Junk does not belong in food

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“Oh my God, there it is”! A chocolate covered doughnut, a “Super Sized” nut and marshmallow candy bar, steamy hot, garlic Cajun spiced fries. You know this is the last thing you should eat. You know you’ll get a sugar rush that will make you tired, or a bit of heartburn, or an extra 10 pounds. But, right now you want it more than anything.

If someone could bottle this effect it has on people and sell it, they would make a fortune. So, what is it about junk food that makes us lose our intelligence despite knowing that it lives up its name and is precisely, “junk”? For one, it tastes good. Maybe you’ve had a crappy day and deserve a “reward”. It’s cheap and it makes you feel soooooooo good. Whatever it may be, I’m sure you can come up with a dozen other reasons. But, the harsh realities are staggering:

In 2012, Americans spent $305 billion, according to a report done by The National Center for Weight and Wellness at George Washington University, on obesity related costs.

Each year, according to a 2003 report from Columbia University, one out of five Americans die from fat related causes.

In the year 2011, according to Fast Food Marketing, Americans spent $112 billion on fast foods.

We now spend more money on fast food than on higher education, personal computers, computer software, or
new cars.

According to Fitness for Weight Loss, Americans, in 201t, spend $60.9 billion a year on diet and weight loss things.

The fast food industry has a yearly advertising budget of $4.6 billion.

McDonalds spent $963 million in advertising in 2011, while the National Cancer Institute spent about $1 million a year to promote fruits and vegetables.

Three year olds are targeted for junk food advertisements.

In 2012, junk food marketers spent an estimated $2 billion specifically to market children.

Last but not least, the Hawaii chapter of the American Heart Association serves at their “Heart Ball”, prime ribs, veal, or filet mignon to raise money to find a cure for heart disease. Come on, who’s gonna pay $3,500 a plate for steamed vegetables, tofu and brown rice? After all these years and all these balls and all the research, isn’t it about time they announced a cure for heart disease? Nah, nah nah! It’s not about a cure, it’s all about money.

Ok, ok, you’ve figured it out. The healthy food message is no match for the advertising budget of the junk food industry and the hypocrites that are more interested in raising money to keep their lifestyle intact then to really do something about obesity and heart disease. Our kids are raised in a world where fake, processed foods are the norm and drinking soda and eating French fries are an everyday experience.

So, what do we do to avoid junk foods? Changing your mindset, which is harder than climbing Mt. Everest, is what needs to be done. Instead of looking at this “stuff” as a reward or a treat, try looking at it as:

Calories that will make your body look like the “Goodyear Blimp”.
Toxic garbage that will turn your body into a “dump”.
A combination of chemicals and artificial flavors that defy pronunciation.
A waste of money.
Not something to give to a growing kid.
Something that is sure to increase your medical bills.

When you look at healthy foods, don’t see them as boring but as the staff of life that will build and enhance your immune system, give you a defense against disease, and make you look younger as you get older. We are told that there are no “bad” foods, only foods that should be eaten in moderation. Do you really believe that crap? I hope not.

Here are some foods that you might want to reconsider putting into your body:

DOUGHNUTS AND MALASADAS
A malasada (to die for in Hawaii) is a ball of white flour, covered in sugar, deep-fried in grease, that will sit in your stomach like a lead weight. It’s a guaranteed “Homer Simpson” special. The store bought ones contain 200-300 calories, mostly from sugar and contain 35% – 40% of heart clogging trans fats. And Dunkin’ Donuts
should rename their name to “Dunkin’ Greasenuts”.

SODA
A 20-ounce bottle of soda has about 14 teaspoons of sugar in it only because the sugar would not stay suspended if more were added. The 7-11 “Big Gulp” has 56 teaspoons of sugar in it. To add insult to the white sugar and high-fructose corn syrup injury, cola is loaded with caffeine with “Mountain Dew” having as much caffeine as instant coffee.

What about diet soda? Let’s hear it for Aspartame and Splenda. Aspartame converts to formic acid (formaldehyde) at 86 degrees F (the body temp is 98 degrees). Those that drink Aspartame might want to answer casting calls for the remake of, “The Night Of The Living Dead”. With sucralose, aka Splenda, being born from chlorine, it might be better served if it were added to swimming pools.

Studies have linked soda to osteoporosis, obesity, tooth decay and heart disease.

Soda consumption by kids has almost doubled in the last 10 years. Do you think that schools with vending machines always within sight could contribute to the problem? What am I thinking? These guardians and caring educators of our children make deals with the soft drink companies to encourage the kids to drink soda after soda because the schools share in the profits, which help to fund student activities. What an unconscionable catch-22! These wonderful human beings sell the health of our kids down the river for a few bucks. It’s just like leading cows to slaughter in a slaughterhouse. Show me a school without a vending machine and I’ll show you a closed down building.

