GABA, GABA, Doo, Part 6

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

I recently came across a thread on a social network by someone who had commented on a new product that was being introduced by one of the well-known fast food places. She made the following comment regarding her belief about food and obesity:

Food doesn’t cause obesity. People not eating and exercising in moderation do. It’s deeper than just simple bad food choices. You can enjoy all foods in moderation.

This, in a nutshell, is how badly people are brainwashed in America, thanks to the Big Food and Big Pharma industries. We also need to remember that while Monsanto (the leader in GMO creation and technology), boasts of being an “international” company, it is based here in the United States, which is why there is such a push by Monsanto and their lobbyists to put GMO food in stores and on our tables. You might be interested to know that GMO foods are banned in Europe, but here in the U.S.? GMO lobbyists are doing everything they can to get legislation passed that would actually prohibit companies from labeling their food products “non-GMO.” What does that tell you about GMO foods?

What people seem to not understand is that there are many ingredients used in the preparation of today’s so-called foods that can and do more harm than good. Because of that, they should be avoided completely. People complain because of the higher cost of organic or other healthy food products as compared to the regularly available food-like products. The reason for that is very simple. The organic products are not produced in mass quantities as are the regular non-organic products that fill our shelves. Anything that does not have high production numbers is going to cost more. This is slowly changing compared to what we did not have available just a few years ago.

Another person in the same thread made this comment:

Today I had a dollar, and went to buy myself a water. The water was 32 oz but they also had pepsi (sic) products for a dollar. I ended up buying the pepsi (sic) product because it was a 2 litter bottle and I wanted to spend my dollar more wisely. 2 litters will last me much longer than a 32 ounces. That shouldn’t be the case. The water should’ve been more abundant but wasn’t. That’s my point in this scenario.

Again, bottled water is not as mass-produced as Pepsi or other known soda products. But look at the reasoning here. He thought his one dollar was going to go further if he purchased one 2-liter bottle of Pepsi as opposed to one 32 oz bottle of water. Unfortunately, in my opinion, he did not choose wisely at all and he later indicated he is going into the medical profession and understands the problems associated with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The Pepsi is filled with HFCS and scientists have proven that it is fat-inducing (among other things), and that fat is stored in the liver. Beyond this, HFCS does not quench thirst. It makes a person more thirsty. It does not satiate hunger, but simply increases appetite.

Years ago, sodas like Pepsi and Coke were produced with actual sugar. Today, HFCS is used because it is much cheaper for the companies to buy it by the ton and it can always be made because a tremendous amount of GMO corn is grown in the United States for cereals, and a host of other products, along with turning the corn stalks into HFCS. Go to the store and look for sodas that are sweetened with pure cane sugar and you will pay more for them because they are not produced in such massive quantities and because it costs more to use pure cane sugar vs. HFCS. It’s simple economics.

What the person above should have done was purchased water. Yet, even there, if he intended to purchase purified drinking water, very likely chemicals were added to it to make it taste better. If you have to buy bottled water, buy water that is labeled “spring water” because nothing is generally added to that (though you still have to read the label).

When I drink a soda, I only drink ones sweetened with pure cane sugar or sugar. If it’s just sugar (like the Mexican versions of Coke, Sprite, or Pepsi), there is still a chance that sugar came from GMO beets (sugar beets), but if it’s the Mexican versions of our soda, it’s probably a form of pure cane sugar. If it is labeled pure sugar cane, then it came from sugar cane, not beets. Much of the white, processed table sugar that people buy today here in the United States (unless it specifically states that it is pure cane sugar), is derived from GMO sugar beets.

Today’s foods do cause obesity, along with a host of other ailments related to it. People in general are simply not healthy today and they do not make the connection between what they eat (not how much of it they eat, though that is also problematic), and ill-health. Our foods make us very sluggish and downright sick. The amount of chemicals, fillers, and preservatives in our foods are overwhelming and most of us don’t even know what half the ingredients are and don’t pay attention anyway.

I was having a very difficult time finding the actual ingredients in Blue Bell ice cream, but was able to finally locate the ingredients for the Blue Bell Ice Cream Sandwiches (12 oz each):

• Milk, Cream, Enriched Wheat Flour (Flour, Niacin, Reduced Iron, Thiamine Mononitrate, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Skim Milk, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Soybean Oil, Cocoa (Processed with Alkali), Whey, Buttermilk, Caramel Color, Soy Flour, Baking Soda, Modified Food Starch, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Artificial Color (Red 40, Blue 1), Soy Mono- and Diglycerides, Cellulose Gum, Vegetable Gums (Guar, Carrageenan, Carob Bean), Polysorbate 60, Xanthan Gum, Annatto Color.

