My food experiments

Mandatory Disclaimer
I am not a nutrionist, this is all my opinion and based on personal experience. If you do any of this and die, it’s not my fault. Some of the items here are debatably good or bad depending who you listen to. Bearing in mind some of the appalling things that have happened due to so called “safe” food and drink, I think I will just steer clear of artificial products peddled by shareholder driven corporations, thanks.

Eat less
You gradually get used to eating less, we eat too much for our largely sedentary lifestyle. Consequences include losing excess weight, feeling brighter and more energetic and less bloated and lazy. Smaller meals mean less time slumped around while your body tries to digest that huge meal.

I am now having more frequent, smaller meals after reading up in a Bipsychology book on daily blood sugar cycles. I crash if I eat too much in one go, as my body shuts down to try and digest the monster meal.

Adjustment
When I changed my eating habits, natural food tasted bland and uninteresting at first. This is because of all the chemicals and flavourings in most of the things i was eating before. I am now adjusted to natural foods, and things like chewy sweets now burn my mouth they are that full of chemicals. My taste buds are more sensitive and my stomach plays up if I drink a load of beer or eat a whole pizza, things that often occurred together before I realised what I was doing to myself.

Aspartame
An artificial sweetener, used in sweeteners, “diet” soft drinks and many other flavoured, coloured drinks. Google it and be astounded. Nutrasweet is made by Monsanto, the company causing ripples with their GM foods.

Soft Drinks
Look at the ingredients of soft drinks. It is fizzy, flavoured, coloured, sugary water. The E-numbers used to colour and flavour these drinks (and many other foods and drinks) have unpredictable effects on your brain and body. Too much sugar messes with your mood. I have replaced these pretend drinks with filtered water and fruit juice. I feel loads better and save a fortune. The smaller bottles and cans are poor value, if you drink pop, buy a massive bottle and transfer it to a smaller one as you need it. Notice how certain companies have a stranglehold on schools, colleges, cinemas and other public places.

Caffeine
Too much caffeine messes you up. Boosting your mood, whether through drink or drugs will have an equal and opposite effect. If you are always tired, your diet, lifestyle and sleep pattern needs looking at. How much caffeine is ok for you will vary, I get mood swings and the shakes after two cups of coffee. Try decaf, non caffeine drinks or just drink fewer chemicals and more water.

Tap water
We have fluoride added to our tap water. Opinion is divided over whether fluoride is of any benefit to our dental health. I was told that it is good for my teeth when I was a kid, but I was also told numerous other lies by people who would either profit from my ignorance or just didn’t know any better themselves. Some say that fluoride makes you docile and passive. Google it and have a read. Tap water is cloudy and tastes of chemicals anyway. I drink filtered water, but apparently the jug filters don’t cut out fluoride.

This is a heavy debate – read both sides and see what makes more sense to you. Personally I am more inclined to believe somebody who has no financial interest in the matter to tell me the truth.

My Google flouride highlights; Nazi experiments, antidepressants containing fluorine, fluoride causing decay needing dental care, dentists promoting fluoride, chemical companies selling their toxic waste to water companies, health authorities being able to force water companies to add fluoride…….

Beer
I used to drink lots of beer. It messed my stomach up, so now I don’t and now my stomach is fine. I have also stopped wanting to fight every man and his dog when inebriated. Nuff said. I now drink Guiness instead.

Milk and dairy
Dairy gives me stomach cramps and destroys my mood. I now have soya milk on my breakfast and avoid cheese, mayonnaise, butter, cream etc. This is harder than it sounds because lots of foods have dairy products in. Pies, pasties and anything pastry are off my menu too. There is also a vegetarian angle to this as well now, as cows are kept pregnant so they keep making milk, are generally mistreated and suffer when milked.

MSG – Monosodium Glutamate
A flavour enhancing chemical used to fool you into thinking that bland, nutrionally useless food tastes good. Often used in tandem with E number flavourings, the cheap and plentiful MSG is makes things taste stronger by altering your brain chemistry. You then become used to this artificial “flavour high” and keep eating the product. Natural food then tastes weak in comparison. MSG enhanced flavouring is cheap for the manufacturer and encourages you to eat until the pack is finished. Crisps, sweets, cooking sauces, the list goes on, just look at the ingredients. Try fruit, nuts, kettle chips and purer forms of chocolate etc instead.

Processed food
Much of what we eat is heavily processed. Additives, flavourings, colourings etc all mess with your brain in various ways and some have physical effects (mood, energy etc). Tinned fruit and veg often contain preservatives and colours. I try and buy fresh food from smaller independent shops. I am trying to make more things myself rather than buying them. Supermarkets wax their fruit and it may not be as fresh as from a small grocers. Small shops can be cheaper, farm shops are likely to be more expensive but you know exactly where it all came from and you will be supporting local businesses rather than multinational corporations who will do anything to make an extra 1%.

Balance
Our diet can easily be too high in stodgy carbs and too low in protein and fresh fruit & veg. I won’t go into it here, there are plenty of websites around that can explain it better than I can!

My Experiments
I once stayed in a place where I ate vegan food for a week while doing heavy manual work. I felt fantastic by the end of the week. On returning home I had a greasy spaghetti Bolognese with mince and a can of Wife Beater. I was really messed up by it for a couple of days – stomach cramps, bad mood and lethargy. That started my experiments with food to see what was affecting me and how.

I used to get mid afternoon depressions with terrible mood swings, low energy and a bad back. After a few weeks of experimenting, it turns out it was the cheese melts or pasties I sometimes had for lunch coupled with drinking too much coffee that were causing the depressions. I naturally dip at around 3pm for an hour anyway, but the things I was consuming were making it much worse.

Onions are evil. After some experimenting, I have found that onions will immediately place me in a negative, energy bereft state. Why does everything have onions in it? Because it doesn’t taste of anything otherwise…

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