In the 1950’s after the Korean War when the bodies of young GI’s ages 18 to 30 were autopsied, coroners found something strange. Young men were already developing hardening of the arteries! How could this happen before the age of additives, artificial flavoring, hydrogenated vegetable oils, and modified food starch? For one thing the western diet is highly acidic. There is a theory that when arteries develop pin hole leaks due to the acidity of the bloodstream the body compensates by using cholesterol to plug the leakage in order to stop internal bleeding, but the cholesterol begins to narrow the flow of red and white blood cells and may also cause clotting and eventual blockage!

Not so wise advice!

In the 1960’s a new generation of cooking oils hit the market. Supposedly containing less saturated fat therefore healthier for you. They were called polyunsaturated fats. Yet, these types of fats were so unnatural that the body didn’t recognize or know how to deal with them so they ended up deposited on the inside of the arteries and blood vessels! Then they came up with mono-unsaturated oils such as safflower seed oil which even though lower in saturated fats still presented a problem for the body to metabolize. According to President Ike Eisenhower’s health records former President and Supreme Commander of Operation Overlord, his doctor had put him on a strict poly unsaturated diet that led to his death.

A matter of life and death

We now know that many foods that we thought were healthy are actually offensive to the body and even dangerous! Why, when Americans are supposedly eating healthier than they ever have, is obesity on the rise! Doesn’t seem to matter that increased fiber, organic food, removal of additives, less sugar, higher lean to fat ratio, and even detoxing hasn’t seemed to help! Here’s why! The western diet of high meat intake, even if it’s lean, and low carbs with little vegetables and even whole grains are extremely inflammatory in nature. The body when loaded with this kind of food develops inflammation and gut leakage. Seed oils used for cooking and dressings such as corn oil, soybean oil, cotton seed oil, and others do not process well within the gut and leave a residue in the arteries. So, what happens on top of arteriosclerosis? Fat cells that would normally be the size that can be flushed out of the body swell from inflammation and therefore cannot be purged from the body. They’re too large to pass out of the system. They remain as visceral fat around the major organs!

Nature’s pesticide?

What causes inflammation from these foods in addition is the content of lectins. Lectins are nature’s insecticide. Every vegetable and fruit contains them in order to repel pests from eating them! The more lectins one consumes in their diet the more likely will he or she experience arthritis, joint pain, indigestion, intestinal problems, and other symptoms of inflammation! Did you know that an adult eating 5 or 6 raw kidney beans can die from the high content of lectins within those beans? The only way to neutralize the dangerous amount of lectins is to pressure cook or boil the kidney beans! What foods are high in lectins? Any food with a shell around it, like nuts, bran on the outer layer such as brown rice, and even though there are benefits to eating nuts like fatty acids, the lectin content can affect certain people worse than others! Even green peas thought to be a very good source of plant based protein are loaded with lectins!

The good cooking oils!

The best oils to cook with that the human body recognizes and metabolizes naturally are olive oil, avocado oil, walnut oil, coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, but all of these must be cold pressed and not hydrogenated! As a matter of fact, olive oil is full of anti-oxidants that preserve and prolong life while also nourishing the skin. For an artery cleansing diet make sure to have fresh garlic, onions, green vegetables, lean meats that are not fried, fish, and sourdough bread which is good for the gut. In western culture we tend to eat lots of fatty meat using vegetables to season them, but in Asia and the Mediterranean these cultures eat more vegetables using meat to season them, almost the exact opposite!

They were wrong!

Years ago, Doctors cautioned us not to eat too many eggs, shell fish, and caffeine from coffee and tea, claiming even women’s breast fibroids could be caused by caffeine. We were told that drinking cold water caused the body to burn extra calories when working out in order to warm itself. Now they tell us that eggs and shell fish have 20% less saturated fat than originally suspected, that caffeine is a brain stimulant and metabolic booster, and that drinking cold water can shock the organs and prolong digestion! So, you can see where the discrepancies over time could have meant life or death for certain people!

Importance of oxygen

Keep your diet simple! The less processed food the better. Sugar is known to feed cancer cells so minimize it, perhaps even using Stevia as a substitute. Also as Doctor Otto Warburg discovered more than 70 years ago, cancer cannot flourish in an oxygen rich environment, so eat foods that are alkaline ph. like broccoli and also cottage cheese very high in oxygen content! My Dad told me that during the war the US Navy was getting a huge demand for cottage cheese among submarine crews whose bodies were desperate for more oxygen. They later discovered that the air scrubbers they were using while the vessels were submerged were allowing too much carbon dioxide back into the crew’s quarters!

Gateway to better health

Personally, I eat fish, chicken, and turkey, but stay away from soy protein as a gasoline additive is used to remove the soy isolate to make TVP or tofu. Rarely do I ever eat red meat or pork. You will find as you simplify your food intake and use the rules of thumb above mentioned the quality of your life should improve! You should also have a much easier time of digestive comfort and less heartburn or acid reflux.