Eat to live or die, your choice!

Yikes.. A bit extreme? Maybe, but it is the truth. Here’s why. If you eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger today, will that kill you or affect your health? Probably not. But, a series of those choices, compounded over time WILL affect your overall health and eventually your life span. Then why do it? Habits people! Habits will determine your future self! Tiny choices, boring, unnoticed decisions will gain momentum over time and move you forward or, in the opposite direction.

My food journey began about 14 years ago, reading labels and realizing everything I had been eating was processed, filled with preservatives and chemicals that guess what, can make you sick! The soap I was using, lotion, make up, laundry detergent, the more I read and researched the more disgust and disbelief I had! Until then I had just assumed going to the store, where all this food and products were provided had to be safe right? Wrong! It all begins and ends with what the standards are! Our lovely FDA has standards so poor, they allow thousands of chemicals into our food, make up and household products while most other countries across the globe have banned ALL of those same ingredients!

Two examples for you: 1. In Europe, the EU law bans 1,328 chemicals from cosmetics known or suspected to cause cancer and a myriad of reproductive problems. In the U.S. the FDA has only banned 11 of those same chemicals! 2. Enjoy a Mountain Dew (and other sodas) or packaged bread from the grocery? Well, Mountain Dew and other sodas contain brominated vegetable oil which was patented as a flame retardant! Azodicarbonamide (ADA) is allowed by the FDA and commonly found in baked good and ALOT of breads. It is banned in Europe, why you ask? Because it is also used to make the plastic in sneakers and yoga mats. The side effects of eating this chemical? Headaches, asthma and other respiratory issues. Lovely. So you have a sandwich, drink a soda, and start feeling bad. Maybe you take Tylenol or Advil for your headache or need your inhaler, thinking something is wrong with you but it is all stemming from the bread you ate and what you drank!

This may or may not be news to you but what is important is to get educated! Eating clean, plant based, grass fed meats, limiting dairy and gluten (omg, totally another topic) WILL make a difference to your health. What you eat, every day, matters!!