There is more debate about food than maybe even politics, religion and sex. There is the huge corporate food industry machine turning out studies to refute actual non-biased studies. At the end of the day American food is all about the money, and not yours or mine.
The food industry has Congress captive, just look at the food pyramid, which is killing millions of people. On the back end the medical industry profits by managing death for us. There are people who care, but by and large you need to learn to fend for yourself and take care of your own health - no one else will.
Finding voices which truly have no hidden agenda, biases or financial motive is very difficult. So, instead of blindly following one way or the other I took to self-experimentation. When I cannot tell who is full of shit and who is legit then I figure it out myself and This is what worked for me. As we are all humans it likely will work for most people as well. I don't need a disclaimer on this post as not eating crap will not have any negative impact on anyones' health.
So here are 6 steps I took to remove crappy foods:
1. No Fast Food ~ No-brainer there. If someone wants to debate the health benefits of fast food then I have a bridge in Arizona for sale. Fast food is cheap for a reason, it is crap and it is subsidized by our tax dollars to be cheap crap and kill people while food lobbies get paid. Opt out of the trap that has been set, take the red pill Neo, wake up.
I understand the convenience argument having children myself and being busy, but to be honest being "busy" was simply an excuse for poor planning and not caring. Once I made healthy eating a priority and planned meals, instantly I no longer needed to ever have fast food. The cost is likely neutral in dollar terms today, but in the context of avoiding huge future medical bills I see eating healthy as a financial investment now.
What do people maybe like more than food, well money and sex. So get healthy and save money down the road avoiding medical bills and likely make more money being more productive. If you are healthy you also have better and more sex and look better, so if single can have sex with better looking people then too. No negative for cutting out fast food in my opinion as I prefer money and sex over food.
2. No Eating Out ~ There are a few places I might eat, but by and large restaurants are in business to make money. They cook with the cheapest oils (normally vegetable oils) and ingredients to make a profit. They are not "bad" or "evil" people, but they have balance sheets and bills to pay, so they have to make a profit or they close. It's just the way it is.
Even so-called healthy places (including expensive places) are not healthier than my kitchen where I control the oils I cook with and I control the sourcing of all ingredients. I only cook with fats (bacon grease), coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil.
Plus, I have to pay more money to eat out than cook. It just doesn't make sense to me. If I have to eat out for a work function or whatever then I will eat ahead of time and maybe get a salad or a side plate of veggies or nothing. I am not afraid to sit there and eat nothing because it is my body and if people give a shit what I eat then its' because it makes them uncomfortable with their choices. I'm not sacrificing my health for other peoples' poor choices, misinformation or opinion.
3. Eliminate Processed Foods ~ Processed foods are just the back up to fast food, the lazy option. So, I eat nothing from a plastic shrink wrapped bag or box with chemical ingredients which obviously aren't food. This started by my eliminating folic acid due to my MTHFR genetic polymorphism. So this was pretty easy as I had data which shows I should avoid these foods for better health.
I will eat some Quest Bars
when I cannot plan or control my eating that day, especially if training hard that day. Otherwise, I will be seen slicing avocados in the gym parking lot to eat a real food after a workout, did that tonight in fact. Through on some Matisyahu 
to jam out, sliced and ate two avocados, they were awesome.4. Limit Simple Sugar ~ If the label on a food says "Sugars (x grams)", then get the lowest possible number, for me I prefer zero. My simple sugars from commercial products are now mostly limited to Kombucha, Kefir and Almond Butter. Otherwise my simple sugars come directly from fruits and vegetables. Fruit is still sugar and it is not necessarily better or any different than sugar from junk food. So, I eat low GI (glycemic index) fruits such as raspberries, blackberries, strawberries and blueberries.
On the nutritional label there is Total Carbs, Dietary Fiber and Sugars. Notice many times they will not add up as seen on this label from yogurt. (I get the high fat yogurt as you can see)5 + 0 = 12? What kind of math is that?
The difference is complex carbohydrates, starches or possibly sugar alcohols. In this yogurt there are 5g of simple sugar and 7g of complex carbohydrates, for a total carb content of 12g.
