Podcast 123: The Dirty Dozen – Part 1

In this first part of The Dirty Dozen Podcasts, Martin and Scott discuss the first six of the 12 most pervasive and detrimental food additives/substances you can eat.

If you find yourself in a hole (overweight/underweight, sick and/or hurting), the first thing you must do is stop digging. The absolute worst thing you can ingest – by far – is artificial sweeteners. If you drink diet sodas or use sugar-free products… please listen in to these Podcasts.

Diet Sodas and foods labeled as “sugarless”, “sugar free”, “diet” and “low calorie” contain Aspartame or some other artificial sweetener, such as Equal or Nutrasweet.

When exposed to heat, aspartame breaks down into toxic methyl alcohol. This may occur even at temperatures reached by diet sodas during regular storage.

Podcast 123: The Dirty Dozen – Part 1

Scott: Welcome back everybody you are listening to the Life Enthusiast co-op online radio network restoring vitality to you and to the planet. Hey Martin how is it going today?

Martin: It is fine I am feeling more and more convinced that all of the power starts from the gut you know the Japanese guys talk about hara. Hara is the gut and the belly the center of the warrior.

Scott: And everything sort of comes from it and when you think of it too when you get determined and centered everything is kind of in that area and even when we say centered what is the center of the body if not the gut right. So we are going to be talking about the dirty dozen today.

Martin: Well last time we got together we talked about how a friend of yours lost a pile of weight just by eliminating sugar and I was closing the conversation with if you find yourself in a hole the first thing you must do is stop digging.

Scott: Exactly so here is some of the holes that people find themselves in.

Martin: Or here is the things you need to stop doing in the sense of your health that the digging involves the following the dirty dozen.

Scott: So what is the number one thing to stop?

Martin: The absolute worst by far are artificial sweeteners it is not natural and people don’t realize it you think that when it is called a diet soda that it would actually be good for you but it is probably the surest path to neurological damage, to diabetes, to multiple sclerosis, to migraines and other headaches and other toxic effects that it is just unbelievable you know the famous sweet n low is associated with bladder cancer, like nutra sweet the famous aspartame and equal dizziness, hallucinations, headaches, depression, weight gain, epilepsy, I know of a woman and this is not just that I heard of it somewhere like an urban rumor this is a friend’s direct contact she was an MS wheel chair patient finally somebody told her you are drinking diet pops quit it and she quit it and she first got out of her wheel chair and then got rid of her cane and she is an OK person now and if you think that this splenda with the sucralose is any better it isn’t much.

Scott: So if you need sweets get them from raw sugar is that what I am hearing?

Martin: Well who needs sweets okay let me say it this way aorbitol or xylital are acceptable sweeteners so like sorbital gum or xylital gum you know those type of chewing gum sweetened with that are okay. Those are actually complex sugars you know the simplest sugar is glucose and then fructose and then sucrose is a combination of fructose and glucose bound together into one molecule and so on there are these basic simple sugars and then we go onto more complex sugars and they are still sweet but more complex so they don’t have this crazy glycemic index that just fires you up.

Scott: What we don’t want is for our food to cause us problems and unfortunately that happen more often than not.

Martin: You know the consumption of sugar which averages around 150 pounds per person per year if I remember correctly.

Scott: So that is like half a cup of sugar per day.

Martin: Okay that’s a lot.

Scott: Holy smokes how do I get that into my body.

Martin: Well I think there is nine teaspoons of sugar in a single can of soda pop if you think of the natural so you can either get really killed by the diet drink or you can get really fried by the regular soda drink.

Scott: Well you keep saying you want to get rid of every vending machine in the world and I can see why when we are talking about pop.

Martin: Well yes pop and the next cousin to that is the chocolate bar which is what is that usually made of? Some peanuts coated with caramel and coated with chocolate or some combination of this stuff.

Scott: Yeah Mr Big or Oh Henry bar or how did they get the caramel into the Cara Milk bar?

Martin: How do they get the bubbles inside the Aero bar?

Scott: That is a good one too.

Martin: So anyway the chocolate bar is the second best and the third best is the donut I mean here we have refined flour dipped in refined sugar and fried in refined fat and then again coated in sugar for effect, right?

Scott: Yeah if it wasn’t coated in the sugar you wouldn’t be able to stand it.

Martin: Actually when I was a kid my mom made homemade donuts you know they were raised dough you know like the same dough you would have in dumplings or buns or whatever with some extra sugar added and she would make these blobs of dough and she would throw them into this oil on the stove where they would fry and it turned golden and they were pretty good you didn’t have to coat them in sugar but the trouble with us is that our taste buds love it.

