What I will not be eating for breakfast
While putting away the food I brought to eat during my vacation, I came across something, already in the fridge, that I would not be eating for breakfast (or any other time). Going against the very nature of why we eat, I knew that consuming this breakfast food, engineered for convenience, would not bode well for having a decent day.
Why we eat is not only to sustain, maintain, and efficiently fuel our bodies, but to provide the nutrients we are unequipped to produce (or efficiently do so). Reliant on obtaining these nutrients from food sources, they are deemed essential and thus called “essential nutrients”. This particular food item , that I will not be eating for breakfast (rhymes with Legos®), and its brethren, are in many ways corruptive of these natural tenets of why we eat.
The evidence is in plain site on the Ingredients list presented as a ranking based on quantity from highest to lowest.
First is enriched flour. “Enriched” being added synthetic, isolated, lab derived nutrients which I refer to, in this context, as mutrients since we evolved getting our nutrients from natural whole foods, not a manufacturing process. Missing their native complements—cofactors, enzymes, and other compounds which optimize utilization—artificial nutrients do not best resonate with the body. Not only is the physical body suspicious of this “enrichment”, but so should we be of the enrichment practice (in general) as by adding these mutrients, the product can pose as nutritious on its Nutrition Facts panel and product packaging.
Next is wheat flour, listed twice as “enriched wheat flour” and then as “wheat flour”. Wheat contains gluten, an anti-nutrient (prevents the body from absorbing nutrients) and gut irritant. As there are no designations of organic or non-GMO, we can also assume that glyphosate (herbicide and potential human carcinogen) is a likely tag-along delivering not just another blow to the gut, but to other body systems as well. The most disturbing revelation, on this product’s Nutrition Facts panel, is the last line: “Contains a bioengineered food product”– HELLO GMO.
Bioengineered food is a food that, subject to certain factors, conditions, and limitations, contains genetic material that has been modified through in vitro recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid (rDNA) techniques and for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature.
National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard; List of Bioengineered Foods
Safeguarding against these threats:
- To minimize gluten look for a Gluten Free designation on labels and avoid foods containing wheat, barley, and rye (gluten containing grains).
- To minimize exposure to pesticides and herbicides (e.g. glyphosate), look for Certified Organic or buy from local farmers who use organic practices.
- To minimize exposure to GMOs look for non-GMO designations.
Rather than being nutrients for the body, these 3Gs—Gluten, Glyphosate, GMO—present as anti-nutrients or anti-nutritious as they are elements that the body and cells need to attend to. Under these conditions, proactive processes—supportive of optimal functioning—take a back seat.
Vegetable/seeds oils, often referred to as PUFAs (polyunsaturated fatty acids), including soybean, canola, and cottonseed are next on the list. Ultra processing of fats with less stable fatty acid bonding (polyunsaturated), tend to incite a reactive inflammatory response. As chronic inflammation often equates to chronic disease, curtailing consumption of these fats would be prudent. Fats with more stable structures (saturated, monounsaturated) are found in coconut, dairy, eggs, meats, olives, and avocados. Well sourced and consumed either in their whole food form, a gentle extraction, or traditionally rendered to maintain stability perpetuates a more stable and proactive response.
Sugar and its aliases soon follow! The aliases, in this case; dextrose and maltodextrin, are listed as separate ingredients. Taking into consideration their combined contribution, the sum total would elevate sugar’s ranking and as is often the case, may equate to being what is contained most in the product. This again necessitates a reactive response (e.g. spiking insulin) as it is something the body needs to attend to.
If all this is not bad enough, the combined effects lead to something akin to an addictive-like overconsumption with the ingredients and processing triggering that—YOU CAN’T EAT JUST ONE—effect. Also, as the body is driven by the need for the aforementioned essential nutrients (required for optimal functioning and survival), if a food is low in these (e.g. ultraprocessed), overconsumption may be the body’s desperate attempt to compensate.
As this is intuitive to us all, hopefully you will not eat this (or the like) for breakfast either! If you’re not quite there yet, but want to be, just keep turning up your intuitive voice and the more nutrient density you bring into your diet, with natural whole foods, the more you push out the desire for anything else.
Cellemental Complete delivers robust nutrient density in the convenience of a capsule—your gateway to shifting from reactive to proactive!
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