Top Foods to Avoid Consuming

I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who is a smart guy, but not really sold on the power of raw foods. He said to me, ‘Maybe this way of eating is simply effective because of all of the foods you are not eating, and you feel so much better because of the foods you’re not eating, rather than the foods you are eating.’

I think this is a good point and valid. While, I do maintain that fruit and raw foods do have incredible and powerful effects when eaten, I do think that when you eat a diet that is high in raw foods, you are also putting your body in a vacuum existing outside of many toxic chemicals, substances and harmful acidic molecular compounds that can ravage the body when eating other foods.

In the art of transitioning to a more healthful way of living, I share helpful information with you about how to make that transition successfully. I think that simply adding in more fruit and raw foods is one way to supplement what you are eating and reduce some perhaps unhealthy choices of foods you’ve been consuming.

The other thing you can do is — when choosing to eat cooked foods — you can choose to avoid the worst offenders that contribute the most to creating an acidic environment within the body (for a greater insight into the issue of chemical balance, please see the section entitled: ‘Understanding Body Chemistry’).

I will outline in this section what I perceive as the most offensive things you could consume to your body. This should be a top blacklist of foods. This is like the CIA list of known terrorists — when encountering them, you should not negotiate with them if at all possible. These foods create degeneration and health problems within the tissues of your body by creating an acidic effect, and all sorts of bodily responses including inflammation, mucus, immune response, water retention, cholesterol plaque, calcium loss, invitation of parasitic organisms, cellular damage, and many other issues.

First, let’s start with harmful chemicals. This should be a simple one — for starters, how about avoiding the water from your city government or local private water company coming out of your kitchen sink. Although each municipality is different, in many cases the drinking water supply is recycled from the plumbing of the general public. You can imagine the kinds of toxic wastes and chemicals that go through the plumbing system, including gnarly germs, parasites, herbicides and pesticides, pharmaceutical drugs and other harmful toxins (not to mention human waste).

Water facilities will then use heavy chemicals like chlorine and bromide to disinfect the water, which are harmful chemicals in and of themselves, as well as other heavy chemicals which are added to the water like fluorosilicic acid (a harmful fluoride industrial byproduct) among others. These chemicals are harmful in and of themselves to the body and should be avoided.

The solution should be to either get water from an outside source, like spring water or distilled water, or to use a high-powered filter to filter your tap water before drinking it.

I have located what seems to me to be the highest quality and most affordable filters which you can find at
RapidRegeneration.com/waterfilter

If you are planning to drink bottled water, this brings up another quandary about avoiding chemicals. Most plastic bottles contain a harmful chemical known as bisphenol-A (BPA). A good quality water with a neutral or alkaline PH will actually pull the BPA chemical out of the water bottle’s plastic lining and will actually soak up that chemistry which you would end up drinking — so make sure the bottled water you get says ‘BPA-free’.

Also keep in mind that most beverages are made using tap-water and so would expose you to these same harmful chemicals. Therefore, most beverages out there would also be top on the list of top items to avoid consuming. In addition to their use of tap-water, most of these beverage products are laden with many harmful chemicals of their own and are worth avoiding so as to not consume those chemicals, as well as the fact that their own innate processed chemistry for many beverages is acidic-forming after drinking.

Next up in the chemical category of top foods to avoid would be chemicals added to the foods. This would include things like dyes, preservatives, emulsifiers, thickening agents, and artificial flavor compounds. These types of chemicals proliferate in the world of packaged foods. When you read the label on the back of a food product, and there are a bunch of difficult-to-pronounce names of chemicals which you have to look up to even see what they are, this should be a red flag of something that you should avoid eating.

Unfortunately, here in America, our health regulatory bodies seem to let a lot of things slide on allowing food product companies to put in chemicals into the food, in order to make the foods preserve longer, taste artificially better, and yes, even to make these food products more addictive.

Ultimately though, it is not the responsibility of some governmental agency to protect you against the marketplace. It’s up to you to figure out what you’re eating and hold corporations accountable by buying different products or shopping elsewhere if the food products they are selling you are poisonous or harmful. It’s up to you to become informed and aware of what is going on around you. Don’t be like a herd animal sticking your head into a feed trough to just gobble down whatever comes out and is placed in front of you.

