diet summary

The final installment of PEAS' CANCER-FREE, SKINNY-MAKING, LONGEVITY, ENERGETIC-LIFESTYLE DIET.

Just before the weekend, lucky you! 

Processed and diet foods

Many people who, like me, don't have massive stacks of wilpower when it comes to saying no to sugar, will turn to fake sugar instead.

If you've read anything from the last two posts, what you'll mostly see is that the closer you stay to non-fake foods, the healthier you'll be. 
Wholefoods. Shit from nature that hasn't been fucked with.  Even if sugar is bad, it's still real sugar. 

Processed foods like margarine, spam, polony - food with tons of stuff added to it, to the point where the molecular structures have changed, are probably going to not only make you fat, but eventually make you really sick. My advice is, if you want something sweet, go for the lesser evil - sugar. Not the fake sweetened stuff.

Sweeteners, like Canderel, and diet Coke are largely made from a substance called aspartame. One of the most controversial substances on Earth. Largely because America's FDA supposedly never approved it, and links to cancer, multiple sclerosis, memory loss and lesions on your brain.

If you're interested in food approval processes and corruption, there's an interesting story around aspartame. And how law suits around the product have been shoved under the rug. I'll leave you to look it up.
Sweeteners also taste like shit. Don't tell me you literally love the taste of Coke Lite. If you're going to have a blow out, drink a real Coke if you really must.

Good fats

Good fat - that found in nuts, oily fish like salmon and sardines, olive oil - are great for shiny hair, eyes and good skin. Bad fats are crackling (I could die in a bath tub of the stuff, in a motel in the edge of a desert, as the happiest woman alive. Pork fat is my ultimate favourite. Could eat it all day. Just saying.) Bad fats are butter, sunflower oil.

Olive oil actually helps decrease cholesterol. I don't use anything except pure olive oil when I cook, and on my salads.

Vegetables

I think it goes without saying that vegetables are the things that give us all our minerals, vitamins and keep shit running properly.

I might not eat red meat or dairy (or at least, not regularly), but I make sure that I choose my veggies carefully so that I don't deprive my body of iron, protein and calcium.

I get my iron from eating tons of spinach, my calcium from eating tons of brocolli , my fibre and folic acid, vitamins from lots of leafy veg. I also eat linseeds for my hair and digestion. I basically fill my plate with fresh vegetables, and fortify my soups and stews with vegetables when I cook.

It also fills me up, which is a bonus. And as vegetables are also largely considered carbs, I'm not depriving my body of anything.  I eat cheese when I'm at a local country market and/or France; and I eat fresh biltong when I'm in South Africa. Special occasions.

The Eastern wisdom


Not going all chi and feng shui and weird on you, I'm not that esoteric.

But. Populations in China, Japan and in many not-heavily-Westewrnised regions of south east asia, have the healthiest longest-living people on the planet. The China Study looks at why this is, among other books. There is a high rate of smoking in many of these parts, and yet, people still live longer.

There is a medicinal theory, as to why, called the Asian Paradox, as set out by Yale University. 

Perhaps it's the fact that they all eat tons of omega-3 rich, oily fish like tuna and salmon. Most likely it's because they don't eat things Westerners do. Like processed foods, dairy (none of these diets typically have tons of diary in them), lots of red meat. Likely also because if they do eat diary and meat, it's organic. The cows run free and the milk is from the local farm. No antibiotics and shit.

Then there's the magical elixir. Green tea.

I have, on average, for over a year now, drunk at least 4-5 cups of green tea a day. Green tea has caffeine in it, so it keeps me going instead of coffee. It has huge cancer-fighting properties, tons of age-fighting antioxidants, and it's generally as healthy as fuck. I love it.

It also speeds up your average metabolic rate, and therefore is great in aiding weight loss. You're welcome.

Acid versus alkaline

Your body's pH - measurement of acidity or alkalaine - is roughly 8. It's best state is is alkaline. Cancer likes to grow in an acidic environment.
So eating very alkaline-type foods helps to counterbalance the other bad shit you stuff in your pie-hole. White starch, meat, coffee, sugar - all highly acidic. Diary, acaidic.

Fruit and vegetables are alkaline. Green tea is very, very alkaline. Even citrus fruits are alkaline. Kale is a very alakaline leaf, as are lima beans.

Just something to be conscious of, which should fit neatly into another reason why having a heavy plant-based diet is not a bad thing. Many celebrities do the acid/alkaline diet.


Phew. Summary

1) A healthy diet should mostly be plant-based. It's alkaline, it provides all your minerals, and helps to fight disease. If you can't bear the thought, then consider that you should be having your 5 a day. At the very least!

2) Meat, dairy, processed foods, ('Western', 'acidic-forming') in large or regular quantities is bad for you. They feed diseases like cancer, and the processed foods are man-made, not nature-made. If you can stick to the whole food, as it was intended, it's healthier for you. And that even includes an organic steak rather than a burger, for example. Think fresh, wholewheat, brown bread, instead of white sliced.

3) But don't deprive yourself! If you need to eat a certain food, occasionally., then do it!

4) Drink green tea as much as you can. I do this as well as lots of water to flush toxins out.

5)  Eat oily fish. 

6) Don't drink your calories.

7) Fill up on fruit

8) Do this and watch your weight plummet. All naturally and healthily.

But what do I know right? My guinea pig will tell you for sure in the coming weeks.