Typical American Diet
The typical Standard American Diet (SAD) can cause injury and stress to your body, while blocking your body’s healing processes. Choosing to upgrade to a healthy diet is one of the most life enhancing decisions you can make. A healthy diet can prevent and reverse illness. Diet changes must be made gradually, yet with ruthless energy and determination. What you eat has a significant effect on your energy levels, your overall health, and your ability to heal. YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT!
- 90% of Americans are nutritionally and metabolically deficient
- 75% are overweight
- 10% have food addiction problems
- 40% of children are obese
The American diet has become overly convenient. We fill our bodies with choices of food that are quick to prepare or easy to “grab and eat”. This can leave us devoid of proper nutrition and balance, as many of these foods lack proper nutrients and will increase TOX in your body. We then turn to coffee, vitamins, herbs, and other products hoping that they will make up for our poor choices. Unfortunately, even these can make things worse as the body normally cannot process them efficiently. Sometimes we think that we can exercise ourselves out of a bad diet only to find failure.
Food is Medicine! Prescription drugs are poor substitutes for bad choices!
Health begins with Quality Food and your digestive system
Over 85% of the food that you purchase at regular grocery stores are full of TOX.
Besides emotional problems, most illnesses start and end with your food choices and your gut. We will address emotions and thoughts later in this handout but for right now we must start with practical solutions.
Think of your digestive system as a highway. Well paved roads, devoid of potholes, allow smooth traffic flow. Cars enter and exit the highway at numerous on/off ramps. These ramps are analogous to your organs. The pancreas, liver, and gallbladder are like entry ramps while the lungs, kidneys, and rectum are like exit ramps. Consider what happens when a crash occurs on the highway and causes a large backup. No cars can enter, and few can exit the highway. It is the same thing with your digestive system. Give it chemicals and non-nutritive foods and you have a vehicle crash. The organs get stuck, and they stop functioning normally.
The only way to start your way to a healthy body is to clean out the crash and get the highway and ramps working again. Turning to vitamins, supplements, herbs, and other promoted fads is usually a waste of money and time. These end up being like emergency vehicles trying to enter the congested highway.
Food & Your Nutrition
If you have low energy, tire easily, are prone to flus, colds, or other ailments you most likely have a car crash in your digestive system.
Now that you have already been introduced to the concept of TOX and dental stress you may be wondering why some people never appear to be affected by these issues. They have endless energy, they never get sick, they always appear happy, and they avoid the doctor’s office.
Ultimately, what you ingest and how your process and eliminate what comes into your body is what determines your health state. Your food choices are voluntary decisions. Learning about food choices is your way out of poor health.
The other factor that we will discuss later is EMOTIONS.
For now, let’s look at food and your nutrition. Today’s food is severely deficient in basic minerals. It is full of pesticides, herbicides, and engineered nano particles. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms or in simple terms: food that comes from laboratory modification and produced to be able to withstand herbicides and insecticides. Your body does not know how to process GMO food. There is no requirement to label food as GMO by the FDA. Most food that comes in a can or box is most likely GMO or labeled with hidden names such as: yeast extract, natural flavors, spices, or natural flavoring.
Many experts will agree that health begins in your GUT. When your GI is not right you are wrong also. There is enough information about this topic already so we will discuss some topics that may be new to many readers. Your GI is the first place that TOX accumulates. Most of us have hundreds of chemicals and toxins in our gut: 5 gallons of this stuff has most likely gone through your GI in the past 70 months. Eventually this TOX finds its way into your other organs, especially if you have a “leaky gut.”
Removing (eliminating) these is a crucial part of your well-being. Unfortunately, most of us keep dumping more unhealthy food and chemicals into our GI and we are unable to eliminate TOX. We then think that exercise or vitamins are going to make us healthy. It does NOT work that way.
The most important part of your diet/nutrition is based on your FOOD CHOICES. If you have not learned how to read food labels, or studied the basics of nutrition, then you most likely are not able to make proper decisions when it comes to buying and consuming food. This is especially true for any food that comes in a can or box. If you don’t know what’s in your food and what you are ingesting into your body, then you will always be full of TOX and elimination will be impossible to achieve. Processed food cause bad health. Quality food helps you to recover and improve your health.
The second part of your nutrition is DIGESTION. This starts in your mouth with your salivary glands and your teeth. The slower you chew and the more saliva you produce the better you will digest/break down your foods. Any impairment in your ability to chew, especially if you have missing teeth, will cause you to have digestive problems. The mouth also signals the liver to produce bile and your stomach to start excretion of acid. People who have TMJ and Headache problems will experience dysfunction of the vagus nerve which in turn can causes digestive system problems, including heart burn. They will also see an increase in blood pressure.
