Shocking facts you need to know about the degradation of our food supply
by Mike Geary - Certified Personal Trainer, Certified Nutrition Specialist
Author of best-selling program: The Truth about Six-Pack Abs
I think most people in this day and age are starting to understand the concept that for animal-based foods, the health of the animal and whether that animal ate what it was meant to eat in nature greatly affects whether that food is healthy for you to eat, or not healthy, and whether it has nutritional imbalances.But with this article, I want to expand this discussion from just the diet of the animal to another possibly even MORE important factor that nobody is really talking about. And this directly relates to one of the MOST important substances in your body that you probably ARE deficient. In fact, most people are deficient in this.
More about that in a minute, but first, let's make sure we're on the same page with quality of the diet of animals in our food supply.
For example, as you probably already know, grass-fed beef from cattle that roam outside in grassy fields is MUCH healthier for you than typical grain-fed beef from a factory farm feedlot. The unhealthy grain-fed beef has been consistently shown to have lower levels of vitamins and minerals (particularly Vitamin A and E) and lower levels of the healthy fat, CLA compared to properly raised grass-fed beef. We also know that grain-fed beef has an unhealthy ratio of omega-6 fats to omega-3 fats compared to grass-fed beef, which contains ideal healthy ratios of these fats.
Another example would be chicken... Unhealthy chickens that are raised in factory chicken houses, never see an outdoor environment, and fed unnatural amounts of grains are going to produce a significantly less healthy chicken meat for your meals compared to a chicken that spent most of its time outdoors roaming fields and eating greens, seeds, bugs, worms, and other natural items that chickens like to eat. The chicken that ate a natural diet roaming outside is going to have more vitamins and minerals and healthier omega-3 to omega-6 ratios compared to the chicken that lived a horrible life inside a factory farm chicken house, and ate unnatural amounts of grains to be fattened up quickly.
This also applies to your source of eggs... healthy hens that roam outdoors and eat what they are supposed to eat naturally (not piles of grains) will supply healthy eggs for your consumption... unhealthy hens in factory hen houses fattened up on nothing but grains will produce less healthy eggs with lower vitamin and mineral content, less carotenoids, and lower omega-3 levels.I know this for a fact, as I get my eggs from a local farmer here in Colorado where the hens get 40 acres to roam on daily and eat whatever their little hearts desire...all the greens, bugs, worms, etc that they want. Their eggs have thick strong shells and DEEP orange yolks indicating super high levels of nutrition and carotenoids in those yolks. Compare that to the thin weak shells and pale yellow yolks of most eggs that you'll find at grocery stores or restaurants which came from factory raised hens. It's a shocking comparison when seen side by side, but sadly, most people in this day and age have never seen what real egg yolks are supposed to look like, and have never experienced the quality nutrition that those egg yolks were supposed to have.
Ok, so I think we're pretty clear on the fact that the diet of an animal directly relates to how healthy that meat or eggs (or even milk or butter) will be for our consumption as a food source. But here's a vitally important aspect of how an animal is raised that almost nobody is talking about...
How much sunshine did those animals receive?
Yes, if you know a lot about nutrition, I think you know where I'm going with this... how much vitamin D is in that meat, dairy, or eggs based on how much sun the animal received?As you may have heard, it's no secret that there's a major epidemic going on in "westernized" countries in this day and age... and that is Vitamin D deficiency in us humans... but nobody is talking about vitamin D deficiency in our animals that make up our food supply, hence further exacerbating the problem.
Part of the reason for this mass scale vitamin D deficiency is that there's a major propaganda campaign going on where companies and the media constantly tell you that you should never go out in the sun between 10am to 3pm as those "deadly" sun rays will automatically give you cancer (by the way, this is the ONLY time that UV-B rays are strong enough to trigger vitamin D production in your body).
They also tell you that you should slather on chemical-based carcinogenic sunscreens (which absorb through your skin and into your blood stream) to protect yourself from the so-called "deadly" sun... this excessive use of chemical sunscreens also means that your body can't properly produce the vitally important Vitamin D from your sun exposure.
But I have to digress on that topic so I don't stray too far from this discussion of animals health. If you want to read more, here's an article where I show why most people may actually be underexposed to the sun which is making them even more vitamin D deficient.
Now with that said, one of the other major reasons that the majority of the population in "westernized" countries are more and more vitamin D deficient is that our animals are being raised in indoor factory environments nowadays and are seeing MUCH less sunshine than the animals are meant to see.
