It's in the Chemicals

Today I want to share an interesting observation with you. .

The US is grossly overweight! I know that’s a real news flash isn't it. Please note what I said the US is grossly overweight not the world.

In 2009 I had the good fortune of being able to take a trip to Europe with my wife, Annette. We spent a week in Rome then visited Greece, Turkey and finally Paris. It was a wonderful two weeks and we ate some of the most incredible food and drank some of the most amazing wines. My normal attempts at eating fairly low carb went right out the window as I consumed pasta and pizza and bread(the best bread I have ever tasted)and rich sauces and cheeses of every conceivable type.

As we wandered the streets and frequented the cafes of those amazing old cities I would always ask my wife to describe the surroundings and the people to me. One thing that she said caught my attention. "the only really heavy people seem to be American tourists. Even the older Europeans all look to be in pretty good shape." She also commented on how beautiful and healthy their skin looked.

This intrigued me. How could these people eat all the things the diet gurus all tell us to stay away from and still not be overweight and look so healthy? Well I had another piece of bread dripping in olive oil and another glass of the local white and pondered this. While in Rome we sampled a different gelato store every day. We both ate far more sweets than normal and I probably consumed a year’s worth of carbs in the form of breads and pasta in that two weeks. It all tasted so good, so fresh ! When we returned home we both were shocked to see that we had not gained any weight at all in fact we both were down a couple of pounds!

How is that possible you ask? Well the only answer I have been able to come up with is the freshness of all the ingredients and the lack of all the chemicals that are so prevalent in everything we eat here. Most food we eat is so processed and "refined" and full of things to keep it fresh longer that it’s hard to recognize what it once was. Obviously there is no way of proving this but I truly believe if someone who lived 100 years ago were to wake up here and now that they would become ill and perhaps even die from eating our food drinking our water and breathing our air. Maybe that’s a little dramatic but you get the point.

I recently read a blog post by one of my contemporaries talking about saturated fats and specifically butter. It was interesting and made a strong impression on me. Margarine was created as a "healthier" butter substitute many years ago. Read the label of that tub of fake butter in your fridge. How many ingredients are there? Can you pronounce all those chemicals? Now What is in butter? Milk and salt! how can that tub of chemicals be better for you?

So what's my point? It’s simple. Try to eat things in their freshest and least refined state. I can hear the grumbling already. It costs too much...I don't have time to go find fresh organic fruit and vegetables blah blah blah.

My answer, find a farmers market. They are in most cities and surprisingly they really are not more expensive at least many things are not. My wife and I recently started purchasing our produce at a local farmer's market and I really can taste the difference! I eat a lot of salads and buy kale and spinach that taste nothing like what they have in the supermarket. We also get fresh asparagus(brush it with some olive oil and throw it on the grill next to a steak nothing better!)

The apples I buy are so sweet I can barely finish one. Even the coffee is better. I love my coffee and splurged and bought some of the organically grown no pesticides no chemical coffee which was right in line with the price of Starbucks coffee and it has the richest flavor with no bitterness at all.

It’s very hard to always eat perfect and avoid all the garbage and I would never suggest you do that. I don't I am simply saying when its possible try to eat as clean as you can and you will notice the difference...give it a try and let me kno how it goes.