley says, "We are what we eat with respect to carbon, for sure. So if we eat a particular kind of food, and it has a particular kind of carbon in it, that's recorded in us, in our tissues, in our hair, in our fingernails, in the muscles," Dawson says.

In most Americans, the carbon test shows that about 70% comes from corn!!

“North Americans are like corn chips with legs,” says one of the researchers who conducts such tests.

So exactly what is wrong with eating such a corn-rich diet?

The base of the food pyramid is GRAIN–isn't that what we've been told is healthy? 

We are what we eat, but there is plenty of  evidence that this grain-heavy way of eating not only spreads illness, but waste, and ecological devastation around the world.

The other big problem with corn and a grain based diet, is that the average American diet consists of food products heavy in Omega 6. An average ratio would be about 25:1 of omega 6 to omega 3.

However, nutritional scientists state that mostchronic diseases start occurring and are detectable when the omega 6:3 ratio exceeds 4:1.

And, the optimum ratio, seems to hover around 1:1 which is the ratio found in grass-fed animals. 

Since all grains have high omega 6 to omega 3 ratios, it’s obvious to see that a grain-based food system creates a serious omega 3 deficiency!

All the way back in 70's scientists knew that grain-based foods, and grain-fed livestock products were one of the primary causes many of today's big chronic diseases such as:  Cancer, heart disease, depression, ADD, Alzheimer’s, obesity, allergies, and autoimmune diseases such as lupus and arthritis, diabetes, asthma, and more.

Obviously, to win the battle against all these diseases, we are going to have to make major changes to our diets, and no one food product can solve the problem by itself.

It's a HUGE change.

Primitive man lived on a diet of greens, vegetables, some tart fruits, some nuts, and mostly meat–all grass fed and naturally raised of course. 

That way of eating is often referred to as the Paleo diet, the Hunter Gatherer diet, or the Cavemen diet.

Here is a thought: Corn has the ability to fatten up a beef steer much faster than pasture-grazing does–although it makes the cattle themselves unhealthy and sick as well.

Cattle that have spent four to six months in a feedlot eating grain, have four to six times more fat, twice as much saturated fat, and as little as 1/10 the quantity of omega 3 fatty acids compared to meat from grass-fed cattle.

Of course, this does create big, fat cattle that grow in about half the time as grass fed, the cattle become as sick or sicker than we humans from eating corn and grain.

Corn and grain do not agree with cow's sensitive systems and cattle get GERD, ulcers, and other serious digestive issues. Another big issue with corn is that it is also very low in calcium and can lead to broken bones in the cattle.  Farmers then add soybean meal and it makes the problem worse!  The calves grow way too fast with the extra protein and end up with even weaker bones.

I don't know about you, but I am beginning to draw some parallells here… Is it any wonder that we, as people have so many cases of osteoporosis, GERD, ulcers, and digestive issues?

Do we want to follow in their ‘hoof’ steps?

 

Slowly but surely many of us are. Are we turning into a national feedlot of people?

Let's not be cattle but humans  who can think and who want to be healthy, strong and lean like our primitive ancestors.

 

The combination of a wide variety of grass-fed meats, free-range poultry, wild caught fish, and grass fed dairy products would certainly go a long way to help.

Let's be individuals in our dietary choices and make the decision to not follow the herd. The Fat Burning Kitchen Program will show you how to eat well, avoid grain, have effortless weight loss, and exceptional good health.

 

Till next time, stay healthy and lean!

 

References David Kamp, Deconstructing Dinner, New York Times, April 23, 2006.

Michael Pollan, What’s Eating America, Smithsonian, June 15, 2006

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, If we are what we eat, Americans are corn and soy, CNN 9/22/07

Tim Flannery, We’re Living on Corn!, The New York Review of Book

Avoid These Grains!

 

Cave men didn't eat grains; at least nowhere close to the form we eat today.

But our country has been steadily increasing its consumption of grain for the past 30 or more years. Along with that are the rising numbers of obese and overweight people.

In the 1970’s, the average American ate 85 pounds of flour, 84 pounds of sweeteners, 8 pounds of fried potatoes, and 39 pounds of cooking oil.

Even then, not so good.

Fast forward to the nineties…

By 1997, each of us was consuming 122 pounds of flour, 105 pounds of sugar or other sweeteners, 20 pounds of fried potatoes, and 50 pounds of vegetable cooking oils.

That's almost a pound of knowingly bad-for-you foods per day!

And that doesn’t count a whole lot of other junk food…but clearly, the reason many are overweight or obese today. And today, flours are more refined than ever, missing fiber  and essential nutrients. Processed white flour (alias "enriched wheat flour" or "wheat flour") is missing the two most nutritious and fiber-rich parts of the seed: the outside bran layer and the germ (embryo).

Eating a high starch diets will make you feel fatigued, malnourished, constipated, jumpy, irritable, depressed, and vulnerable to chronic illness.

And, refined/bleached wheat and corn flour fuels high blood sugar levels. High blood sugar leads to insulin release, immediate fat storage, and further hunger.

The more refined foods a person eats, the more insulin must be produced to manage it. This leads to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and weight gain. The refined carbohydrates turn to glucose very quickly once in our systems, stimulating the body to produce insulin.

A vicious cycle occurs: insulin promotes the storage of fat, making way for rapid weight gain and elevated triglyceride levels, inflammation and atherosclerosis, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.