A great example of this is MSG (monosodium glutamate), although this chemical mixture now goes by many names on product labels (which is because I suspect the public has become hip to the harmful nature of it). This compound was originally developed by the US government. MSG was used way back when as a military additive to troops’ foods, in order to make bad, bland, stale food taste good. The fast food industry of course loves this concept, because they can take cheap, low-quality ingredients and just add this miraculous flavor-transformer.

The other amazing thing about MSG is that it actually has been shown to have an addicting quality amongst individuals who consume it. What better for pushers of this food ‘dope’ than for you to become quite addicted and filled with the need to return for another ‘dose’ as soon as possible?

This is just one example of the things that are going on in the food industry within this umbrella of many chemicals and artificial ingredients which are being added to food products. These chemicals are often very toxic and can cause an acidic reaction in the body. In many cases some of these chemicals are neurotoxic, harming the brain and nervous system, and in addition are hormone-disrupting, changing your entire energy flow and hormone production within the body. Is that really something developing children and young adults should be eating, or humans of any age for that matter?

This category of foods to avoid should really be a no-brainer, but know that these types of chemicals are quite ubiquitous — you turn the corner, and they’re there. In many cases they are used to save costs, so if you’re eating out at restaurants, avoid fast food or lowest-cost-provider type of eateries, which slash costs by compromising the safety of the foods in this area. Eating out is more challenging because you can’t really read labels so well in restaurants. When buying food in stores or online, go ahead and start reading the labels (something few people do in a supermarket) and buy only simple, whole-food type products.

Luckily, there is a growing market for transparent foods which are natural and don’t have harmful chemicals added to the production process. This is a booming industry, just like it’s a growing movement of people who like yourself want to get out of the manufactured ghettos of poor health, and are sick of getting bounced back and forth between Big Agri and Big Pharma.

Next up on the list of top foods to avoid would be more toxic chemicals and materials found on mostly unwashed or non-organic produce, which would include things like herbicides, pesticides, fungi and harmful organisms.

While I understand that it’s not always practical or affordable to purchase organic foods, there are some good distinctions to be aware of. I understand and have the same concerns when it comes to cost. For a fruit with an outer skin which I am not going to eat, for example, oranges, bananas, pineapples, melons, or avocados, I could go ahead and buy the conventional (non-organic) varieties (using common sense that the fruit inside is more protected by the outer skin from the harmful pesticides and chemicals). But, it is important to be aware that things like berries, grapes, and other fruits where the skin is exposed are among the most sprayed fruits in the business in terms of herbicides and pesticides.

Pesticides are incredible harmful to health. Take a chemical for example like glyphosate which is used ubiquitously by Big Agri — this chemical has been linked in so many different studies and investigations to so many health problems. Entire books have been written about that, sufficed to say you should avoid it at all costs. If you’re concerned about the conventional pound of strawberries costing $3 and the organic ones costing $6 and you cannot afford the extra $3, then I’ve got a message for you: Don’t buy either one. Get some oranges instead because that orange rind can at least protect both you and the orange from the food industry’s expedient reliance on chemical pesticides.

Also, it would be recommended that you wash fruits and vegetables before eating them, specifically in reference to foods without an outer skin, peel or rind which gets removed. You can use a natural, organic produce wash product to accomplish this quite easily. This will also help you avoid things like fungi and parasites, and any unnatural residues that wind up sitting on that food from the trip between the farm and your refrigerator. Here is a good product for that:
RapidRegeneration.com/ProduceWash

Next up on the list of top foods to avoid would be fast foods. This one should be obvious. I’m sure you know the secrets of the industry that everybody knows about. We’ve all heard about documentaries or seen them exposing the industry for its use of highly unnatural practices, from the raw ingredients used to food processing additives to the actual preparation. Everybody knows that eating these foods will destroy health and vitality. Very few individuals can get away with continuing to eat these foods over a lifetime and still receive a get-out-of-jail-free card with respect to their health. Don’t roll the dice and gamble at the roulette wheel of the food world — don’t become a statistic.