Digestion continues with your Stomach, which must produce adequate acid that is needed to further break down the food so that eventually it becomes a slush that can be easily processed by the small intestine. More on digestion later. For now, let’s look at Blood Type and how it impacts your food options.
BLOOD TYPE AND NUTRITION
Your Blood Type may dictate your food choices! Your specific blood type impacts how your immune system reacts to the various lectins of the foods that you eat. Lectins are protein antigens specific to all foods. Lectins are like antigens, the coatings that identify bacteria and viruses. Your blood considers these lectins either as friendly guests or as invaders (friend or foe.) How this consideration is made is dictated by your blood type.
For example, a Type A blood person cannot consume red meat such as sirloin. The Type A blood “identifies” the sirloin lectins the same way that it considers a Strep or Staph bacteria. It sets off an immune response to the lectins of that sirloin because it thinks it must destroy and eliminate it instead of consuming it. This creates an inflammatory response in the body rather than welcoming the food as nutrition. On the other hand, a Type O Blood person loves the sirloin because it considers it as a friendly food and the immune system accepts it. As another example, a Type A person can consume some dairy products while a type O person must avoid dairy at all costs.
We give credit to Dr Peter D’Adamo and his father for their clinical research and study of this field. Their books are a must read for anyone who wants to improve their health. You can purchase Eat Right 4 Your Blood Type book on Amazon (buy the latest edition.)
After you read the book, I would highly advise you to visit these websites:
and order the following test kits to help you understand more about your Secretor status, genotyping and diet options:
SWAMI XP w/ Geno Typing Kit Intro Pack (digital) | Dr. D’Adamo (4yourtype.com)
Also download the Blood Type Diet (Eat Right for Your Type) from the App Store on your phone and start using it daily, especially when you are grocery shopping.
THE GROCERY STORE AND YOUR PANTRY
Your regular grocery store is full of unhealthy foods. More than 85% of the food that you find on the shelves is full of the top 3 ingredients that ruin your health:
- Sugar
- Hydrogenated Oils (HOs)
- Chemicals (preservatives, dyes, spices, flavorings)
These additives cause you to be unhealthy as they slowly POISON you to the tune of 5 gallons in 5 years. Keep this in mind when you look at your shopping choices and learn to make healthy choices. Your pantry and kitchen shelves are most likely filled with 85% of these foods. You must learn to read the food labels and avoid bad foods. Keep reading!
SUGAR
It is estimated that the average American consumes over 300 lbs. of sugar (including starches) per year. Sugar is found in over 90% of our food. The worst sugar is High Fructose Corn Syrup. Other sugars such as Cane, Maltose, Dextrose, Rice, Molasses, and Carmel must be avoided as well. All artificial sweeteners (Equal, Splenda, Stevia, etc.) are also to be eliminated from your diet. You must learn to eliminate SUGAR or find alternative substitutes to please your taste buds. SUGAR is responsible for many of our health problems. Adult-Onset Diabetes is an epidemic.
If you are not willing to give up your sugar intake you will not achieve success with any diet or health improvement goals. Any food product that has “added sugar” must be avoided. As a rule: men should consume no more than 60 grams of sugar while women need to stay under 40 grams per day. This is obviously based on your activity level and your height and weight. We recommend seeing a nutritionist to help with your diet plan and sugar requirements.
As a simple example: if you consume 2 bowls of a common breakfast cereal you have already reached your sugar limit for the day. If you have gas or feel bloated, you most likely have consumed too much sugar!
1 teaspoon contains 4 grams of sugar! 4 g of sugar = 16 calories. Remember this value as you learn to read food labels.
Most humans need around 2000 calories per day, depending on activity level. We need sugar so long as it is in the right form such as fruits, maple, or raw honey.
HYDROGENATED OILS (HOs)
Many foods are filled with oils (Omega 6s) which cause cardiovascular problems including hypertension and heart disease. The only acceptable oils are olive and avocado. The following HOs are poisons:
- Vegetable (including all brominated forms)
- Sunflower
- Safflower
- Canola
- Corn
- Soybean
- Palm (also labeled as grapeseed oil); exception is Red Palm Oil
- Margarine
- Peanut
- Cottonseed
READ YOUR FOOD LABELS and stop buying anything that has any of the above oils. The exception may be sunflower oils that are “expressed.”
DAIRY
Milk products are full of sugar and devoid of any nutritional value. Today’s dairy is pasteurized and homogenized to kill pathogenic bacteria. The process of destroying the nasty bacteria also kills the good bacteria that your body needs. Unfortunately, you can’t play both sides of the coin. Today’s milk and cheese have no nutritional value and in fact are most likely responsible for your allergies and digestive issues. Got Milk? Get rid of it!
