What is a "normal" diet? Consumers and food industry pundits have it all backwards

Monday, June 12, 2006 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: dangerous ingredients, grocery warning, food choice

I was describing the raw foods diet to someone the other day, and they remarked, "Well I'm not sure I want to do that. I don't want to do something so extreme," and I said, "What do you mean extreme? You think the raw foods diet is extreme?" Then it hit me: Most people think that the processed food diet -- loaded with chemicals, additives, preservatives, artificial plastic fats and milled grains that are depleted of nutrients -- is normal.

In this article, we're going to explore what's normal versus extreme when it comes to food. And on that topic, I have a very different opinion than the masses. My opinion is that "normal" means what the human body was designed to consume. What's normal is food from nature. What is completely abnormal, radical or extreme is food that is made in a factory; food that is processed and so completely unnatural that if you throw it outside the animals won't even eat it.

That's the kind of food the uninformed masses eat every single day. People have no idea what they're really eating. They think it's normal to have blueberry bagels made with antifreeze. That's one of the ingredients in blueberry bagels, and you can find it right there listed on the package. Look for polypropylene glycol. That's antifreeze. You can find other foods made with car wax. There's actually carnauba wax in foods, and people think that's completely normal. There are petroleum chemicals in foods in the form of artificial colors, and people think that's normal too. People accept this as normal because that's what everybody else is doing, not because it's actually normal for the human body to process these substances. They think it's all okay because that's what has been made standard by the marketing and advertising of the food industry.

Overall, people have a very bizarre idea of what is normal, and you hear this in another common myth, which is that all foods, even ones that are bad for you, can be eaten in moderation. The food industry claims that all foods can be part of a healthy diet. You usually hear this from companies that are selling you the most disease-causing food and beverage products in the entire food supply. Soft drink companies, for example, say that soft drinks can be part of a healthy diet. They are implying that you can eat a little bit of everything, no matter how bad it is for your health, and still somehow be healthy. This goes along with the idea that processed foods and junk foods are normal.

What's really compatible with your body?

When you are eating the diet that nature intended, you are eating the diet that your body was designed to consume: A diet of raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and leaves, right from nature to your body. That's the only diet that you were designed to consume and that is normal. Now, anything that diverts you from that diet is abnormal and, in fact, anything that takes you away from that diet is going to promote chronic disease.

So, one soft drink a day is less healthy than no soft drinks a day. One soft drink a day makes a difference; it makes you less healthy. In fact, it causes a lot of problems for your pancreas and blood sugar. A soft drink a day promotes diabetes and obesity. It can promote blood sugar imbalances, mood swings; violent, aggressive behavior (especially in young males), and nutritional deficiencies, especially the B vitamins, which are extremely important for your cardiovascular system and nervous system health. In my view, one soft drink a day, even though the soft drink companies say you can consume it in moderation, takes you away from what is healthy. A healthy human diet does not consist of soft drinks, nor does it consist of Big Macs, french fries or processed, homogenized, pasteurized milk from cows. That is not a normal part of the human diet.

Taking medication is not normal either

Human beings did not evolve to consume prescription drugs either. If they had, prescription drugs would grow on bushes and trees (or the body would produce them automatically), but they don't, which is a strong indication that they're abnormal. Prescription drugs are now the fourth-leading cause of death in this country, according to the American Medical Association. Drugs that have been approved as safe by the Food and Drug Administration kill 100,000 Americans each and every year. That is an astounding statistic, and that, friends, is not normal.

Pushers of drugs and medications may try to convince you that taking drugs is normal, of course. I've heard stories of doctors who would try to convince you that removing your organs is normal. I know someone who had gallstones. He went to see a surgeon and the surgeon said, "Well, we have to take your gallbladder out. Don't worry about it. We do it all the time. It's a normal procedure. No problem."

So this person had his gall bladder removed, and I'm thinking to myself, "Whoa, whoa, why do you think the body builds these organs?" The gallbladder is intimately connected to the digestive system. It has an important role, especially in the digestion of fats. If you don't have a gallbladder, you're going to have some major problems absorbing fat-soluble vitamins for the rest of your life, and surgeons don't even tell you this information. They take out your gallbladder and fail to warn you to take nutritional supplements to compensate for the loss your body has sustained.

Society has been distorted by the food industry, which is why artificial foods are "normal" and vegetables are "extreme"

We have a very strange culture in America today. People think that processed, manufactured, artificial foods -- the foods with cancer-causing chemicals -- are completely normal. Yet, at the same time, they think that foods from nature, for which your body has a built-in blueprint of compatibility, are completely abnormal. That's how distorted our culture has become. That's how the food industry, the FDA, the USDA and all the other organizations that are colluding to misinform people, have managed to turn the truth upside down. They've managed to convince people that true is false and false is true; that normal is extreme and that extreme is normal, and they've done a very good job of it.

Now what happens if you eat natural food for which your body was designed? If you return to a lifestyle of foods from nature in their uncooked form, you will find yourself moving rapidly towards a state of perfect human health. It's no exaggeration. If you give up all processed food, completely, 100 percent; if you give up all animal products 100 percent, plus all cooked foods 100 percent and eat nothing but fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds, leaves and tubers from nature, you will rapidly enhance your health, reverse degenerative disease and utterly eliminate your need for prescription drugs.

