Diet Information

If you avoid fruits and vegetables because of fear of pesticides, you’re harming yourself. People who eat the most produce, which is the highest source of insecticides, are the ones least likely to suffer cancers and heart attacks. One of the most-respected cancer researchers, Bruce Ames, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that pesticides prevent cancer.

Almost all the pesticides that we eat were placed in fruits and vegetables by nature, not by man. Fewer than one percent of the pesticides are made in chemical factories. Most people who complain about man-made pesticides do not understand that most insecticides are copies of those found naturally in plants. When man-made pesticides are given for a very long time to animals, 50 percent develop cancer. When similar doses of natural plant-made pesticides are given to animals, 50 percent also develop cancer. Even with the help of pesticides to preserve our crops, only nine percent of Americans eat the recommended minimum of five servings of fruits and vegetables per day. According to Dr. Bruce Ames, this lack of phytochemicals in produce accounts for at least a third of the cancers in industrialized nations. Life have been on earth for 3.5 billion years, and a huge percentage of the plants that have been on earth have become extinct because insects, bacteria, viruses, fungi, man and animals have destroyed them. The minuscule number of plants that have survived contain insecticides to protect them from being destroyed.

Insects multiply so fast and have such voracious appetites that they would destroy every food crop known to man if it were not for the natural insecticides produced by plants and the manufactured insecticides produced by man. Since people are concerned about the use of insecticides manufactured by man, researchers have developed almost exact copies of insecticides made by plants. For example, chrysanthemums produce pyrethrins that protect them from many insects. Manufacturers make copies of plant pyrethrins that have never been shown to be more toxic than those from the plant. Since some concerned groups oppose man-made copies of plant insecticides, scientists have gone one step further. They have taught plants how to make their own new insecticides. For example, a bacterium called bacillus thuringiensis makes an insecticide that kills the Colorado potato beetle that devastates potato crops. Scientists have genetically engineered potatoes to make exactly the same chemical that is made by the bacteria. So Colorado potato beetles die when they eat these potatoes. Man-made insecticides that are copies of plant-made insecticides have not been shown to be more toxic than plant-made insecticides, and plants that are genetically engineered to make large amounts of insecticides have not been shown to be either safer or more toxic than regular plants.

Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at http://www.DrMirkin.com

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The next step on your road to real health is supplements. And I’m not talking about one multivitamin a day either. Exactly what you take is up to you, but you need to get in the habit of taking quite a few pills or powders every day. In this article I’m going to lay out the case for supplements.

You might be thinking, why supplement? By now, you should be eating more good food, fruits and vegetables, drinking more water, getting sunlight, and eating more whole grain foods. You should also be reading labels on food to avoid health-robbing ingredients. However, two factors work against you being able to get all the nutrients you need just from the food you eat.

The first is soil depletion. Our farmers do produce a lot of food. However, the minerals in the soil, that the plants take up through their roots and then pass on to us, have been depleted. In medieval times, farmers would let a field lie fallow for one or two growing seasons. This allowed the soil to replenish itself. These days, this is not feasible. The plants do grow, of course, due to the use of either chemical or organic fertilizers.

These plants grow and are healthy and good for you to eat. However, they often lack the minerals you need or have reduced amounts of them. So, to get all the you need, you would need to eat a lot of them. This is the second factor. In prehistoric times, people walked and gathered and ate, all day. They took in a lot of calories and expended a lot.

You however, have other things to do. It has been estimated for you to get all the nutrients you need on a daily basis, you would have to eat 10,000 calories a day. You’d be eating all day and you’d obviously gain weight. This is not practical at all in today’s world.

Supplements get their nutrients from whole foods. Vegetables, microalgae, grain, fruits, and other healthy foods are dried and combined, either in powder form or pill form. This makes it relatively easy to get the nutrients you need, without having to spend all day eating.

Barbara Pfieffer writes about gaining real health on her blog, Real Health.

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