Foods to Avoid or Reduce

Here's a list of foods to avoid or reduce to feel better and live longer:

Avoid processed carbohydrates such as refined flours and sugars. They have no or very little nutrient content, and your body must expend nutrients to process them.

I like sweets as much as anyone, and struggle sometimes to avoid them. If I can hold out over a few days, the cravings eventually go away. I also notice that if I eat a lot of carbohydrates, the cravings come back.

Eating small amounts of candy or cake every once in a while isn't going to kill you, especially if you keep your overall daily carb intake below 100.

But if you eat large quantities of high carb foods over time, you will most likely damage your body's ability to regulate your blood sugar and insulin. Once that happens, your risk of developing diabetes and heart disease go way up.

Fortunately, switching to a diet plan which is low in carbohydrates and processed food can reverse a great deal of any damage done over time. I think the best diet books are those which discuss the science behind why low carb diets work. I recommend The Protein Power Lifeplan by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades, Life Without Bread by Christian Allan, PhD and Wolfgang Lutz M.D., and The Schwarzbein Principle: The Truth About Losing Weight, Being Healthy, and Feeling Younger by Diana Schwarzbein, M.D. to learn more.

If you are having trouble identifying high carb foods, I've created a healthy food list to help you figure out what foods are high in protein and low in carbohydrates.

Lower your intake of whole grain based foods. Grains, even whole, should be on everyone's foods to avoid list. I realize this statement goes against the advice of every dietitian and government official out there.

But I've done quite a bit of research on this subject and believe grains have serious health effects. All cereal grains have relatively low levels of good nutrients and high levels of toxins. These toxic anti-nutrients include lectins and phytates, which cause a long list of digestive issues, and are at the root of why grains are foods to avoid.

Grains are linked to a host of health problems because when eaten, they disable important minerals in the body, and degrade the digestive tract, causing autoimmune reactions. Celiac disease is an example of grain related autoimmune problem.

If you want to continue eating grain based foods, be aware that grains must be prepared properly in order to make all the nutrients available and neutralize the anti-nutrients such as phytic acid. Sprouting or soaking the grain overnight in yogurt or whey will help reduce these toxic anti-nutrients.

Sally Fallon talks about this in depth in her cookbook, Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, which is an excellent resource for how to cook foods for a traditional diet plan.

Sprouting grains and making bread is time consuming, and in all honesty, it isn't something I'm willing to spend my time doing.

As a compromise and time saver, you could try Ezekiel sprouted wheat bread from a company called Foods for Life. It's usually in the freezer section at the grocery store. Sprouted grains are much lower in anti-nutrients, and the each slice only has about 12 grams of carb. (Most other flour based breads have about 25 grams of carb per slice.)

Personally, wheat is at the top of my foods to avoid list. Wheat has a protein called gliaden in it, which in particular has been shown to effect gut permeability. It disrupts the tight junctions between the cells lining then intestinal wall. Damaging the integrity of the gut allows all sorts of dietary proteins to gain access to the blood stream and, causes a response from the immune system. Some researchers believe diabetes, arthritis and gastric diseases such as Crohn's disease are all autoimmune diseases, meaning they are caused by autoimmune reactions to a "leaky gut".

Basically, the research is saying that eating wheat causes the body to attack itself via its immune system. That fact alone should put wheat products on any foods to avoid list.

In addition, wheat protein acts as an insulin mimic, having the same effect on fat metabolism as insulin, which is to say, the higher the insulin (or insulin mimic) the more fat is stored. Another excellent reason why wheat is on my foods to avoid list.

Specific Foods to Avoid or Limit

• Foods created with genetically modified organisms. (GMO) The Institute of Responsible Technology makes it easy to avoid these foods by providing a shopping guide which tells you what foods are GMO free.
• Foods made with flours made from corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other grains. (This would include crackers, breads, corn chips, etc.)
• Foods made with refined white flour and white sugar (bread, muffins, cookies, cake, candy, bagels).
• Hidden sugars: maltodextrin, sucrose, maltose, dextrose, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup.
• Processed foods, especially processed low fat foods.
• Packaged frozen meals (too many chemicals and carbs).
• Processed cheese foods (choose real cheese instead).
• Limit the amounts eaten of whole grain cereals (oats, muesli).
• Canned foods, boxed foods, other processed foods
• Fast foods as they are usually high in damaging trans fats and hidden sugars.
• Fruit juice, soda, diet soda.
• Limit amounts you eat of beans, pulses and peanuts. They also have anti-nutrients in them that leach minerals and vitamins from the body.
• Limit the amounts you eat of starchy vegetables such as fresh corn, peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and most winter squash. These foods do provide good nutrition, but they are high in carbohydrates, which can drive up your blood sugar.
• Breaded or fried foods.
• Soy based foods, and any foods that include soy fillers.
• Refined vegetable oils (canola, soybean oil, sunflower, safflower) and hydrogenated fats such as margarine. Vegetable oils and margarine are highly processed foods and extremely inflammatory to the body.

Resources for Further Reading

• How Toxic is Wheat? a post by Peter at his Hyperlipid blog.
• Cereal Grains: Humanity’s Double-Edged Sword an academic paper by Loren Cordain, PhD
• Wheat Head post from Dave Dixon at Spark of Reason
• Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats a cookbook by Sally Fallon
• The Protein Power Lifeplan by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades.
• Life Without Bread by Christian Allan, PhD and Wolfgang Lutz M.D.
• Natural Health & Weight Loss by Barry Groves

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