"Enriched flour,"  is very misleading, because only four vitamins and minerals are typically added back, compared to the 15 nutrients and essential parts of the grain that are removed, along with most of the fiber and other beneficial substances such as antioxidants that are removed.

Eating wheat can cause one to feel lethargic, foggy, groggy, puffy and bloated, irritable and depressed.

Many would never connect these symptoms with eating grains; but weight gain, emotional, physical, and mental symptoms are fairly frequent with gluten sensitivity.

Gluten is the protein portion of wheat, rye and barley. It is so widespread in standard processed food today; it is very hard to escape. Unfortunately gluten sensitivity is on the rise (notice the “gluten free” sections at the grocery store?) and it can cause a host of problems.

Best to avoid processed flours altogether!

The American food supply is also heavily based on corn.

Bumper crops of corn help to keep corn prices low which in turn helps to keep many of the items we buy at the store low-priced. Contrary to popular belief, corn is a grain, not a vegetable, and is really not appropriate as a dietary staple for several reasons—one of them being that corn has a high sugar content.

When civilizations such as the Mayans and Native Americans changed their diet to a corn-based one, rates of anemia, arthritis, rickets, and osteoporosis skyrocketed.

Our bodies were not made to exist on grain-based foods. This evidence shows up in the archeological records of our ancestors. When archaeologists looked at skeletons of native Americans in burial mounds in the Midwest who ate corn as their primary staple, there was a 50% increase in malnutrition, four times as much incidence of iron-deficiency, and three times as much infectious disease, compared to the more hunter-gather ancestors who primarily hunted and did not eat grain.

Keep in mind that we are not just talking about corn-on-the-cob (sweet corn) here… we are also talking about corn cereals, corn chips, and other modern corn-based foods that are promoted by food companies as “healthy”.

There are several reasons researchers give for the nutritional problems and the weight gain caused by a corn-dominated diet:

* Corn contains lots of sugar, which raises insulin levels, causes you to be hungrier and causes your body to store calories as fat. Don’t be mistaken, just because corn does not taste obviously sweet, doesn’t mean it isn’t full of sugars. Once eaten, your body quickly turns corn products into sugar.  Even the starches in corn products can be broken down quickly by your body spiking your blood sugar levels, and causing cravings for more carbohydrate-based foods.

* Corn is also an poor source of protein, usually deficient in 3 of the 8 essential amino acids: lysine, isoleucine, and tryptophan. The essential amino acids are so-named because they must be obtained from the diet, since the body is unable to manufacture them.

* Corn contains a high amount of phytate, a chemical that binds to iron and inhibits its absorption by the body. So, consequently, a diet high in phytate can make people more likely to have iron-deficiency anemia and fatigue. Phytate is also a nutrient blocker and inhibits other vitamins and minerals from being utilized.

* Corn is a poor source of certain minerals such as calcium and some vitamins such as niacin (B3). Deficiencies of niacin can result in a condition known as Pellagra, which is common in civilizations that eat a lot of corn. It can cause a variety of symptoms such as dermatitis, diarrhea, and depression. Since we are now a nation of corn-eaters, it wouldn’t be surprising that this is more common here than we realize.

It's not just people who eat too much corn.

A large amount of the nation's corn crop ends up feeding commercially raised cattle, which are cheaply fattened on corn and other grains before slaughter. Beef from corn-fattened cattle also has much higher ratios of inflammatory omega-6 fatty acids than healthier grass fed beef. Most meat in supermarkets comes from grain-fed animals.

Because corn and other grains are an unnatural diet and difficult to digest, cattle raised on corn develop higher stomach acidity, which is a breeding ground for the dangerous E. coli O157:H7, the deadly strain of the bacteria.

While eliminating refined grains such as corn and wheat (yes, it seems they are in everything!) can seem a very daunting task, the reward is a return to wonderful health, sparkling eyes, clear skin, clear thinking, weight loss as the body is once again able to extract appropriate nutrients from food, and a resolution of nutritional deficiencies from the lack of absorption.

Once you commit to eating a diet of whole and natural foods, you will begin to eliminate a large amount of these grains.

Although many grocery stores, health foods stores, and online companies are now offering a wide selection of wheat-free/gluten-free foods including breads, bagels, cookies, cake mixes, doughnuts, etc; it is best to avoid these as much as possible. While they are made without wheat, they still contain other refined and process grains and wheat substitutes such as tapioca flour and corn flour.

Best thing to do is avoid grains–especially wheat and corn–all together. Substituting another processed grain may bring about a small improvement, but not the drastic improvement necessary.

Try two weeks with no grain products. I guarantee you will see some drastic improvements in your weight and general outlook!

Till next time,

Stay healthy and lean!

 

 

cat Healing Chicken Soup

 

 

 

DSC 6815 Healing Chicken Soup

Catherine (Cat) Ebeling RN BSN, is a back-to-basics diet and nutrition specialist. In addition to her advanced degree in nursing from a major medical school, she has spent the last 30 years intensely studying diet, health and nutrition. She also has a book titled "The Fat Burning Kitchen, Your 24 Hour Diet Transformation" that has sold over 60,000 copies worldwide, and has helped thousands of people transform their lives, lose weight and improve their health.   

                       Her mission is to help others prevent disease and live their best life ever.    

               Nutrition made Easy. Simple.Smart.Nutrition.