The “enriched wheat flour” is likely made using GMO dwarf wheat. Why is wheat flour added? For the “sandwich” part of the ice cream. But it is also likely used as a thickening agent and provides added texture as well as taste. The sugar is not pure cane sugar so it is probably made from GMO sugar beets. Corn syrup is made from corn stalks (likely GMO), and apparently neither sugar or corn syrup by themselves made things sweet enough so the producers added high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which is absolutely made from GMO corn stalks. Talk about sugar overdose! Why does there need to be so much sugar? Soybean oil should be avoided if you are sensitive to soy (I am). Whey is also not good or buttermilk if you have dairy allergies. Caramel color in the U.S. is most often made by using GMO corn. Soy flour should be avoided.

By the way, I have milk allergies so I need to avoid this type of “food” anyway. I’ve switched to goat’s milk, which does not have lactose and other proteins found in cow’s milk and in concentrated forms of it in things like cheeses.

Modified Food Starch “is a chemically altered food ingredient made from starch (think GMO). Soy lecithin pops up. The term “natural and artificial flavor” usually means there is monosodium glutamate (MSG), which is not the good kind of glutamate and you are essentially putting more glutamate into your system than it may be able to handle. The remainder of the chemicals added to the ice cream are done to give it taste and texture. Please note that many of these chemicals contain excitotoxins that cause excitation of neurotransmitters in your brain. They will put your brain out of balance with resultant negative effects. Also, some folks have allergies to the food coloring added to foods. They have allergy tests so that you can determine if you are one of them. Allergies to food coloring can create problems. All of these ingredients are added so that we can eat something that simply tricks our taste buds into thinking that it tastes good!

I cannot stress enough that Big Food companies put a ton of garbage in our foods as fillers, preservatives, thickening agents, and a host of unknown chemicals (to us) that only serve to “whiten” the final product, thicken it, or something else. Think about when Abraham walked this earth way back in the book of Genesis. He grew vegetables and had herds of cows, probably flocks of chicken, and other animals. He had what he needed to eat and what he didn’t have he or his servants either hunted for it or gathered. Food was actually food then. Today, we eat food-like substances. Any real nutritional value is often set aside by the amount of non-nutritional and harsh chemicals included.

Today, when we go to the store, it’s literally a crap shoot as to what kind of food we’ll get. Our beef and other meats are overloaded with antibiotics and growth hormones. Cattle and other animals are routinely fed GMO corn and other grains (corn is a grain, not a vegetable). It is just so sad what has taken place and we as the consumers are on the receiving end of all this. So we are left to make decisions about what foods to buy and how to make our dollars stretch.

I will say that since I have begun my health journey, my wife and I realize that we rarely eat out anymore. It’s simply not worth it cost or health-wise. The money we save there goes to buying better food for our home. We’ve also noticed that we eat less food now. It’s because not only are our stomachs shrinking, but the desire to eat is dealt with because of the foods we eat. I could routinely eat a huge piece of steak or half a chicken for dinner no problem. I would previously also gorge myself on a salad, a vegetable and bread and butter. Of course, there was desert after that, too.

Now, I’m lucky if I can eat half a piece of steak, a quarter of a chicken and some fruit OR salad. No bread, no butter (except ghee, which is clarified butter and has milk proteins removed reducing chances of allergic reactions), and a small helping of some gluten-free dessert. We often make our own vanilla ice cream with goat milk.

Americans have been taught that the food that is available to us is healthy and good for us, so stop complaining and eat! That’s wrong. Much of the food that we eat is slowly killing us. Do you want to become healthy? Do you want to get off some of your medications? It will involve a complete lifestyle change. Forget the so-called “diet.” They are generally worthless because even if/when people lose weight, they eventually stop being on their diet. At that point, they will usually gain all their lost weight back and then some. I’m talking about a lifestyle change that puts you in charge of your health. Is that something you’re interested in?

We’ll stop here for now and get back to how GABA and Glutamate work together in our next installment.

Additional References:

• http://www.holistichelp.net/blog/how-to-increase-gaba-and-balance-glutamate/
• http://www.drkaslow.com/html/neurotransmitter_repletion.html
• http://glutathionepro.com/mthfr-autism/
• http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/ART03423/Elevated-Homocysteine.html
• https://healthiertalk.com/methylation-simple-explanation-0101/
• http://www.globalhealingcenter.com/natural-health/high-fructose-corn-syrup-dangers/
• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/high-fructose-corn-syrup-dangers_b_861913.html

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective