This chapter is a shopping guide to help you find your way through the huge selection of unhealthy foods in stores. It’s important to remember that not all fruits, vegetables, and animal products are the same. The goal of The Juice Lady’s Weekend Weight-Loss Diet is to help you start living a healthier life by choosing fresh, whole, and clean foods that not only help you lose weight but also cleanse your body and keep you from getting sick. These kinds of foods give you energy and help you stay healthy.
To keep a healthy diet, it’s important to shop smart because most of the food in regular grocery stores doesn’t give the body what it needs. The best way to avoid making bad food choices when you’re half-hungry and have nothing to eat is to plan ahead. Making meal plans and shopping for food ahead of time makes sure you have food on hand and a clear idea of when and how to prepare it. This gives you a much better chance of being able to start losing weight right away. It’s important to have a plan B that includes healthy options like thawed-out foods, dehydrated meals, and quick-to-prepare items in case something goes wrong. This chapter has important information that will help you make smart decisions for a healthier way of life.
Choose Real, Whole Food
People are using the terms “real foods” and “whole foods” more and more to describe things that aren’t made in a factory and aren’t real or healthy. These man-made products, which have become a big part of the American diet, are not real food and shouldn’t be eaten by anyone. They are processed, don’t have any natural nutrients, and are full of chemicals to make them last longer, make them easier to store, and make them easier to transport. Even though these products have different tastes, textures, and shapes, most of them are made from the same crops like wheat, corn, soy, and potatoes. These crops are grown in places with a lot of people and soils that don’t have enough nutrients. They are also full of fertilizers made from oil, which makes them some of the biggest genetically modified crops (GMOs) in the United States. Due to their susceptibility to pests, commercial agriculture resorts to spraying them with high amounts of insecticides or producing GMO plants that have built-in pesticides, such as Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa. This is a scary threat to our ecosystem, food supply, and health in the long run.
Plants lose some of their nutrients when they are processed and stored, so synthetic vitamins and minerals are added to processed foods to make them healthier. Flavorings are also added, since the natural taste is often lost, to make the food taste better. Unfortunately, these foods are usually addicting and can cause cancer. They don’t have the nutrients cells need to work properly and only give you empty calories that your body stores as fat.
Because of this, these products can cause disease, obesity, a weaker immune system, and less fertility. This makes Americans the most overfed and undernourished people in the world. On the other hand, real foods are those that have been changed the least and are the most like they were when they grew up. These foods retain the highest nutrient value and offer the greatest health benefits. They are picked when they are ripe and have a lot of flavor. This keeps the natural variety of taste and the full amount of nutrients and antioxidants. If they are organically grown, in season, and from the area, they are the healthiest choices.
Fruit, Vegetables, and Legumes
Choose fruits, vegetables, and legumes that are grown organically and are as fresh as possible to make sure you get the best ones. This will help you stay away from dangerous pesticides and get the most nutrients out of your food. If you can, buy from local farmers because their food is usually fresher than food that has been shipped from other places. Some local farmers even offer weekly delivery services, which you can find by searching online for organic growers in your area. Also, choosing fruits and vegetables that are in season will make sure you get the freshest food with the most vitamins and biophotons.
Produce that has been sitting on a grocery store shelf for an extended period of time will generally emit fewer biophotons due to the loss that occurs during transportation and storage. Gas or heat, which are often used to ripen or preserve food, can also make it harder for biophotons and nutrients to get to the plant. Also, the process of irradiation, which uses gamma rays to make food last longer, destroys biophotons and many nutrients completely.
Even though they look good, it’s possible that the fruits and vegetables we buy at the market don’t have much biophoton, enzyme, or vitamin content. For instance, avocados may be subjected to heat treatment to hasten their ripening, but temperatures exceeding 110 degrees Fahrenheit can kill the enzymes, vitamins, and biophotons, which are the cells’ life force. Most almonds, even the ones that are sold as “raw,” need to be pasteurized. This process can get rid of their biophotons and make them less nutritious. The freshest produce can be obtained from local farms, farmers’ markets, and even from foraging wild greens in one’s own backyard. In the future, the healthiest food may be unsprayed dandelions found in our backyard.