FRENCH FRIES
Anything fried has the likelihood of trans fats and cancer causing acrylamide to deal with. When frying oils are exposed to oxygen, rancidity occurs and produce large amounts of damaging free radicals to the body. What you may not know is that these heated oils can cause pre-mature aging, blood clotting, inflammation, cancer and weight gain.

If you like “French Fries”, try Hesh’s “Baked French Fries”:
Get a pan or a Pyrex baking dish.
Cut potatoes in “French Fry” type slices.
Coat your hands with avocado oil or olive oil and rub the potatoes in your hands.
Line up the slices in the pan.
Coat the potatoes with your favorite spices.
Cover the potatoes with nutritional yeast.
Bake at 300 degrees until brown (350 and up will produce acrylimides).
You will never go back to the fried junk again.

CHIPS
Trans fats, acrylamide, high fat, excess sodium and heartburn due to cooking in rancid oil and loaded with calories, almost all from fat. Umm, umm, umm, finger lickin’ good.

Now for the bad news. The U.S. Government rejected the April, 2003 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which argued for a reduction in the national recommendation of sugar consumption from 25% to 10%. The sugar industry was so bummed that they lobbied to prevent the government from accepting the proposals and to cut off the $406 million yearly contribution to
the WHO. The National Soft Drink Association argued that 25% added sugar is not harmful despite numerous studies showing sugar’s link to obesity.

Is it reprehensible that the Government puts the interests of sugar ahead of the fight against obesity? Yes! But, it’s the sugar industry that makes those “sweet” political campaign contributions year after year and no one wants to bite the hand that feeds them.

If you want change, it must come from you and not buying these obesity-linked foods is a beginning.

Maybe some day the Government will stop subsidizing the sugar and flesh industry. And when chopped meat costs $99.00 a pound and milk costs $25.00 a quart, the country will be swarming with vegans.

What a nice thought!

Aloha!

Sources:
www.articles.mercola.com
www.bodyecology.com
www.concentra.com

Hesh Goldstein
When I was a kid, if I were told that I'd be writing a book about diet and nutrition when I was older, let alone having been doing a health related radio show for over 36 years, I would've thought that whoever told me that was out of their mind. Living in Newark, New Jersey, my parents and I consumed anything and everything that had a face or a mother except for dead, rotting, pig bodies, although we did eat bacon (as if all the other decomposing flesh bodies were somehow miraculously clean). Going through high school and college it was no different. In fact, my dietary change did not come until I was in my 30's.

Just to put things in perspective, after I graduated from Weequahic High School and before going to Seton Hall University, I had a part-time job working for a butcher. I was the delivery guy and occasionally had to go to the slaughterhouse to pick up products for the store. Needless to say, I had no consciousness nor awareness, as change never came then despite the horrors I witnessed on an almost daily basis.

After graduating with a degree in accounting from Seton Hall, I eventually got married and moved to a town called Livingston. Livingston was basically a yuppie community where everyone was judged by the neighborhood they lived in and their income. To say it was a "plastic" community would be an understatement.

Livingston and the shallowness finally got to me. I told my wife I was fed up and wanted to move. She made it clear she had to be near her friends and New York City. I finally got my act together and split for Colorado.

I was living with a lady in Aspen at the end of 1974, when one day she said, " let's become vegetarians". I have no idea what possessed me to say it, but I said, "okay"! At that point I went to the freezer and took out about $100 worth of frozen, dead body parts and gave them to a welfare mother who lived behind us. Well, everything was great for about a week or so, and then the chick split with another guy.

So here I was, a vegetarian for a couple weeks, not really knowing what to do, how to cook, or basically how to prepare anything. For about a month, I was getting by on carrot sticks, celery sticks, and yogurt. Fortunately, when I went vegan in 1990, it was a simple and natural progression. Anyway, as I walked around Aspen town, I noticed a little vegetarian restaurant called, "The Little Kitchen".

Let me back up just a little bit. It was April of 1975, the snow was melting and the runoff of Ajax Mountain filled the streets full of knee-deep mud. Now, Aspen was great to ski in, but was a bummer to walk in when the snow was melting.

I was ready to call it quits and I needed a warmer place. I'll elaborate on that in a minute.

But right now, back to "The Little Kitchen". Knowing that I was going to leave Aspen and basically a new vegetarian, I needed help. So, I cruised into the restaurant and told them my plight and asked them if they would teach me how to cook. I told them in return I would wash dishes and empty their trash. They then asked me what I did for a living and I told them I was an accountant.

The owner said to me, "Let's make a deal. You do our tax return and we'll feed you as well". So for the next couple of weeks I was doing their tax return, washing their dishes, emptying the trash, and learning as much as I could.

