My thoughts on organic and holistic diets ...

OK ... what a ride I've had since my last update last year!!

My life has taken a couple of unexpected twists, and my stress levels have been all over the place, and I kinda let myself go a bit. By early January, I was back up to 272 pounds, and I was very mad at myself to the point where it was not fun to be around me. But I took a couple days to refocus and reflect, and I put my mind back to shedding pounds.

I am happy to announce, that as of 7:12am this morning, I have managed to loose all but 1 of the 14 pounds I had put on since we last chatted, and I am weighing in at 259.4 pounds!



Now ... on to other business.

Yesterday, myself and a couple friends had a discussion going on facebook, in response to the pictures posted down below the break ...

In regards to this fad of Organic eating or holistic eating - is it really healthier than eating "normal" foods in moderation? I'm really not so sure.

Of all the people I know who are obsessed with eating "organic" or "holistic", or nothing but "whole foods" ... most of them appear to age prematurely, or look almost too skinny, or have more wrinkles, and/or crow's feet, or loose skin. They claim they feel healthier than they have ever felt in their lives, but I dunno ... they almost look like they are sick, or have just recovered from a long term illness.

I also recently saw a piece on one of these news magazines on television, where they were buying various "organic" food items, and also buying their readily-available, non-organic, and much cheaper counterparts, and testing them for levels of insecticides and chemical fertilizers, nutrients, and all the usual suspects.



I was quite shocked at their findings! Basically they concluded that the products being sold as "organic" had very little differences to the "normal" products, and most certainly not enough of a difference to justify the as high as 600% marked up prices that the "organic" goods fetched.

Both the organic and the non-organic produces had very very small traces of chemical contaminants on them, but far below any levels that might affect the health of the person ingesting them. As far as the nutrient values - which is also often part of the "organic" sales pitch - that organic produces and products are much healthier and are packed with many more nutrients than regular supermarket produce, actually quite the opposite was found to be the case, where of the several types of products tested, they either had closely identical nutritional values, or in some cases the "organic" products scored lower than the generic supermarket products tested.

The bottom line and conclusion drawn by the investigation, was that people are being duped by this current kick for organic goods. When they went to the organic companies and asked them to comment on these independent findings, all of them declined to comment, and a couple even got very irate and demanded the journalists leave their premises immediately.

Now for the picture that was posted on facebook that started this conversation to begin with:



Now .. my take on all of this, is that it really is not so important that we eat only organic, or only vegan, or only whole foods. I think that we are omnivores by design, and need all kinds of foods including meats, vegetables, bacon with our eggs for breakfast ... go ahead and enjoy your food, but as always, the key is in moderation.

ALSO REMEMBER THAT 70% OF US CANADIANS DO NOT GET ENOUGH PROTEIN IN OUR DIETS, AND PROTEIN IS NECESSARY FOR BURNING CALORIES. I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH THE IMPORTANCE OF INCREASING THE AMOUNT OF PROTEINS IN OUR DIETS FOR LOSING WEIGHT. THIS ALONE IS MAYBE MORE IMPORTANT THAN 'WHAT' WE ARE EATING!