Although Type A, B, and AB Blood can tolerate dairy the options are limited due to the above reasons. Only Romanian Urda and Italian Perricone cheese provide any value. You can get your calcium from broccoli, kale, white beans, tofu, and collard greens. If you are Blood Type O you must never consume any dairy, even in its most natural unprocessed form. Most of the cheese products that you find in boxes are also filled with byproducts such as cellulose which is basically wood dust. Yes, wood dust!
MORE ON DIGESTION
Your mouth and teeth started the first part of digestion. Next, comes the stomach. You must also realize that today’s foods, including organic ones, are devoid of adequate minerals and hard to digest. All of us need digestive assistance. The only way to do this is to take a Digestive Enzyme with every meal. A medical grade quality enzyme is critical to this most important aspect of digestion. Breaking down your food is very important. When your mouth and stomach are unable to do so you will experience bloating, gas, indigestion, heartburn, and many of the ailments that we have already talked about.
Part of this digestive process requires Zinc. Without Zinc you cannot make stomach acid and therefore you cannot digest your food properly. Zinc also helps your body to make neurochemicals that are responsible for nerve functions in your body, including sensory and emotional. Anxiety and mental stress can occur when you are low in Zinc and your digestive system is not functioning properly. This can lead to anxiety or depression, topics that we will cover in later chapters.
UNDIGESTED PROTEINS ARE IDENTIFIED AS INVADERS BY YOUR BODY AND WILL CAUSE IMMUNE SYSTEM OVERLOAD. TAKE A DIGESTIVE ENZYME WITH EVERY MEAL TO CORRECT THIS.
Your GI (small and large intestine) will continue the third step of digestion. Your GI is not capable of breaking down large food particles and is totally dependent on your mouth and your stomach to supply the food in a mushy format whereby it can grab the nutrients and assimilate them into the bloodstream so that other organs and tissues can use them to function. Again, slow chewing, good saliva, adequate stomach acid, zinc, and digestive enzymes are critical.
Most of the GI digestion is dependent on your pancreas to release enzymes and your gall bladder to release bile (produced by your liver.) The enzymes and bile get excreted into your GI after you eat to help break down fats and proteins. A stressed or diseased pancreas and/or liver leads to poor digestion and many health problems. Digestive enzymes help this process but cannot be relied upon for complete digestion. Bad food cannot be digested, and it causes inflammation of the pancreas and liver. The liver responds by increasing cholesterol production.
High cholesterol levels occur when your liver is malfunctioning due to inflammation and accumulation of TOX. The liver must produce cholesterol to heal itself and that is why many of us have high levels of cholesterol. Trying to lower them is probably not a good idea because the liver requires cholesterol to heal. When you doctor tells you that your cholesterol level is high that most likely indicates a problem with your main filtration system: the LIVER. Of course, it also indicates that you are consuming too many HOs (hydrogenated oils.) The doctor may put you on cholesterol lowering drugs and you wonder why you don’t feel better. What you are doing is lowering the liver’s ability to heal while decreasing your hormone levels. Cholesterol is required to produce the basic hormones that provide bodily functions. When you try to decrease it too much you will also lose the production of hormones while your liver is suffering. At the same time, continued high levels of cholesterol will cause damage to your blood vessels (plaque formation/blockage.)
The liver has an area equivalent to 7 football fields. It is the main filter of your body that helps to remove TOX. When it slows down your body will feel the effects. On the opposite side of the coin, very low cholesterol levels normally indicate a diseased liver. The only way to improve liver function is to eat good fats: grass fed butter (Irish butter), grass fed meat, wild caught or American fish, seeds, nuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp, and eggs. This may sound contrary to common advice you may have heard but your body needs fat, in most cases. Meat for blood Type A should only be turkey and salmon or other fish.
Many of us have been told to use Omega 3 Fish Oils to help reduce cholesterol and fat levels. The problem is that most of these oils are unstable in the body if they are poor quality. They contain double carbon bonds which cause polymerization and breakdown of the oil. They are also very susceptible to heat, oxygen, and moisture which makes them turn rancid easily. The eventual byproduct of these oils is TOX. The same can be said about any other oils that you may be consuming. They are all sensitive to heat and processing. Most of them are hydrogenated by taking the rancid form of the oil and adding nickel oxide, which is a toxic compound. This makes them into a solid at room temperature. If you consume HOs you are basically ingesting TOX in the form of rancid oil mixed with nickel oxide. HOs are processed with hexane which is a petroleum product. If you eat restaurant food that is cooked in canola oil you are ingesting a petrochemical TOX. Your liver will eventually stop being able to filter all this TOX out of your system. HOs are responsible for all our cardiovascular (CV) problems including high blood pressure, hypertension, and blocked arteries.