Next up on the list of the top foods to avoid would be genetically-modified foods, AKA what are called GMOs. The main GMOs as of the time of writing are:
— Corn
— Soy
— Canola oil
— Refined sugar (from beetroot)
— Potatoes
— Zucchini and yellow squash
— Alfalfa (primarily used for animal feed)

You could obviously still eat these foods in their natural form, in which case you would want to buy organic versions of these foods. The big issue addressed here is eating them in their genetically-modified states. Without getting into excruciating detail, my concern with eating GMO foods is regarding the fact that the food industry created these inventions in order to grow food more cheaply and in a sort of lifeless, unnatural vacuum. Indeed, these alien-like creations are not susceptible to the harsh realities of Mother Nature as all other life forms are. Some of these foods are essentially implanted with a virtual pesticide-like compound within the DNA of the food, so that bugs will be alerted that they are toxic, poisonous, and so they would have to be foolish and possibly suicidal to eat them. Yet we’re supposed to eat these freakish creations? Sadly, billions of people do eat them regularly.

There have been numerous studies and investigations by far more qualified experts than myself that have sounded the alarm bells about the dangers of GMOs. For example, there are well-documented studies with rats that were fed GMO food products and grew massive tumors. These are basically mad scientists who consider themselves heroes for being able to deliver a crop for 70 cents on the dollar by playing God and manipulating the genes of nature. As long as people continue to buy their products, the population of the world will continue to get sicker.

I simply am smart enough — and so are you — to have an awareness about this and the ability to do a full-spectrum analysis to understand that these people who have developed this are not friends of yours or mine. They’re very rich now, while so many people especially those in disadvantaged communities suffer from ill health that continues to decline. You should stop supporting this industrial practice, and start defending your health from this external, alien-like threat of GMOs to the natural genetics of this planet.

Next up, in our (somewhat depressing so far) list of top foods to avoid is: Highly-processed food products. These are foods which aren’t really foods at all anymore, by the time they make it into the box or bag. I know I am starting to sound redundant, because by going through this segment, you should now probably realize that these highly-processed foods are no-nos from other lists as well — filled with GMO products, and chemical-laden. You can see how many of these categories overlap, like a Venn Diagram of health-destroying chemistry.

Many food products are broken down, processed, reheated and preserved in such a way that they no longer even resemble food — but they are tasty and addicting, thanks to the amazing revolution in food enhancement technologies and chemicals from the last several decades. The more a food gets processed, the more it loses any nutritional or energetic benefit that it once had. Take for example flour from wheat that gets refined and turned into white flour, losing much of its original vitamins and minerals in the process. It also turns into a sort of sticky, gluey material that is well-known to form a pasty plaque along the walls of intestines. At this point, it’s not even a natural substance any longer.

Add to this the fact that the food will get heated up in the cooking process and all of the chemistry can get transformed radically throughout the cooking and heating process. For example, with the prolific use of cooking oil in processed foods, this changes the chemical makeup of the oil (becoming oxidized) as well as the other foods which come into contact with it. Then you add in the GMO factor plus all of the chemicals which get added into this food to preserve it longer, enhance the flavor, change the texture, or make you crave it more so you’ll buy it again. These are the reasons why this category absolutely makes the top of the list of top foods to avoid.

I understand that packaged foods can be convenient and for many a sort of necessity (for example a parent raising children who is on the run and cannot alway serve prepared, fresh foods). Fortunately, there is a growing market for products which are packaged foods, but without the chemicals and GMOs, etc. But just keep in mind to still consider the ingredient list and to be aware of highly processed food product ingredients and avoid them.

That sort of marks the halfway point of this list. Because everything mentioned up until now are sort of alien non-foods that get combined with our foods, these are both the easiest and some of the most challenging things to avoid — easiest because of how weird and obviously harmful they are, but challenging because of how prolific and widespread they are.

It is also important to address in the ‘actual food’ world what are also some of the top things to avoid eating, and so I will do that now as well.

Dairy is definitely at the top of this list of ‘real foods’ which you should highly consider avoiding. Dairy is a food which is alkaline when raw but in America basically all dairy is pasteurized (cooked), which is very acid-forming to the body. I am not an expert on raw milks or cheeses, and I know some raw food people do recommend that. I am just not so sure and it still seems like a weird thing to consume and still has its issues. I am going to keep the scope of this segment focused on pasteurized dairy, which is basically all of the dairy products you will find in stores and restaurants.

