Dr. Dodge: Passion for Health

Health-sabotaging foods are ones that undermine or damage health, often in hidden ways. Because the damage being done is unseen, people may not be aware of it for many years. When the resulting diseases start causing symptoms, the common way of dealing with them is to treat the symptoms with medicine to keep them under control.

The sad irony is that the foods causing hidden damage often continue to be eaten. This is a bit like giving a car with an already damaged engine bad fuel, and continuing to drive it hoping that the damage doesn’t get worse. This clearly doesn’t do the engine any good.

The awesome foods I’ve discussed previously are the fuels needed for good health. These foods are needed to promote long-term health, but it’s also important to stop putting bad fuel into the body. That’s why avoidance of health-sabotaging foods is essential.

Sugar fits all the criteria of being a health-sabotaging food. It does its damage in hidden ways that may not produce symptoms for many years. It has taken decades for science to unravel the mystery of why sugar is damaging to health. Sugar consists of equal parts of glucose and fructose, but the body processes them somewhat differently.

Both bind with proteins to produce Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs). AGEs are damaging to collagen and other tissues in every part of the body. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is worse than sugar, being ten times more active than glucose in producing AGEs. This process is present in everyone, but it is accelerated in people with diabetes.

Because of the large amount of sugar and fructose consumed by the average American, premature aging of many tissues is common. Disease processes are set in motion that can lead to diabetes, hypertension, and various other chronic ailments. Foods that are high in sugar include most soft drinks, candies, cakes, pies, and many other desserts. Yet, these are only the tip of the iceberg, because sugar is found in a vast array of foods.

The processes differ, but many other foods also sabotage long-term health. These include refined grains like white flour, highly processed meats such as sausages and cold cuts, many dairy products, and a host of other processed foods. The more heavily a food is processed, the less healthy it’s likely to be. Grocery store center aisles are danger zones!

How should one approach the issue of health-sabotaging foods? After identifying them, it’s best to minimize them in one’s food intake. I realize that for many people, this is not easy to do. Such foods are often mainstays in their diets. Yet, not making this kind of change is asking for serious health problems down the road.

If you keep putting health-sabotaging foods into your body, you are likely to need lots of costly medicine and repair work eventually. If you consistently feed the body with good foods, you can expect a much better chance of enjoying good long-term health! The combination of eating lots of awesome foods (secret # 2,) and avoiding health-sabotaging foods (secret # 3,) is truly a powerful combination!