Your GI will absorb the above TOX that comes from oils and eventually your cells will become hydrogenated. This causes just about any disease that you can think possible.
When you eat grass fed butter or beef you are ingesting stearic acid, arachidonic acid, linoleic acid, lecithin, trace minerals, Vitamins A/D/E, and saturated fat. When you consume chia or flaxseeds you are ingesting lauric acid which the body needs for cell function. All these help to lower cholesterol by improving liver function. Yes, that is totally opposite of what you may have been told.
The next important thing about your liver function is to understand the process of utilizing carbohydrates (sugars) namely glucose. This starts with your pancreas, which releases both insulin and glucagon. Insulin is needed to help get glucose into cells. Insulin is like the gatekeeper that allows glucose to enter your cells. When you have excess glucose your liver stores glucose in the form of glycogen. The liver can store up to 90 minutes of reserve glucose (glycogen) for the brain to use.
This sugar is used by your nervous system, including the brain.
Your other cells use fat to function.
The liver takes glucose from any sugar source that you eat and stores 90 minutes of it. The rest gets deposited into fat cells. Belly fat is due to excess sugar being deposited into your fat cells. It is not coming from fat getting deposited into fat cells, except for the HOs that we already talked about. It is coming from your “sugared-up” foods and drinks.
At the same time your pancreas secretes glucagon when sugar is low. This makes the liver release glycogen back into your system as glucose. It can also release the glucose that is “stuck” in the fat cells. When you eat good proteins, like turkey, you are promoting the pancreas to produce more glucagon which can help use up your stored glucose and help you lose weight. If you eat bread, pasta, and fruits with that steak then you are back to insulin and depositing more glucose into your fat cells. You will never lose the extra pounds and will feel sluggish.
If you want to know how your system is working just think of bloating and gas. Excess insulin caused by sugars will cause gas. Similarly, when you feel tired after a meal, you are in an insulin crisis.
Much of this is also very dependent on how well your stomach, pancreas, and liver are working. It is also dependent on a gallbladder that stores bile and releases it as needed. When you have too much TOX these organs will fail to do their job because they are being destroyed. You can try and improve your diet; you can try and exercise more…but you may hit a brick wall because the TOX is still in your organs and tissues. It must be eliminated with medical grade products and professional help. Diet changes alone may not be enough. Many people try diets, and they fail. It’s NOT the diet, it’s the TOX that is preventing your organs from working properly. It is also your Blood Type.
Weight loss diets and fads are everywhere. The problem with all of them is that they don’t and cannot address the issue of TOX, which requires specialized elimination for most of us. They also do NOT address your Blood Type and what foods you can or cannot consume. Telling a person with Blood Type O to go on a vegan diet is not wise advice. Vice versa for a Blood Type A person.
MSG is a TOX that is added to many of our foods. It damages the parts of the brain that sense Leptin, which is a hormone that is released to tell your brain that you are full. Do NOT confuse Leptin with Lectins. When your liver cannot produce cholesterol (which makes leptin) and then you add MSG (which damages the leptin receptors) you always feel hungry. MSG is put in foods by Big Pharma criminals because it makes you an addict to food. You will find MSG in textured proteins, autolyzed yeast, and hydrolyzed oat flour.
You must also realize the importance of bacteria in your diet. The human body needs bacteria to survive and live. The MICROBIOME in your body is critical! There are good bacteria (acidophilus, lactobacillus, etc) and then there are bad bugs. The good bugs will be destroyed by antibiotics, sugars, and preservatives. The bad bacteria will be fed by these. So, if you have ever taken antibiotics, or if you like sweets, you have a 100% chance that most of the good bacteria in your body have been destroyed and you have an overgrowth of bad bugs which cause you to have hunger cravings and excess fat storage. Furthermore, you may have an overgrowth of Yeasts, fungus, and molds which are great at sending signals to your brain to make you eat more sugars. One of the bacteria that causes sugar craving signals to your brain is called methanobrevibacter smithii and this is one bacterium that loves Splenda and enjoys making you hungry for more.
