Back about 8 years ago, I heard a seminar where this question was posed. At that point, people were looking around the room to see who the guilty parties might be. It can be a controversial question, depending on the company of course. But the context was not necessarily about narcotics or recreational drugs.
The seminar was specifically a natural health and diet seminar. And the question was asking about the kinds of chemicals that we were putting in our bodies.
Prescription and Non Prescription Medications
Around this time in my life, I could identify a couple items that I was consuming on a regular basis. I was taking Advil pretty much daily for headaches and joint pain in my knees. I was taking Loratadine antihistimine daily for allergies year round as well as a rescue albuteral inhaler.
Legal Drugs
Then we were asked to take it a step further – past the pill bottles. What else were we putting in our bodies. For me, I drink alcohol socially. I used to smoke cigarettes, but quit back in 1991. This where people asked to consider also any “non prescription pharmaceuticals.” No judgements. But consider it as part of this checklist
Stimulants in our Foods
We drank a lot of soda – Diet Pepsi was our drink of choice. I always tried to stay healthy and not drink anything with sugar. But that means Aspartame and caffeine. And I drank about a pot of coffee per day. And let’s not talk about chocolate.
. . . And What Else Might Be Hiding
Take a step further in diet. What kinds of foods were we eating? Is it Fruits, vegetables and meats? Is it fresh or canned? Prepared snacks? Did we have any idea what was in the foods that we were eating? Are they organic? GMO? How much MSG in your diet? And what about your water? Do you filter it? Is your water source flouridated?
So this is the part of the post where we look forward. And today, it is homework. Let’s answer the questions everyone. What Drugs are you on? This is intended to be an honest assessment of what you are putting in your body. Include:
Prescription Meds
OTC Medications
Illicit Stuff
Legal Stuff
Dietary Chemicals
Write it out for yourself, or share it here. I will follow this up in the next few days with thoughts about my own diet and ideas on what to do about it.
Wow Andrew, eye-opening. In the States, plenty. Kelli and I need to buy more organic stuff. But here in New Zealand we eat from the yard, with all types of spinach, batchoy, fruits, veggies. Nuts, how many plants we have at the place where we are house sitting. Plus the fruits and veggies at the market are organic too, no crap on or in them.
Ryan
This reminds me of an article that ran a couple years back. A person went to a number of different countries and took a representative example of what a week’s worth of food looked like for an average family. Each country was published with a list and a picture. It was fascinating to see that different varieties of foods in different countries like in Mexico, the example had lots of fruits and vegetables. Japan had lots of fish. And America had mostly processed, prepackaged foods. It would be good to find that article again.
In fact, here it is:
https://fstoppers.com/food/what-week-groceries-looks-around-world-3251
As Ryan described it, “eating from the yard” is probably one of the better approaches (assuming you have a yard). That way you know it is fresh, and hasn’t been sprayed with god knows what.
Another good rule of thumb I’m trying to practice more is “Only eat it if your grandparents would recognize it as food.” Of course, depending on how young you are, it might need to be your great grandparents 🙂 So, maybe anything ‘processed’ and i
James, watch for my next post – Eat Food that is as close to as nature intended.