Let’s look at the five foods that you probably have in your home right now that are toxic to your body and could be negatively impacting your health. Some of these might surprise you, and yet others you might already be trying to avoid. I'm going to teach you what to look for and why, and then give you five healing foods that you can add to your diet today to start improving your overall health.
5 Toxic Foods
1. Vegetable Oils
Vegetable oils are oils like canola, soy, and corn. All of these oils contain high amounts of omega-6 fatty acids. Omega-6 fatty acids cause system wide inflammation. They cause high cholesterol, your skin to age faster, and makes it easier for you to gain weight.
Many of the hydrogen oils are from what we call genetically modified products, and I want you to just think of any of these type of oils as harmful if swallowed. If you go to your cabinet right now and read some of the labels that you have in some of the foods, if you see hydrogen oils, I highly recommend just throwing them away. They have such a profound negative impact on your overall health and your body that it's really just not worth it. Toss them.
Vegetable oils can be hidden in many foods you eat on a regular basis so make sure you read every label when you are shopping.
2. Wheat
The hybridization of wheat over time has caused it to become a lot different in the United States than it is in Europe or in even previous generations.
Wheat in the US has twice the gluten and is harder to digest. It is a very different grain than those counterparts on the other side of the world. It has more starch and is much less nutrient dense.
Oftentimes when someone from the United States travels to Europe and they eat wheat based food there, they often have a much easier time digesting it and don't experience some of the digestive problems that they do when they eat wheat that's grown here in the US.
The gut inflammation caused from eating this hybrid wheat can lead to a cascade of all kinds of health issues such as leaky gut, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine headaches, and even skin and acne issues.
In general, I would just recommend avoiding any type of wheat based products.
3. Soy
Soy is one of the most genetically modified plants on the planet, and as such, it has become an endocrine disruptor.
What this means is, soy protein isolates our organic compounds that when ingested it causes your hormones to be thrown completely off balance. For people that ingest this regularly, it's been associated with delayed puberty in boys, fertility issues in women, and it's even been implicated in certain types of cancers. Today's soy is a really bad player in all of our food, and unfortunately it's very commonly used in things like protein powders and worse yet, soy based baby food. This is one of the reasons why I'm such a large proponent of mothers nursing their infants if they have the physical ability to do so. If they don't have that physical ability, I recommend finding another source of breast milk or finding a healthy alternative to soy based infant formulas. Soy has been so genetically changed from what it was generations ago that it's simply become toxic to ingest, and I would not recommend it for anyone, especially babies.
4. Conventional Dairy
Being from Wisconsin, this one hits home because dairy is a large part of the economy there, but the number four toxin is conventional cow's milk. When I say cow’s milk, I'm not talking about grass fed, organic, local bought milk, I'm talking about conventional milk where the animals have given things like growth hormones to increase production, where the milk is then homogenized and then pasteurized, and needs to be fortified with extra vitamins just to have any nutritional value at all.
This type of cow's milk causes weight gain, excess mucus, and all kinds of gut issues. In a study done in 2019, they found that men who adopted a western diet that had a lot of cow's milk in it saw an increase in estrogen levels. I don't know about you, but as a man, I don't want that for myself, my sons or any of my male patients. Instead, if you're going to have cow's milk, try to get it organic, grass fed and local.
5. Sugar
This is one that you'll hear me harp about all the time. I believe sugar is one of the worst things in the standard American diet. I'm not talking about just white sugar or high fructose corn syrup. I'm talking about anything that turns to sugar in the body. Our western diets are so high in processed food that it spikes our insulin, it causes high cholesterol, insulin resistance, and ultimately heart disease and even cancers.
The more you can limit your carbohydrate and sugars, the better your health is going to be without question.
One of the easiest ways to lower your sugar intake is through the ketogenic diet. I will be hosting a Keto Lifestyle Master Class where we will deep dive into how you can adopt the Keto Lifestyle.
Now that we've gone through the toxic foods, let's go over foods that we can add into our diets to add health rather than take from it.
5 Healthy Foods
1. Flaxseed
I love flaxseeds because they're easy to incorporate into your diet and they're high in omega-3 fatty acids which decreases cellular inflammation. They help with blood sugar regulation, cholesterol, and they help with digestion. Flaxseeds are high in fiber and they help with colon cleansing. One of the easiest ways to consume them is to add them in a smoothie. You won't even know they're there and you'll get all the health benefits of having that flaxseed.
2. Cruciferous Vegetables
Cruciferous vegetables are vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, brussels sprouts. They all contain a substance broken down during digestion that increases something called indole-3-carbinol. Iindole-3-carbinol detoxifies estrogen based compounds called phytoestrogens.
One source of phytoestrogens is the microwave, they're the toxic estrogens that get released when you cook foods in microwaves in certain plastic containers. You should never cook in plastic but if you are cooking in the microwave in plastic containers, cruciferous vegetables naturally detox your body from these phytoestrogens. Not only that, but these kinds of vegetables are packed with beta-keratin, lutein, vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin K, and even folate.
Cruciferous vegetables are helpful in addressing health concerns like cancer and lupus erythematosus and I recommend you get them in your diet as often as you can.
3. Kiefer
Kiefer is one of the most dense forms of probiotics anywhere outside of direct supplementation. Probiotics are so very important to our bodies. They help in breaking down foods that we eat and help our bodies extract the nutrients from them. They're also the gatekeepers that make sure that toxins don't get into our bloodstream and the good things that we do want to take from our food do get in the bloodstream. Taking kiefer regularly gives your body a nutritionally dense form of a probiotic, and it should be considered regularly.
4. Salmon
Both king and sockeye salmon are packed with omega-3s. Remember, omega-3s decrease inflammation. They work as antioxidants helping to decrease oxidative stress. Salmon is delicious, and as long as you don't get it farm-raised, you're going to get the high level of nutrients that it can provide.
Farm raised fish are fed all kinds of food that they would not come in contact with or ingest in their natural environment. The environment that they're living in is packed with thousands of other fish and toxins, and therefore, you don't want to eat anything from that type of environment ever. Believe it or not, some fish farms feed their salmon specific dyes just to make their meat more pink and appealing in the package when you buy it. These guys are toxic, so you want to avoid that.
If you get a fish that's been caught in its natural environment, it's going to have a beautiful red, pink color that is appetizing, but also contains a component called astaxanthin. Astaxanthin is reported to increase athletic performance and aid in anti-aging.
5. Greens
Greens like kale, spinach, collard greens, and any other kind of green leafy vegetable are high in chlorophyll, vitamin K, and calcium. They're densely packed with all kinds of nutrients and fiber, and are good overall to consume regularly. Remember, get them organic, that's really important so that way they're not spending their entire lives drenched in herbicides and pesticides, and passing that along to you in forms of toxins.
Ready to start fueling your body with healthy foods? Get Dr. Davis’ 10 Favorite Recipes for healthy living!