The amount of nitrogen in the soil affects how much protein is in vegetables. Conventional chemical fertilizers add excess nitrogen, which increases the protein amount but diminishes its quality. Unlike conventional fertilizers, organic soils release nitrogen slowly over a longer period of time. This means that the protein in organic crops is of higher quality and better for human nutrition. Studies have shown that, on average, organically grown crops have more nutrients than crops grown in other ways.
When you can, eat plants that have been around for a long time or that grow wild. These kinds of plants give us good nutrition, and the more of them we eat, the better for our health they are. On the other hand, commercially grown plants are often crossed with each other, which means that the DNA of the plant loses some of its biological information. This makes them more susceptible to diseases, bugs, and parasites, so farmers have to use pesticides that are very dangerous to protect their crops. This bad cycle hurts our health in the long run. By eating foods that are high in nutrients, you will feel fuller and have fewer cravings, which is good for your health and weight management. Also, choosing heirloom and wild plants is good for farm workers, animals, and the environment as a whole.
Wild foods
Wild foods like dandelion greens, nettles, wood sorrel, wild salad greens, and shepherd’s purse have nutrients that can’t be found anywhere else. People have been eating wild plants for hundreds of thousands of years, so it’s important to remember that eating hybridized and genetically modified fruits and vegetables may cause problems. Our bodies are not made to handle these kinds of foods.
Vegetables
I think you should eat a variety of brightly colored vegetables because they are full of good things for you. Choose foods that are high in energy, like soups, salads, sprouts, vegetable sticks, and steamed vegetables. You can also add veggie juices, green smoothies, and raw food dishes to your diet. If you can, avoid baked vegetables because this is when they have the most sugar. If you want to lose weight, don’t eat starchy vegetables like potatoes, yams, and acorn squash more than three times a week. If you really want a potato when you go out to eat or for a special occasion, choose red potatoes, which have less carbs. If you eat a baked potato, which is high in carbs, pair it with a little fat, like butter, to slow the rate at which sugar enters your bloodstream.
Fruit
Lemons, limes, avocados, and tomatoes are four fruits that stand out as great choices for your health. Both lemons and limes have a high alkaline content, which makes them great for balancing the pH in your body. They also have a low amount of sugar, which makes them great if you are watching how much sugar you eat. On the other hand, avocado is full of healthy fats and glutathione, which is a powerful antioxidant that can help keep your body from getting sick. It also has more potassium than bananas and protein, which makes it a great choice for people with heart problems. Last but not least, tomatoes are full of vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin C, beta-carotene, potassium, and molybdenum. They are also one of the best sources of lycopene, an antioxidant that can help protect your cells from damage caused by oxygen and has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease. Choose organic tomatoes if you want to get as much lycopene as possible.
When it comes to choosing fruits with low sugar content, your best bets are lemons, limes, berries, cantaloupe, cherries, grapefruit, and green apples. But make sure to buy organic versions of most of these fruits, since pesticides are often used in large amounts on them. Also, watch how much fruit you eat, except for lemons and limes, which have less sugar than most other fruits. Cranberries are another good choice because they are low in sugar and have iodine, which is good for your thyroid. In the fall, you can buy them fresh and freeze them for later use. If you want to buy cranberry juice, look for unsweetened cranberry concentrate or pure cranberry juice, which have the least amount of added sugars. Lastly, think about using lemon, lime, or cranberry juice to add flavor to your water or juices.
Legumes
Legumes such as beans, lentils, and dried peas are a great source of nutrition, packed with protein, calcium, vitamins, and minerals. They are also a cheap food option that can be tasty if cooked the right way, and they can even be sprouted.
Consuming legumes also offers a variety of health benefits. Because legumes are high in fiber, the shells slow the rate at which sugar enters the bloodstream. This helps prevent food cravings, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and obesity. Also, legumes can protect the body from cancer and heart disease, and they have a lot of protein that can help give you more energy.
