Age-defying secrets (Part 2)
For longevity, and youthful life, you will need to have a balanced and nutritious diet.
Foods to skip
Refined carbohydrates such as white sugar, white flour, and processed foods are also a taboo for those following the anti-ageing diet. Refined carbohydrates have had their vitamins, minerals, and fibre stripped away, so they are of little nutritional value.
In contrast, complex carbohydrates are good because they retain their nutrients and they are converted to blood sugar more slowly. This prevents fluctuations in your blood sugar level, reduces fat storage, and supports weight loss and maintenance. As a bonus, when you eat a lot of complex carbohydrates, your diet automatically becomes low in fat and protein. In fact, because the foods have such good nutritional profiles, you can eat as much as you like.
Degeneration or Regeneration
The body is designed to heal and repair itself with the aid of proper nutrition. The body requires two vital materials to complete this - energy and raw material. These two requirements are needed to maintain the cell’s proper functioning. The body is made up of cells and all cells are living. All living things need food. Each cell needs the proper food to keep it strong. Cells die and replace themselves at various intervals. To understand anti-ageing, understand that when a cell replaces itself it has three options that it can replace itself with:
- A cell may replace itself with a weaker cell each time. A cell will do this if it hasn’t had the right nutritional foods made available to it. This process is called degeneration.
- A cell can replace itself with the same strength cell. This means the body doesn’t improve. That is, you have a chronic condition.
- The cell is capable of replacing itself with a stronger and better cell. This will happen only if the cell has an abundance of energy and the right raw materials. This process is called regeneration.
Regeneration is an anti-ageing process.
Many of the foods that we have been told are good for us, in actual fact, may cause degeneration. Foods which usually cause degeneration and ageing are those with high levels of carbohydrate, sugar, milk (especially homogenised milk), tea, coffee, chocolate, cola, cigarettes, white flour, microwave-cooked foods, chemicals such as fluoride, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, processed foods, colourings, additives, monosodium glutamate (MSG), preserved meat, margarine, olestra, hydrogenated oils, deep fried foods, puffed grains, soy products which have not been fermented (soy milk & tofu) and meat and eggs raised by ‘abnormal’ methods which have many toxins and hormones.
Foods which can help regeneration and anti-ageing include fruit and vegetables especially sprouts, green leafy vegetables, legumes (such as lentils), Celtic sea salt, spirulina, seaweed, wheat grass juice, barley greens, Aloe Vera, anti-oxidants (e.g. vitamin C, vitamin E, Pycnogenol, coenzyme Q10), olive oil, evening primrose oil, foods with omega 3 fatty acids (flaxseed oil) and omega 4 & 5 fatty acids (evening primrose and fish oil).
In addition, frequent drinks of good water are crucial. Health would improve if we would just drink more water.
Nutritionists like to divide food into a number of different groups. You could, however, divide food up into two food groups – one group that produces acids when it is digested and the other group that produces alkalis when it is digested. Our bodies are constantly producing waste products, just the way exhaust gases come from the back of our cars. Waste products are acidic - they are called toxins. Toxins cause tiredness, pain and ageing. Therefore, if you want more energy and less pain, you need to eat less acid-producing food.
Foods that produce acids are carbohydrates and proteins. ‘Foods’ such as tea, coffee, soft drinks, sugar, flavourings, artificial sweeteners and preserved meats are even more acidic, and pollutants (like heavy metals) and pesticides are even worse.
Anyone who has studied chemistry knows that you need an alkali to neutralise an acid. The only foods that produce alkalis are fruits and vegetables, particularly leafy, green vegetables, such as sprouts, parsley and cabbage. That is why people should eat lots of fruits and especially vegetables, for an anti-ageing effect. We all know that raw is best, when it comes to vegetables. And steamed is much, much better than boiled (as it retains the vitamins and minerals), and boiled is a hundred times better than fried.
Once you begin to understand this, it is easy to see why so many people are suffering from health problems. Take a look at what people put into their shopping carts the next time you are at the supermarket. You will find a whole lot of white bread, soft drinks and preserved foods. Glance through what people have on their plates next time you are in a restaurant - lots of carbohydrate and protein, and very few vegetables, except maybe for salad.
This is not to say that we don’t need protein and complex carbohydrates. We do - the key is balance. We need to balance the acid-producing foods we eat with much more alkali-producing foods, especially if we suffer from symptoms such as tiredness, pain, illness, gastric and skin problems.
The other thing to bear in mind is that the body has hundreds of different chemical reactions going on, for which it needs at least 90 different things, including vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. Therefore, people need more variety in their diet; to ensure that they get everything their body needs.