You see, many animals and birds are just like us humans in that they depend on the sun to produce vitamin D through oils that react with sunlight (UV-B rays) shining on their skin, fur, or feathers.
So what do you think happens now that most of the animals in our food supply are raised in horrendous indoor environments and see much less sunshine than our animals from farms several decades ago did?
Well, that means that the meat, eggs, and dairy from those animals has significantly less vitamin D than it used to contain back in our grandparents day...in addition to all of the other nutritional deficiencies that we talked about earlier in this article.
Let's go back to the eggs example from above, but this time lets relate it to vitamin D content instead of omega-3's and carotenoid deficiencies. In today's factory hen houses where the hens never see any sunshine, this means that they do not pass on much Vitamin D to the egg yolks, and you end up with Vitamin D deficient egg yolks.
However, remember those eggs that I told you about that came from hens that roamed around outside every day on 40 acres eating greens, bugs, seeds, and worms? Well, what we didn't talk about earlier is that those hens are also being exposed to daily sunshine and that helps the hens produce Vitamin D, and therefore pass that Vitamin D onto the egg yolks. In this case, you get egg yolks with MUCH higher vitamin D levels... this is what we were meant to get in nature, and grocery store eggs are a far cry from the eggs that our grandparents and great grandparents would have eaten 60-100 years ago.
When you combine the fact that most people are NOT getting adequate small doses of daily sunshine, are over-using chemical-based sunscreens that prevent your body from producing vitamin D, and are also getting less Vitamin D from the meat, dairy, and eggs in our food supply these days, you can see why Vitamin D deficiency is a major problem right now.
Remember that Vitamin D is NOT just any old "vitamin"... it's actually produced into a hormone in our body and is one of the most important substances in our bodies that regulates everything from hormone balance, to helping prevent cancer, to helping control blood sugar, to helping you lose fat and build muscle.
Remember that Vitamin D is also the MOST important factor involved in how strong your immune system is... why do you think people get sick more in the winter with colds and flu and not in the summer? Yep, it's almost 100% involved with Vitamin D levels in your body that decline in the winter from lack of sun exposure. Come on, did you really think there were more "germs" floating around in the winter...nope, it's all about Vitamin D levels and your immune system.
Side note: From late October through early March in the northern hemisphere, north of an imaginary line from approximately Atlanta to Los Angeles, the sun's rays are too weak, and UV-B rays cannot pass through the atmosphere due to the low sun angle during those months. This means that UV-B rays are inadequate during those months to trigger any Vitamin D production in your body. Your only solution is either a tropical vacation closer to the equator (which will only temporarily help improve vitamin D levels) or obtaining your vitamin D from your diet and carefully chosen supplements.
By the way, since you may already be a Prograde nutrition customer, the source of vitamin D in Prograde's VGF25 whole-foods based multi-vitamin is obtained from fish liver oil and is therefore a good quality source. But even with 400IU daily, although this is the recommended daily value, most scientists warn that this level will not sustain adequate vitamin D levels in your body, and therefore, you will still need regular sunlight and additional vitamin D from the right food sources to make sure you get enough D. Fatty fish, organ meats, egg yolks, and pork fat are reasonable sources of vitamin D, but cod liver oil or other fish liver oils are the highest in vitamin D.
The only way to know if you're dangerously deficient in Vitamin D is to get a blood test. When I had my Vitamin D levels tested a while back, I ordered a self testing kit that you can do at home instead of going to a doctors office, and you mail it to the lab for analysis. It's much cheaper than a doctors visit. I haven't asked permission to mention the company's name that performs this Vitamin D testing service, so I will contact them and see if it's okay to do so. I'll update you on that soon.
I also plan to put together a whole series of articles that will shock you and show you a few important videos on this topic as well, so please be on the lookout for my articles in your email inbox. Please don't take this information lightly... vitamin D is one of the most important substances in your body, and almost any health issue you're having can possibly be traced back to low vitamin D levels, and that includes sicknesses or anything immune system related, hormone imbalance, etc.
Please share this article with your friends and family, as it is so important to our health.
Bad News About Omega Fatty Acids
By Cassandra Forsythe-Pribanic, PhD, RD, CSCS
To many people, “fat” is one of those three-letter words that instills fear of heart disease, obesity, and a lifetime of bad hair days (I’m kidding about that last one… sort of). But one type of fat that has joined the popular crowd of nutrients such as amino acids and dietary fiber, is essential fatty acids.
