Imagine if you had a top of the line, jet fuel racing car. Fastest car in the world! Unfortunately, the mechanic was having a bad day and he inadvertently filled the fuel tank not with jet fuel, but instead with diesel fuel. OOPS! What do you think will happen to this magnificent machine? Would you win the race? Unlikely. Instead, you’d be lucky to get it out of the garage and make it to the starting line. The substitution of the inferior fuel will surely cause this incredibly powerful machine to sputter, spurt, and die out.

Similarly, just as this car was engineered from the ground up to run on jet fuel, your body has genetically evolved over millions of years to be fueled by a natural diet. Current estimate is that the human race dates back about one to two million years ago. Over 99.9% of that time human bodies evolved as hunter gatherers. They foraged the plains and forests for vegetables, nuts, beans, berries, roots, fruits, and they killed an occasional critter for protein. This was their human “jet fuel.” It’s what their bodies were engineered for, and what made them thrive. Now flash forward to the modern American grocery store. The food on the shelf looks nothing like the food our ancestors ate for millions of years. While our bodies have not had time to change genetically, in the blink of an eye, as far as historic time, we have radically altered our diet. We have gone from jet fuel (whole food, live food plant food diet) to diesel fuel (processed food and junk food). Just like the race car, the processed food, junk food, genetically engineered food, pesticides, sugar, high fructose food, chemicals, and hormone ladened food are causing our bodies to sputter, spurt, and die out.

Example: the other day I saw some kids preparing hot dogs, wrapped in plastic, in a styrofoam tray, heated in the microwave. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut. What’s wrong with this picture? Let’s see, where do I start? First of all, the animals the hot dogs came from were most likely raised, not as free range animals, but in factory farms, where they are treated inhumanely, and viewed as a merely a life support system for protein. Thereto, that’s a subject for another article about mindfulness, and the ethical treatment of animals. The animals are usually fed genetically modified corn, which is also not the food that their bodies were engineered to eat, and are they are loaded with hormones, pesticides, and antibiotics. 93% of hot dogs are contaminated with DDT. The hot dogs also contain MSG and nitrates, which have been shown to be carcinogenic, and excitotoxic to the brain. Hot dogs are also fat ladened, which contributes to the obesity epidemic among the children of our country. Then, by heating the hot dogs in plastic and styrofoam, and these agents get onto the food. The styrene from the styrofoam causes GI and central nervous system effects, and the xenohormones alter the consumer’s own fragile hormone balance. Lastly, there is emerging evidence that microwaving causes changes in the molecular and genetic structure of the food you eat. which in turn has an effect on human cells. Finally, we wrap this toxic waste dump of a hot dog in a processed white bread bun, and slather it with mustard and ketchup, which is loaded with high fructose corn syrup, further contributing to obesity and other maladies.

Unfortunately the above scenario is all to common. The National Hot Dog & Sausage Council estimates that Americans eat 20 billion hot dogs per year. However, I don’t mean to pick on hot dogs in particular. The above scenario is just a real life illustration of the way we are poisoning our own and our children’s bodies. One could just as easily point the finger to sugar. The average American eats twenty four teaspoons or refined sugar every day. On the contrary, only about 20 % of college freshman get ANY fruits and vegetables on the average day, and that’s if your count ketchup and french fries. We wonder why there is so much illness in America. Autism rates are skyrocketing. Cancer is all around us. Depression , ADD, obesity, and diabetes are becoming epidemic. Let’s stop ignoring the elephant in the room. When you get right down to fundamentals, most diseases are caused by deficiencies of the good things our bodies need (such as phytonutrients from vegetables), or toxicities of the bad things (like pesticides and heavy metals). A life of wellness v. a life ladended with disease often boils down to what we put into our bodies and how we live our lives. In the current culture of cramming our bodies full of junk food and toxins, it’s amazing that we’re able to survive at all.

Food is not just calories, it’s information for our bodies. T. Colin Campbell in his wonderful book about nutrition called “The China Study” described an experiment in which we could literally turn the genes for liver cancer on and off with diet modification. The “information” we get from our food affects us right down to our cells and even at the genetic level. Two identical twin sisters may have the same gene for breast cancer, but one may get it and her sister may not. What determines if those genes get activated or silenced is how she lives her life; what she eats, toxins, stress, sleep, etc. She may not be able to control which genes she gets, but she has a lot to say about whether or not those genes get activated.

The four basic building blocks of your foundation of health are Nutrition, hydration, sleep, and exercise. When it comes to food, eat whole food, not processed food; live food, not dead food; more plant food such as fruits and veggies and less animal based foods.
In summary, it may be a worn out saying, but it’s true- “you are what you eat.” If you eat junk you will become junk. If you eat a well balanced healthy diet, you will infinitely improve your odds of living a well balanced healthy life.