The Paradox of Plenty

We Americans spend less on food and more on health care than any other industrialized country in the world. Most experts agree that our love affair with refined, processed foods may be why Americans rank the highest in diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, heart disease and obesity despite having the most advanced health care system in the world. Our diets have left us overfed and undernourished. We have created the Paradox of Plenty.



We live in an age where the natural, organic world, in which our ancestors evolved for thousands of years, is in competition with the world were over 6ooo chemicals are used to process food. We live in age that has undertaken a giant experiment of toxic ingestion. 90% of the typical American food budget is spent on easy to cook and easy to eat processed convenience foods.



The food industry aims at making products that look and taste appealing without any thought given to the products nutritional value. Much commercial food is so processed that it resembles building materials more than it resembles natural food. The ingredients list on a Twinkie reads more like rocket fuel than food for human consumption. Many gas stations make more money selling food than gasoline. They have become, as Michael Pollen says, "Processed corn stations; ethanol outside for your car and high fructose corn syrup inside of you."



Scientific evidence has proven that a diet based on refined, chemically laced food won't offer what our trillions of cells need on a daily basis. Scientists have discovered most of the food elements that are essential to health. The evidence, epidemiological, experimental and clinical supports a whole food, plant based diet which uses meat sparingly as condiment, for longevity and optimal fitness.



Whole, live foods are not processed and they have only one ingredient, themselves. Whole foods are easy to visualize. Its easy to picture a wheat field , a cherry orchard or an apple tree. It's much harder to visualize a field of marsh mellows. Whole foods are not refined, stripped, bleached, injected, hydrogenated, chemically treated, irradiated and gassed! Whole foods have the highest satiety factor and are lowest in calories than highly processed foods which literally have the life taken out of them.

To insure that you get plenty of "live" foods try having cut up vegetables handy on a plate with extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salsa, or hummus. Munch on them while making dinner instead of reaching for the cheese and dip. Add vegetables to pasta and pizza. Add tomatoes and onions, cucumber, bell pepper, grated carrots, and dark green lettuce to sandwiches. Recent studies at the Center for Science in the Public Interest have found sweet potatoes to be the healthiest of all vegetables followed by carrots, collard greens, red peppers, kale, dandelion greens, spinach and broccoli. Eat more of these live foods and your cells will love you even more.