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Dietary
Stress
Modern farming practices increase the quantity of food production while compromising the
quality. With the use of chemical fertilizers, we are now able to harvest
more
food but with less nutrition in it. Studies show the modern potato has
lost 100% of Vitamin A and 57% of Vitamin C compared to its sister in 1950.
There are many research studies showing less vitamins, minerals and other
nutrients in different foods. There are several studies showing that organically grown foods have higher nutrient content than non-organically
grown food. For example, lycopene-a very powerful anti-oxidant-is more
concentrated in organic tomato than
the non-organic variety. It is interesting to understand that organic tomato produces more lycopene
in order to fight the pests which attack the tomato plant, than the
non-organic tomato, which
does not encounter any pests as it is treated with chemicals. When treated with pesticides and chemical fertilizers,
plants grow in a stressful condition and that stress is then passed on to
us, when we eat them.
We do not consume fresh fruits and vegetables. Freshness does not mean, for
example, apples being coated with wax to prevent dryness. The practice of picking fruits and vegetables
before they are ripe and the use of ripening gas devoid them of many
nutrients. Lack of vital nutrients caused by this process increases
stress. We need the phyto-nutrients so our body can cope with
other stress factors that introduce oxidizing chemicals in our body.
Treating Food
Due to our fast life, we do not have time to cook food. We end up either
eating in a restaurant, where the emphasis is on economics and not on your health.
While preparing food on a large scale the workers prepare food with no love
and joy and care only for your praise that food is tasty. Therefore they try
their maximum to prepare tasty food compromising health.
Many are so
busy that they eat pre-cooked food. At lunch time they eat fat-free foods, highly refined, refrigerated in a plastic container, bombarded with the
rays of a microwave.
Microwave is an easy, fast means not only to cook food but also to deplete
nutrients.
Click here
to read
about the effect of microwaving on nutrients in your food.
In between
meals, the mouth remains active with lot
of chocolates, cookies and roasted, fried and burned materials in the name of
snacks. The evening meal is a heavy dinner with, once again, highly refined products.
Processed foods
Not only do foods grown with pesticides cause stress; processed foods devoid of
nutrients will cause stress too. Even organically grown food, if processed, is
not good for health. Just because it has a label promoting it as 'organic' or
'natural' does not mean it is healthy. This is how food companies fool the
public. Just by adding some ingredients that are natural they sell highly
processed foods. Processed foods that are highly refined, whether they are
refined oils or refined grains, will cause stress to the body.
What is the relationship between eating refined products and stress?
Please click here
to continue reading.
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