Oily mess

With all the hubbub in the Gulf, I started thinking about oil. Most importantly the oils we put into our bodies. The worst thing, I believe, that you can consume is hydrogenated oils. Here is an excerpt from naturalnews.com:

Let's take hydrogenated oils and see what this substance really is and why it's so incredibly bad for you. Hydrogenated oils are oils that are often healthy in their natural state, but are quickly turned into poisons through the manufacturing and processing they undergo. They take these naturally healthy oils such as palm, kernel, soybean, corn oil or coconut oil and they heat it anywhere from five hundred to one thousand degrees under several atmospheres of pressure.







They then inject a catalyst into the oil for several hours. The catalyst is typically a metal such a nickel, platinum or even aluminum. As this bubbles up into the oil the molecular structure changes and increases in density and rearranges it's molecules so that instead of a liquid at room temperature we now have either semi-solid or solid oil. This creates either partially hydrogenated or fully hydrogenated oils.






The molecules in this new product are now closer to cellulose or plastic than to oil. In fact hydrogenated oil is only one molecule away from being plastic. When you eat anything containing this material, just as the oil is now thicker and more viscous (dense), so too does your blood become thicker and more viscous right along with it. The heart now has to work so much harder to pump blood throughout the system. This is one of the major ways that consuming hydrogenated oils contributes to high blood pressure.






As you can imagine, this thicker blood with this gummy substance flowing with it can easily lodge in the arteries and build up the arterial plaque. It doesn't take anywhere near as much time as you may think for this to occur. Some studies have shown that negative health effects of eating processed foods occurs within only minutes of consuming such foods.
 
When I learned of this years ago, I heard a report on the news that said "This is the first generation of kids not expected to outlive their parents." As a mom that scared the crap out of me!! Number 1, I expect to live to be 120 and I don't want to be here by myself! So, I decided right then that we're absolutely not consuming hydrogenated oils. The first thing I did was start reading labels. Do you know what I found?? If you go to the grocery store and read labels you find lots and lots of food like substances with partially hydrogenated oils! Yuck! there were alot of foods we had to give up. My son was devastated that we could no longer eat Pop-Tarts. We started making food from scratch and shopping the perimeter of the store like we've all been told. It's not hard at all. Here is a sample dinner:
 
BBQ chicken breast on the grill
Caesar Salad
broccoli with cheese
pasta with real butter and tomatoes
 
You might look at that and say "Oh My Gosh! Look at all the fat!" No. Its healthy, trust me. I put real cream in my herbal coffee and I can still lose weight. It's the TRANS-FAT you have to watch out for.
 
After about a year, I discovered that the health food store has all my convenience foods without the hydrogenated oils or high fructose corn syrup that I told you about last time. Now, I could buy my son organic toaster pastries and I could get taco shells again!!! Yay!! However, the health food store is very expensive! I had huge sticker shock the first time I bought groceries. I used almost my entire weekly budget on 2 bags of food!! 'We'll starve!' I thought. Then, common sense took over and I realized that we will not starve. We're just trading our cheap, junky foods for high quality, nutrient dense foods. We'll eat better just less.
 
THEN, my little community of friends banded together and created a co-op. We now order directly from the distributor. We pay cost plus a small percentage to the person who organizes the whole thing. So, basically we're able to buy the same food you get at the health food store for wholesale. yippee!!!!!! I can help you work on setting that up in your town if you need advice or if you're in the Gainesville, TX surrounding area and want to come by once a month, you can join ours.
 
It can be overwhelming to try to overhaul your diet all at once. This really should be your first step in that endeavor. It's not hard, you just have to be diligent and a little creative at first. Leave a comment if you have questions or need advice.