The body breaks down complex carbs into simple sugars, it just takes longer and they have less of an affect on blood sugar and insulin. As a way of ingesting sugar they are normally seen as "better", but it all ends up as simple sugars in the end.
I am on a Ketogenic Diet, so my goal is to stay under 30g of total sugars and as low of a possible percentage of that 30g from simple sugars. I have found that amount keeps me in nutritional ketosis and fueling my body with fat for energy.
5. Buy Grassfed, Non-Hormone Meats and Dairy ~ If anyone has seen Food Inc.
or Forks Over Knives
then you probably want to be a vegetarian or vegan. I was a vegetarian for a few years and I was not a good vegetarian so I went back to eating meat. I also consider myself Buddhist, so the whole killing animals has been a moral conundrum for myself. I appreciate and respect people who do not eat animals based on a moral and ethical platform. I also appreciate people who are not assholes and in may face about either eating or not eating animals. We are all on our journey somewhere and being a dick about food will never convince anyone to change their mind, much less their behavior.I digress... As I am eating meat, fish and butter again, I find it best to buy grassfed, non-hormone and well treated animals. There are health benefits to eating meat this way, so that's an upside. Not being a part of the torture and slaughter is an equal motivation for me as well. When I can't make the perfect choice, I make the least harmful choice available. I've been buying my meat locally at T Bones in O'Fallon, MO.
When buying fish (I mostly eat sardines and salmon), I buy wild and not farm raised. There are some very affordable options for both at Thrive Market online. I really like buying from them as they have formed a co-op style store like Costco or Sam's but for healthy and more natural products. Also for each membership they donate one to a lower income family to have access to the products.
For dairy I get grassfed butters from Kerrygold, which is available in most all supermarkets I've been in, including Wal Mart. I also have purchased and use Ghee, which is a great product for people who have issues digesting dairy due to the casein and whey proteins.
I do not drink commercially available milk, organic or not. I would like to try some raw local milk but haven't gotten around to it. I do drink Kefir, which is a fermented milk product and I will eat high fat / low sugar yogurt on occasion (like the label above). Otherwise I will use coconut milk or almond milk. Soy milk is fine too, it won't make men grow boobs, that whole estrogen thing was started by the dairy lobby. If soy was that bad then Japan and China would not exist as all their men would be women. I'm eating some edamame right now and have no man boobs, balls are intact and operation as well.
6. No Grains and No Gluten ~ This is tough one for most people. The food pyramid base is grains, so guess what most Americans eat a shit ton of ~ grains. I loved pasta and peanut butter sandwiches when I was a vegetarian and I also had seriously shitty health consequences from that diet.
I do not have celiac disease, but I could tell negative physical reactions when I tried to add gluten and grains back into my diet after removing them for 30 days. Plus, being as I'm aiming for less than 30g of sugars a day, I really can't even eat anything grain based anyway.
Some people think grains and gluten are evil and will kill you, maybe they will if that's all you eat and have an allergy. If someone can eat them in extreme moderation and not get addicted then go for it, it won't kill you. I personally avoid them as there is no nutrition I need from grains (no nutrition any human needs from them to survive either), so they are of no benefit to me.
Grains do feed the majority of the "third world" and poor on our planet, so demonizing them as terrible is not the best solution. They have served a purpose in our evolution and serve a purpose today, just not really a purpose for most Americans anymore. We are lucky to have both the means and education to make better informed choices of the foods available to us. If I was in the middle of Africa, I would eat grain if it kept me alive. At that point I'd eat cow shit or whatever else too, just saying.
I think those are the big ones that have created the most change. As I said I am on a ketogenic diet, so 80-85% of my calories come from fat, with 10-15% from protein and less than 10% from carbohydrates. I likely have body fat under 10% and have gained muscle while simultaneously losing weight while eating a high fat diet. I also am making big strength gains in the weight room and building endurance at the same time cycling.
I think all the facts are correct as well... If not I will be alerted to my mistake(s). :)
I'd love to hear your diet changes and success stories... and horror stories and struggles. i read and respond to all emails ~ douglashilbert@yahoo.com
For past "Letters to My Son" blogs go to ~ doughilbert.blogspot.com
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