But, like I said, the mud was getting to me. So I picked up a travel book written by a guy named Foder. The name of the book was, "Hawaii". Looking through the book I noticed that in Lahaina, on Maui, there was a little vegetarian restaurant called," Mr. Natural's". I decided right then and there that I would go to Lahaina and work at "Mr. Natural's." To make a long story short, that's exactly what happened.

So, I'm working at "Mr. Natural's" and learning everything I can about my new dietary lifestyle - it was great. Every afternoon we would close for lunch at about 1 PM and go to the Sheraton Hotel in Ka'anapali and play volleyball, while somebody stayed behind to prepare dinner.

Since I was the new guy, and didn't really know how to cook, I never thought that I would be asked to stay behind to cook dinner. Well, one afternoon, that's exactly what happened; it was my turn. That posed a problem for me because I was at the point where I finally knew how to boil water.

I was desperate, clueless and basically up the creek without a paddle. Fortunately, there was a friend of mine sitting in the gazebo at the restaurant and I asked him if he knew how to cook. He said the only thing he knew how to cook was enchiladas. He said that his enchiladas were bean-less and dairy-less. I told him that I had no idea what an enchilada was or what he was talking about, but I needed him to show me because it was my turn to do the evening meal.

Well, the guys came back from playing volleyball and I'm asked what was for dinner. I told them enchiladas; the owner wasn't thrilled. I told him that mine were bean-less and dairy-less. When he tried the enchilada he said it was incredible. Being the humble guy that I was, I smiled and said, "You expected anything less"? It apparently was so good that it was the only item on the menu that we served twice a week. In fact, after about a week, we were selling five dozen every night we had them on the menu and people would walk around Lahaina broadcasting, 'enchilada's at "Natural's" tonight'. I never had to cook anything else.

A year later the restaurant closed, and somehow I gravitated to a little health food store in Wailuku. I never told anyone I was an accountant and basically relegated myself to being the truck driver. The guys who were running the health food store had friends in similar businesses and farms on many of the islands. I told them that if they could organize and form one company they could probably lock in the State. That's when they found out I was an accountant and "Down to Earth" was born. "Down to Earth" became the largest natural food store chain in the islands, and I was their Chief Financial Officer and co-manager of their biggest store for 13 years.

In 1981, I started to do a weekly radio show to try and expose people to a vegetarian diet and get them away from killing innocent creatures. I still do that show today. I pay for my own airtime and have no sponsors to not compromise my honesty. One bit of a hassle was the fact that I was forced to get a Masters Degree in Nutrition to shut up all the MD's that would call in asking for my credentials.

My doing this radio show enabled me, through endless research, to see the corruption that existed within the big food industries, the big pharmaceutical companies, the biotech industries and the government agencies. This information, unconscionable as it is, enabled me to realize how broken our health system is. This will be covered more in depth in the Introduction and throughout the book and when you finish the book you will see this clearly and it will hopefully inspire you to make changes.

I left Down to Earth in 1989, got nationally certified as a sports injury massage therapist and started traveling the world with a bunch of guys that were making a martial arts movie. After doing that for about four years I finally made it back to Honolulu and got a job as a massage therapist at the Honolulu Club, one of Hawaii's premier fitness clubs. It was there I met the love of my life who I have been with since 1998. She made me an offer I couldn't refuse. She said," If you want to be with me you've got to stop working on naked women". So, I went back into accounting and was the Chief Financial Officer of a large construction company for many years.

Going back to my Newark days when I was an infant, I had no idea what a "chicken" or "egg" or "fish" or "pig" or "cow" was. My dietary blueprint was thrust upon me by my parents as theirs was thrust upon them by their parents. It was by the grace of God that I was able to put things in their proper perspective and improve my health and elevate my consciousness.

The road that I started walking down in 1975 has finally led me to the point of writing my book, “A Sane Diet For An Insane World”. Hopefully, the information contained herein will be enlightening, motivating, and inspiring to encourage you to make different choices. Doing what we do out of conditioning is not always the best course to follow. I am hoping that by the grace of the many friends and personalities I have encountered along my path, you will have a better perspective of what road is the best road for you to travel on, not only for your health but your consciousness as well.

Last but not least: after being vaccinated as a kid I developed asthma, which plagued me all of my life. In 2007 I got exposed to the organic sulfur crystals, which got rid of my asthma in 3 days and has not come back in over 10 years. That, being the tip of the iceberg, has helped people reverse stage 4 cancers, autism, joint pain, blood pressure problems, migraine headaches, erectile dysfunction, gingivitis, and more. Also, because of the detoxification effects by the release of oxygen that permeates and heals all the cells in the body, it removes parasites, radiation, fluoride, free radicals, and all the other crap that is thrust upon us in the environment by Big Business.

For more, please view www.healthtalkhawaii.com and www.asanediet.com.

Namaste!