Ghrelin is called the “hunger hormone”, also known as lenomorelin (INN). It is a peptide hormone produced by ghrelinergic cells in the gastrointestinal tract which functions as a neuropeptide in the central nervous system. Besides regulating appetite, ghrelin also plays a significant role in making us seek and hoard food. When bad bacteria take over your body, the Ghrelin is increased in activity by these bugs. These bad bugs also shield themselves in your body by creating mucus coatings in your GI. These mucus coatings are very hard to eliminate, and some people may need more aggressive methods of cleaning the system.
The only way to increase the level of good bacteria in your body, and thereby lower the level of bad bacteria, is to use Digestive Enzymes and Probiotics and follow good diet habits that includes elimination of sugars (especially sodas.)
While we are on the subject of bacteria let’s talk about the common knowledge that H. Pylori bacteria is the main cause of ulcers and heartburn. This bacterium can be controlled and eliminated so long as your body has the good probiotic bacteria, and you also supplement Iodine in your diet. Iodine is a critical element that is required in the production of stomach acid, the most important factor in digestion. Along with Zinc and Vitamin B1, Iodine helps to digest your food while killing harmful bacteria and helping your body remove TOX.
When you lack iodine, you allow harmful bacteria like H. Pylori to thrive, and you disable your stomach’s ability to digest proteins. This causes an immune system response because your body thinks that the proteins are foreign invaders since they cannot be broken down by a lack of stomach acid. Your immune system will produce antibodies which further increases the inflammatory process in your body. Iodine, Zinc, and Vitamin B1 are crucial components needed for the production of stomach acid. Likewise, digestive enzymes help to compensate for lack of digestion.
Most people with heart burn take antacids or are prescribed medications (Prilosec, Zantec, Tagamet) to block stomach acid production. This is equivalent to trying to stop a chemical fire with water. Patients who take such medications are always tired, depressed, and usually obese. They have normal blood tests, and the doctor tells them that everything is fine. The issue is not bacterial, it’s digestive and Blood Type related.
There is another major factor that you must know, and this has to do with funguses. Soon, you will learn how dangerous yeasts are and why they may be responsible for a large majority of our health concerns when they grow in our bodies.
Fungus is present on earth because it helps to decompose dead organic material. Dead animals and vegetation would not break down if we don’t have fungus. Yeast covers all vegetation in the form of spores. When vegetation starts to die, such as it does normally in the fall, the fungus spores wake up and convert to their adult forms. They will now begin to take those dead leaves and break them down into their component parts: vitamins, minerals, and amino acids. This decomposed material goes into your soil as humic acid out of which part of it is known as fulvic acid. When seeds go into the dirt to try and make a new tree grow it is the fulvic acid that helps to open that seed and feed it the minerals that it requires for genesis.
Obviously, it also needs water to grow. The same process happens when you eat a vegetable or fruit that came from the same ground. You need fulvic acid from that food to be able to open your body’s cells and absorb the minerals and amino acids necessary for staying alive.
The above process of decomposition and regrowth is destroyed by pesticides. The farmer adds fertilizer to help the plants grow, however there is no humic acid left since it was destroyed by the pesticides. You are now ingesting food that you cannot use nutritionally because there is no fulvic acid to help open your cells up to receive the needed minerals and amino acids. When you buy vitamins and herbal products you must always make sure that they contain fulvic acid otherwise you are wasting your money.
Funguses do the opposite in your body. When you are full of TOX you lose voltage. A drop in your electrical field causes the dormant spores to grow and decompose your body. The only difference is that they are slowly killing you. As you will read in the chapter on Antibiotics, funguses also grow secondarily to antibiotic use. While you may think that a course of Amoxicillin is helping you fight off an infection, you are mainly increasing fungal growth in your body.
When it comes to your Blood Type and food choices try to remember that your blood senses foods via antigens like the way that it reads pathogens. All humans, animals, fruits, and vegetables have one thing in common: DNA. There are 4 molecules that make up all DNA: A, G, T, C. The various configurations of these 4 molecules dictate what protein is made into what specific tissue. Your blood is DNA. A chicken breast is DNA. When your Blood Type A DNA does not like the chicken Blood Type B DNA then you have a major problem, like getting a blood transfusion from the wrong blood type person.
A type A person should not consume meat because a steak or chicken will cause an immune response. Similarly, a Type O blood person should not eat bread because grains are identified as pathogens by that specific blood.
Gluten intolerance has no specificity of any blood type as it is a genetic issue.
Also: many common foods, like potatoes and tomatoes, have lectins which are like octopus tentacles. The lectins are DNA identifiers similar to antigens. They cling to your GI lining and can cause leaky gut problems. A Blood Type O person who likes hash browns for breakfast will feel tired all day because that blood type does not like potatoes.
Educate yourself more on this topic by reading Dr D’Adomo’s books. This topic alone can change your life.