Scott: Yes and why is that? Is that a learned thing or just unfortunate?

Martin: I think we are unfortunate I think it’s the natural attraction to sweets because the sweetness denotes ripeness so in nature when I go berry hunting and a blueberry that is not ready to be eaten is sour as hell where as when it is ready to be eaten it is still astringent but it has sweetness to it.

Scott: I think you have hit on a very important point and that really explains it to me well I went for a walk today and to my surprise and along the river were some salmon berries and I thought the salmon berries were three weeks to a month away and I think they actually are but these were a mutant salmon berry bush because it had seven ripe salmon berries on it and how do I know? I ate them all.

Martin: You tasted them and they were good.

Scott: Yeah and I have eaten an unripe salmon berry and I have to tell you that was oh so sour so now I get it absolutely like we needed to have that taste or desire for that one or the other to survive assuming that eating ripe fruit is better than eating unripe fruit.

Martin: I think it is.

Scott: I think it is too and you know here is another really sad commentary since we are talking about ripe fruits for most of my life I didn’t like apricots and the reason why I didn’t like apricots I discovered about five years ago was that every apricot that I had ever eaten in my life up until five years ago were green.

Martin: Nobody told you that you had to wait for them to ripen?

Scott: I didn’t know what a ripe apricot looked like so I was in the Okanagan which is known for apricots and it was apricot season and someone said try this and I said are you kidding I can’t stand this and they were like no it is really good try it and I thought they were amazing and they really are and I realized at that point for almost fifty years that I had been eating very green apricots which of course is why I didn’t like them.

Martin: Yep and the same problem we will encounter with under ripe tomatoes and under ripe avocadoes because they are fruits as well right by the way you do know the difference between fruits and vegetables right?

Scott: A fruit has seeds in it and a vegetable doesn’t.

Martin: Right but also fruit needs to ripen to its ripeness before it can be eaten and a vegetable you can pick at any stage of its growth and it is still the same.

Scott: Oh I didn’t know that, that is interesting.

Martin: You can pull a baby carrot the size of your pink finger or a monster carrot the size of your forearm and they will be essentially the same or at least similar.

Scott: Right that makes total sense because we have baby carrots and then you have regular carrots and there is not a huge difference but of course if you have a green tomato and a red tomato you know there is a huge difference obviously with fruit.

Martin: The biggest enemy of all is the sugar that’s hiding is the HFCS, high fructose corn syrup, beware and read your labels.

Scott: And be aware that fructose and high fructose corn syrup are not good.

Martin: Because your body is not capable of dealing with these industrial refined things it is the difference between what is good for you and what is not is the refining process. The more refined it is the more concentrated it is the worse it is and somehow we have been duped into thinking that sugar needs to be clear you know like snow white but that is the good thing in fact that is how it was sold to the masses that the dirty old molasses or whatever it was not worthy of you because you are better people, clever advertising. So anyway let’s move onto number three of the dirty dozen and that is MSG mono sodium glutamate which is a fantastic agent when it comes to hydrolyzing your proteins that is another name which it can be hidden hydrolyzed vegetable protein. MSG is fantastic at pickling your meats you know as part of marinades it is just fantastic and some body types seem to handle it better than others I mean MSG has been a staple in Chinese food.

Scott: Yes we often hear about it being in Chinese food.

Martin: Right and it is really and they use all this aged and fermented, pickled and marinated and what not things in their cooking but for most ordinary folks this is deadly.

Scott: And children are four times more sensitive to it than adults so you really want to make sure your kids don’t get it.

Martin: Well the people that react to it usually start with a headache you know like flushing you would get a weird sensation all around your body and your tongue is swelling and you lips are swelling that sort of thing and then a headache. A headache is a good one and some people get really serious like burning on the back of the neck or heart rate or breathing problems anyway those are the more serious cases. Just watch out, mono sodium glutamate, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, caseinate, natural and artificial flavors.

Scott: So mono sodium glutamate is a natural or artificial flavor?

Martin: Well it can be hiding inside that grab bag term that describes everything else I mean it is not the end of the world if you have a pinch of it but it certainly isn’t going to do you a lot of good if you stay on it, it’s a neuro toxin.

Scott: Right so what happens with MSG?

Martin: Well the biggest thing with MSG is this when it is added to food it causes you to crave them so you eat more than you would otherwise and you become addicted to the food itself.

Scott: So that explains why people would be quite happy to add this stuff to their food.

Martin: Oh absolutely, the fast food manufacturers want you there because you will have to super size it and not only that you will crave it tomorrow.

Scott: So basically it is turning food into an addictive substance?

Martin: Yes so number four artificial colors.

Scott: Artificial colors so these are fake colors.