What is health really? Health is a state of harmony between you and the natural environment. That's really the true measure of health. Doesn't it make sense that to attain a high state of health, you should consume the foods for which your body was naturally designed? It's built into your genes. You have a genetic blueprint to consume low-glycemic foods, high-fiber foods, foods with natural minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients. This compatibility is in your genes. Unprocessed, uncooked foods right out of nature are what you are designed to consume. So it only makes sense that, as you move closer to that diet -- known as the raw foods vegan diet -- you will attain a state of perfect harmony with yourself. It only makes sense that any deviation from that -- processed foods, factory foods, foods with a long shelf life, etc. -- will take you away from a state of perfect health.

That is why we have so much chronic disease and strange behavior in the population today. What you eat affects how you think; it affects your behavior, moods and level of aggression. This is all influenced by your food choice. Obviously if you want a state of perfect health, you have to eat the food that you're compatible with. The natural, raw foods vegan diet right out of nature is innately compatible with human biology.

Hot dogs and other deviant foods

You want to know what's truly dietarily deviant? Taking the carcass of a cow that's been shot up with hormones and antibiotics, that has been denied sunlight and a healthy environment, and squeezing that carcass through an advanced meat-recovery (AMR) machine so that the juice comes out of every bone and spinal cord tissue, then capturing the juice, blending it with other cow parts, pressing it into the shape of a hot dog, adding cancer-causing sodium nitrite to make it turn red, packaging it in plastic and calling it food. That's extreme. That's not even food; that's some kind of manufactured horror that I wouldn't touch. I didn't even mention all the chemicals they add in there, and all the other cow parts like lips, hoofs and anything that counts as protein. It's amazing what is considered "meat" in the food industry these days. Astonishingly, most consumers think eating a hot dog is "normal" but eating raw okra is weird.

Let me give you another example of what's extreme: Taking a grain of wheat from the grasses of nature, stripping away virtually all the nutrition in that wheat berry -- the fiber, the healthy oils, the protein content, all the vitamins and minerals -- and leaving only a high carbohydrate, nutritionally depleted endosperm, then grinding that into flour, bleaching it with chemicals that cause diabetes, and using it to make cereals, crackers, cookies, biscuits, pasta and all sorts of other groceries that you find at the store.

That is extreme. That is abnormal. It is completely incompatible with the human body, yet most people consider those foods to be normal. They think macaroni and cheese is normal. Here are some of its ingredients: Petroleum products, processed salt, nerve toxins and chemicals that, in a different variation, are used to pave roads. Similarly, people have no idea what's in their powdered coffee creamer. It's almost pure hydrogenated oils and corn syrup solids. That's it. It's just sugar and plastic fat. I believe instant creamer delivers instant harm to the health of anyone foolish enough to put it in their coffee. Ultimately, the consumption of hydrogenated oils and refines sugars can lead to diabetes, heart disease, arteriosclerosis, nervous system disorders, mood swings and birth defects due to malabsorption of essential fatty acids

People can't seem to grasp the abnormality of a diet that is completely incompatible with nature

People think it's normal to drink three cups of coffee a day. They think it's normal to drink soda for breakfast. People think it's normal to eat meat five days a week, or nacho chips laced with chemical excitotoxins and artificial color. But none of this is normal. This is all extreme. This is all a dangerous deviation from the diet that's truly natural and normal.

The only people truly eating a "normal" diet today are the vegans. Everybody else is eating some deviation from that normal diet, yet they think a vegan diet is "extreme." But it's the standard American diet that's blatantly incompatible with the human body. It's incompatible with sustainable agriculture and balance between people and nature. It's incompatible with clear-headedness and lucid thinking. It's incompatible with internal health at all levels, including the health of women who are pregnant and trying to give life to another being.

Now, in another sense, the standard American diet of death and disease is of course normal from the point of view that everybody is doing it, so the extreme has become socially acceptable. The foods that kill you are the foods that virtually everyone consumes. That's why these people think their food choice is normal. That's why they think that you, as a vegetarian or a vegan or someone who avoids dangerous ingredients, are abnormal or extreme. They, the ignorant masses eating death and disease, think you are a weirdo for eating foods that actually promote clear thinking and biological health. The irony is hilarious.

Only someone who has been educated in this information can understand the different frames of reference that are at play here. The dynamics can be a bit complicated at times. There's no question whatsoever from the point of view of what is compatible for the human body, that processed foods, restaurant foods, fast foods and snack foods are abnormal and extreme. Did you know we have guacamole dip sold in the grocery stores right now that doesn't even have avocado in it? How's that for extreme? We even have purple ketchup. We have cheese sold in a can that looks like you could use it to inflate the tires on your car. That's extreme. Those are just a few of the many examples of the extreme foods that people accept as normal.

Come to think of it, I suppose it's also "normal" to be taking antidepressant drugs, cholesterol medications and diabetes drugs. It's also normal to be diseased, mentally slow, emotionally unstable, physically inept, cardiovascularly weak and spiritually bankrupt. If you want to be normal, there's a whole world of people waiting to welcome you to their way of life. Whip out that pharmacy discount card. Make another appointment with your doctor. Be sure to tune in to cable news so you can be told what to think today. And don't ever do anything strange or odd that might be non-conformist, or your peers will talk badly about you behind your back.

But for the rest of us who wish to live beyond the norm, there's veganism. It's the diet of the few intelligent, lucid, advanced human beings who now inhabit this planet. Raw foods is a big part of that diet, although it's not necessary to be 100 percent raw. Veganism is gaining momentum among the informed, thinking people of the world, and you don't even have to be a pure vegan to experience the benefits of this diet. Just experiment with it and see what works for you. There's no doubt you'll find, as have millions of others, that avoiding animal products, processed foods and manufactured foods, while consuming fresh, organic produce from nature, is the surest path to health, vitality, longevity and lucidity.