Essential fatty acids (EFAs), have steadily become the new buzz word in nutrition for several important reasons. The biggest reason is it’s prefix, “essential”. Yes, fats in this category are something your body can not make, but need for survival and to prevent deficiencies. This is in contrast to many other nutrients that your body can actually synthesize, like carbohydrates and some proteins. As such, EFAs must be obtained by eating certain foods and taking dietary supplements regularly. You can think of them like water or calories; without either of these, your body will not function properly and will eventually suffer ill fates.
But what is it about EFAs that makes them so, well, essential? And, what happens without them? Finally, how can we get them in our diets and what are their benefits? Continue reading to learn everything you need to know about this special class of nutrients.
All About Essential Fatty Acids
EFAs fall within the category of dietary fat. In foods, fat is actually a structure made up of several different types of fatty acids attached to a compound called glycerol. This whole unit together is known as a triglyceride, pictured below:
A triglyceride basically looks like the capital letter “E”, and each arm of the “E” is a fatty acid. These fatty acid “arms” are chains of carbon molecules linked together in varying lengths, and with different amount of attachments (or bonds) between each carbon. Chains with only single attachments are known as saturated fatty acids (SFAs), those with one double attachment are known as monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), and those with two to six double attachments are called polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs).
EFAs are a type of PUFA; they have one or more double bonds, and they‘re further categorized into one of two classes: Omega-6 or Omega-3. The omega-6s are named because their first double bond is six carbons from one end, where omega-3s have their first double attachment three carbons away.
The essentiality of two of these omega fats, linoleic acid (LA, an omega-6), and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA, an omega-3) is because humans, and all vertebrates for that matter, do not have the enzymes to make them from other fats in the diet. Plants, however, do have these special enzymes and are one of the main dietary sources for us. Humans can also get them from eating animals that have consumed these plants and have now accumulated them in their body fat stores.
As you can see from the table above, there are many ways to get omega-6 EFAs into your diet. However, obtaining omega-3s is a bit more difficult. To make matters worse, consuming too few omega-3s compared to omega-6s has been associated with higher rates of inflammatory diseases like heart disease, diabetes, arthritis , cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. It has been suggested by some experts that humans should ideally consume no more than a 6:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids, with lower levels recommended for certain conditions.
Finding The Right Omega Balance
Starting in the 1900s, the North American dietary fat consumption drastically changed. With new industrial processes and a greater demand for food to feed a rapidly growing population, we shifted from eating fats in their natural state to those in packages and pre-prepared forms. We also became highly scared of saturated fats, like those in butter and tropical oils, and so turned to margarines and refined vegetable oils.
Fatty fish also became less popular because we thought fat was deadly, so we choose less-nutritious white fishes and low-fat versions of poultry and meat (and, of course, we had to cover them in breading and high-sugar sauces). Finally, because we were eating so much beef and chicken, these animals had to be fed grain-based diets instead of naturally grazing on grass - there was not just enough pasture to keep up.
All of these food changes has lead our current population to have a diet heavily-based on omega-6 fats, with very few omega-3s. The margarines, fish, beef, pork and poultry we eat now are all dominant in omega-6 linoleic acid (LA). In turn our dietary ratio of omega-6 to 3s is much different than our healthier ancestors: it’s been estimated that we currently eat an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 15-20:1, compared to 1:1 many years ago (when heart disease was not the #1 killer at such young ages).
During evolution, omega-3 fatty acids were found in most all foods consumed: meat, wild plants, eggs, fish, nuts and berries. But now the picture has changed and our health has suffered. True, other factors come into play, like lack of physical activity and excessive sugar intake, but dietary fat imbalance plays an important role.
The problem with excessive omega-6 fats is that in the body are many:
• Omega-6 LA competes with the normal metabolism of omega-3 ALA to EPA and DHA, so that much less can be made in the body through the normal omega-3 pathway.
• Omega-6s drastically reduce incorporation of omega-3 EPA and DHA into cell membranes when they are consumed in the diet (normally, EPA and DHA would be placed into membranes).
• Omega-6 fats in the body are highly susceptible to free-radical attack and produce compounds such as oxidized LDL cholesterol which contribute to atherosclerosis.
• When consumed as part of a normal diet, omega-6 (LA) is converted to pro-inflammatory products (prostaglandins, thromboxanes, leukotrienes) which contribute to plaque formation on arteries, allergic responses, increased blood pressure, and tumor growth. Omega-3s have the opposite effect:
Basically, many current common diseases can be linked back to excess omega-6s in our food supply, which leads to chronic inflammation. The solution then is to reduce our intake of these fats and increase our intake of omega-3s. But remember: a balance is important and some omega-6s are still essential.