Martin: Again they are industrial concentrated things you know the famous red dye number 40 I don’t know if you remember that.

Scott: I do remember that.

Martin: That is used in soda, candy, gelatine, pet foods, sausage and there are some issues with that. I think it’s a carcinogen and you know people who have multiple chemical sensitivities don’t do to well with these colorings. If something looks nice and blue like that dark blue ice cream it is probably not good for you or you remember kids licking these candies that turn your tongue all different colors I mean I tried to remember the name of it I think it was called gobstoppers it is this ball of sugar that has layer upon layer of different colored sugar layers that have been put together using these artificial food colorings. anyway does your butter need to be yellow like gold or does your soda need to be red colored? I just saw this advertisement on television again about this woman that is having difficulty drinking 8 glasses of water now crystal light now there is the rescue these little bags that you rip open and dump into a glass of water and it is something like artificial tang or something like that. Do you remember things?

Scott: Yeah tang.

Martin: And it is going to be sweetened with aspartame and it is going to be colored with red dye number 4, yum.

Scott: Yeah yum.

Martin: Yellow dye number six can cause tumors in the adrenal glands and kidneys and it is used in sausages, candy and gelatine so if it is yellow it has dye number six. Okay number five BAH/BHT that thing is kind of a tossup because that thing ferments rancidization of fats and it is typically found in baked goods like potato chips and Twinkies you know those types of things you would be using that in shelf stable type baked goods so they don’t rancidize. There is something good about them because they will prevent the ill effects of rancidized fats on the other hand they are associated with behavioral problems, cancer, fatal abnormalities and slower growth. That’s not good.

Scott: Everything has a price.

Martin: Yes and the price is yes we can have cheap crackers on the shelf instead of having to bake it ourselves. The natural way would be the grain, the whole grain unmilled sitting in a sac in the basement or maybe hanging on a rafter somewhere just nice dry grain and then I take a scoop of the grain and I feed it to my flour mill and I mill it just fresh and then I bake with it. I mean I can bake crackers and bread unraised and there they are.

Scott: And you make enough to eat.

Martin: Well they will be good for a few days you know a loaf of bread will last you a few days. I am no advocate for grains but if you are going to do it at least do it right. The shelf stable goods are cheap because they can be mass produced, but the price is high, the societal price is high. I guess what should be said is that the cheap price at the checkout is more than overpowered more by the ills that are delivered to you later in life. That is the classic of not thinking holistically right.

Scott: Yeah that’s right well we have that same problem when we are looking at garbage.

Martin: Yeah it’s okay to throw it in the ocean. Holy Moses! Some people are chasing some downed airplane in the Atlantic and they are finding all kinds of stuff, uh oh it is not the airplane it is just garbage floating in the ocean. Well they finally found it but there were a lot of false calls. Okay number six, sodium nitrate and nitrite this is for your cold meat stores. This is processed meat like bacon, beef, ham, hot dogs, lunch meat, sausage this is to prevent the growth of bacteria and to enhance the coloring. There is sulphates as well that make the meat look nice and pink and unfortunately this is a carcinogen. So the good thing is that you prevent botulism the bad thing is you are causing colon cancer.

Scott: Okay Martin we are half way through the dirty dozen so I think it is time for a break so we are going to continue with the last six of the dirty dozen next time when we come back and we have talked about artificial sweeteners, saccharin, nutra-sweet, the dangers of refined sugars, what MSG can do to you that you don’t want to have happen, artificial colors that you should avoid, about BHA’s and BHT’s, sodium nitrate and nitrites and those are only the first six of the dirty dozen that we have talked about ad we have six more and you are going to find out about them next time so make sure you tune in. So Martin if someone had questions about these first six of the dirty dozen or other issues around their health and they want a holistic maybe going at it by a causal perspective how could they get a hold of you?

Martin: Life Enthusiast co-op at the website at www.life-enthusiast.com go read some more and the phone number is 1-866-543-3388 or if you are outside of North America it is 775-299-4661 and I just want to say that we would much rather if you called us for the foods that caused you to feel more energized, more healthy instead of calling us for I got this illness with this itis and otis or I have this such and such syndrome the doctor told me I had and do you have something for that. I would just as soon talk to people who are saying I am feeling pretty good but can you help me feel better? So call about that too okay?

Scott: That’s why we talk every week like two or three times because I feel pretty good and I know that the Exsula Superfoods and all the other great products at the life enthusiast co-op have a big part in that and thank you for it.

Martin: Okay well thank you for being here so this is Martin for Life Enthusiast co-op restoring vitality to you and to the planet. Thanks for listening.

Scott: Bye-bye everybody.

Author: Martin Pytela