EIGHT HEALTH MYTHS YOU PROBABLY BELIEVE!

1.  Fish is healthier than meat or poultry.

Complete lunacy when you consider most fish sold in industrialized countries comes from fish farms. Sure, wild, cold water fish is great, but it is rapidly disappearing on this planet. What you're eating now is probably loaded with chemicals, drugs, and toxins. So you're eating fish grown in mud in China and think it's healthy? 

2. Organic is MOST important.

Local is WAY more important than organic. Even better, foods that are in season! Nothing wrong with organic, of course, but you're better served by going as close to home as possible, something grown down the road rather than something flown in. LOCAL FOOD RULES!

3. Low fat foods promote health.

Only Americans could be dumb enough to buy this marketing ploy. Take the fat out of something, like yogurt for example, reduce the portion size and charge twice as much! Most nutrients in most foods are in the fat. If it says LOW FAT on the label, and nature didn't make it that way, like an apple, for example, it is probably not a healthy food.

4. Red meat is bad for you.

This one is a given, right? How many times have you heard someone say, "I'm going to get healthy, so I'm giving up RED MEAT." Red meat, when coming from free-range and GRASS FED sources is incredibly health-promoting. Try some, barely cooked, and tell me how you feel afterward. Where'd my weird food cravings go? My loss of energy? My erratic blood sugar? Red meat in SMALL AMOUNTS is a wonder food. There are certain essential fats and other nutrients you cannot get any other way in your diet. Just use it in SMALL PORTIONS. No 20 oz T-Bone steaks, just a few ounces, almost like a garnish to the rest of the meal, a few times a week.

 

5. Saturated fat is dangerous.

Again, the myth of low-fat foods being health-promoting underscores the idea that of all the fats, one is the absolute worst for you--SATURATED FAT, meaning solid at room temperature. Well, the truth is only trans fat is dangerous, and that's man-made. If nature made the fat and the source has not been pumped full of drugs or hormones and allowed to live as nature intended, as in grass fed beef, the fat is going to promote health. Period. In your mind, you've got to dissociate the image of an overweight person and thinking they are eating too much fat. They are more than likely eating too many carbs and sugars as well as fake foods like diet sodas.

6. Diary foods are better avoided.

Some of the healthiest foods ever conceived of by humans are hard, aged cheese and yogurt. Dairy in general, and especially fermented diary foods like Kefir, is a wonderful health promoter; make sure it is as local and raw as possible, and organic too--in this case organic means a lot--you don't want any saturated fat sources that are not from organic products, that's when you get into trouble with saturated fats, and only then. If you can't get raw milk, go for the cheeses made from raw milk and yogurt.

7. I need to get some type of genetic screening to prevent future illness.

Don't fall for this nonsense and non-science! Don't give yourself added stress. Don't remove healthy body parts. Twenty years from now this science will be on the shelf with a great many other bad ideas doctors came up with like urging patients to smoke cigarettes in the 40s, use margarine in the 50s, high carb/low protein diets of the 70s, and the mantra of low fat today. EPIGENETICS is the real science and what we should be paying attention to: The way genes interact with their environment shape their expression, not the gene in and of itself, as if your DNA exists in a vacuum. What is promoted now is damn near Voodoo.

8. Sun exposure is dangerous. 

Sorry, but you need sunshine--with NO SUNSCREEN! You need the Vitamin D as well as the happy brain chemicals. Try to get a little sun whenever you can. I'm not talking hours and hours, baking like bread; I mean 15-30 minutes every day, with the sun hitting as much skin as humanely possible, The best times and months are "off-peak" like spring and fall and early morning, late afternoon. If a cat won't lie out in the midday sun in July, you probably shouldn't either. The experience should feel gently warming, like a soft caress, not like you're frying in a skillet! You can sense when the best time to soak up the sun is, so use your intuition. But don't be afraid of the sun--it is a huge cancer prevention ally, as well as a fortress against depression, sleep disorders, and so many other modern brain diseases. If you're worried about skin cancer, eat more anti-oxidants from fruit and vegetables and drink red wine and Red Clover infusions--the number one herbal cancer defense.