What Is The Ideal Omega-6 To Omega-3 Ratio?
In today’s society, it’s practically impossible to get a 1:1 ratio of omega-6s to 3s as we did in the past. Also, EFA experts do not recommend we strive for this since we have more of a requirement for omega-6s than we do 3s, and not all omega-6s are bad. Thus, for disease prevention and optimal body processes, a 6:1 ratio, or somewhat less, is ideal. Therefore, in a typical diet containing about 60 grams of total fat and 20 grams of PUFA, you’d aim for at least 4 grams of omega-3s, which you can easily get from food and supplements.
Making Omega-3 Fatty Acids
When people consume LA or ALA these fatty acids can be converted to other important omega-6 and omega-3s in the body, but this doesn’t always occur effectively. Omega-6 LA is often easily transformed to omega-6s known as gamma-linoleic acid (GLA) and arachidonic acid (AA). GLA is considered a good fat to have in our bodies, but AA is mostly not – it depends on the situation you’re looking at though.
The most important conversion process for our health and well-being is the creation of special omega-3 fats known as EPA (eicosapentanoic acid) and DHA (docosahexanoic acid) from ALA. High levels of EPA and DHA in our cells is very beneficial for lowering our risk of diseases, preventing cancer, avoiding depression and correcting attention deficit disorders. Also, DHA is very important for visual acuity and development of the brain. Unfortunately, for most humans, the conversion of ALA to EPA and DHA is not an efficient process. It has been estimated that only 5-10% of ALA is converted to EPA and 2-5% is converted to DHA; considering how little ALA is in the diet to begin with, this is barely anything at all. Part of the reason minimal ALA is converted to EPA and DHA is that the body prefers to burn it as a fuel – studies with humans have shown that as much as 34% ALA is breathed off as CO2 (via metabolism). Thus, for optimal intake of EPA and DHA we should aim to eat these food sources regularly instead on relying on our body to make them for us:
Significant Sources of EPA and DHA
• Cold water fatty fish (salmon, trout, sardine, mackerel, herring)
• Shellfish (shrimp, mussels)
• Marine algae
• Krill
How Do We Know EFAs Are So Essential?
If either LA or ALA are missing in the diet because a person chooses to eat a fat-free diet or they select fats that are low in one or the other, the health of body cells deteriorates, and deficiency symptoms develop. Historically, rats that were fed fat-free diets failed to reproduce, grow normally, or remain healthy. At first, these issues were thought to be due to Vitamin E deficiency (a fat-soluble vitamin), but where then discovered to be due to lack of omega-6 fat. In humans, signs of omega-6 LA deficiency include dermatitis, poor wound healing, loss of hair, and infertility. Thankfully, all of these outcomes are reversible.
No distinct disease occurs in humans when omega-3 ALA is missing in the diet, but, as mentioned, these fatty acids are required for proper vision and central nervous system development and functioning. They also compete with pro-inflammatory products of omega-6 mediators in the body and produce an anti-inflammatory state in the body. Finally, people who consume plentiful omega-3s from seafood and flax have been observed to have reductions in body fat and increases in the ability to use carbohydrate as a fuel (improved insulin sensitivity); we’ll explore more of these benefits in Part II.
Overall, omega-3s are fats that everyone should include in their diets right now; they’re one fat you shouldn’t be afraid of, but rather, should seek out for optimal health.
The Shocking Truth About The FISH OIL You Are Taking Now. Warning: Do NOT Take Any Fish Oil Until You Read This News
Resources:
Brenna JT. Efficiency of conversion of alpha-linolenic acid to long chain n-3 fatty acids in man. Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care 2002, 5(2):127-132.
Anderson BM, Ma DW. Are all n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids created equal? Lipids Health Dis. 2009 Aug 10;8:33.
Simopoulos AP. The importance of the ratio of omega-6/omega-3 essential fatty acids. Biomed Pharmacother. 2002 Oct;56(8):365-79.
Simopoulos AP. Evolutionary aspects of diet, the omega-6/omega-3 ratio and genetic variation: nutritional implications for chronic diseases. Biomed Pharmacother. 2006 Nov;60(9):502-7.
Biochemical and Physiological Aspects of Human Nutrition. Martha H. Stipanuk,ed. 2000. WB Saunders Co.
** Notice: WARNING: If you are allergic to shellfish, have a blood coagulation disorder, or are taking anticoagulants such as Warfarin (Coumadin), do not use Krill Oil.