Pasteurized dairy products are acidic-forming, mucus-forming, congestive, irritating, constipating, complicated to digest, and promote overgrowth of yeast, candida, and harmful organisms — I mean, what more do you need to know?

Dairy foods are very addictive and many cheeses even contain a compound called casein, which basically acts like an opioid drug on the brain. Have you ever seen a sunken-eyed junkie sitting in an alley waiting for his next fix of drugs? Have you ever seen a large overweight man with a blank look in his eyes walk into a Pizza Hut to pick up his order? Why do you think these two individuals share so much in common with their actions? It is because of the addictive qualities of casein, whereby casomorphins are created and bind to opiate receptors in the brain.

This is a pure indulgence food. There is far more to lose from eating it, than any potential nutritional gain. It’s a made-up food, invented by mankind and his arrogance over Mother Nature. What other animal suckles the teat of another species? Even the paleo meat-eaters, the Whole30 dieters, and many other nutritional groups who are not so much into raw foods understand the detriments of eating and drinking dairy. Definitely avoid this food category — your life may depend on it.

Next up on the list of top foods to avoid would be grains, beans and starches. I know I’m getting less and less popular with you the reader as this chapter continues onwards. I’m trying to start off with the worst things to consume, and move down the list, so maybe these last couple categories can be like extra credit. Or if you’re approaching this at a higher level, you might consider these next ones quite essential to avoid, if you really are serious about solving your health problems at an accelerated pace and getting to the next level.

I actually will cover a whole section going over the misconceptions about this next food group and and what the real deal is, entitled ‘Grains, Beans & Starches — Healthy Vegan Foods or No?’ For a more detailed breakdown of that information, please refer to that chapter.

This would include grains, like wheat, oats or rice, as well as beans and legumes, in addition to starches and foods made from starches like potatoes and corn. Now these are going to constitute a lot of fun foods which are enjoyable to eat (like bread, pasta, tortillas, chips and crackers) and you’re not going to want to give up easily. But, you will prevail ultimately. Even if not today, or this year, you will gain the strength and fortitude to eat more foods which energize and cleanse you and eat less and less of foods which compromise your health and vitality.

Without going into massive detail (we can save that for the aforementioned section later), just know that eating these cooked foods results in major acidic digestive results, causing a blowback from the body just like anytime you throw your body into an overly acidic state. The foods are also robbing of your energy, creating more work expounded by your body in order to digest them compared with the units of energy you will receive from the actual nutritive make-up of these foods after digested.

Most everybody is eating from this category, and I understand it’s not easy to give up. I’m just telling you what the real deal is, without sugar-coating it, just so you can start thinking about cutting down in this category, or making some substitutions. We’ll figure out ‘How to Transition’ in a later section. It’s just important to identify the source of the problems (with the main problem across the world being overly-acidic body chemistry) before we go about figuring out how to eliminate the problem naturally.

The final category I would mention for Top Foods to Avoid Consuming would be conventionally-raised meat products. These are some of the most toxic, chemically-altered, unnatural and parasite-ridden foods out there. There are so many problems with the conventional (AKA non-organic) meat industry from a health standpoint that I’m not sure where to begin.

First of all, you have the condition of conventionally-raised livestock, which is very bad from a sanitation standpoint and can attract a lot of parasites and harmful organisms which can grow inside of the animals and wind up in your packaged meat (and hopefully not but in many cases end up inside of a new human host).

Then, to combat the dirty and deplorable conditions of the animals’ environments, farmers give the animals antibiotics and other pharmaceutical products, which compromises the animals’ health and fills them full of chemicals and toxins — that end up inside of the consumer.

There is also the issue of what these animals get fed. In many cases they are fed genetically modified products like GMO corn, or if they’re lucky GMO alfalfa. The health ramifications of eating GMOs can send shock waves through the animal eating it. Even if you are smart enough to avoid GMOs in the foods you choose to eat, if you eat an animal which was raised on it then you are ultimately eating tissue which has been affected and altered by the harmful and pervasive nature of GMOs.

Aside from the GMO issue, you have many other truly offensive things which barely qualify as food which are fed to these animals, primarily to save costs. If the animals you eat are being fed harmful and toxic chemicals, then you are consuming those things by successive approximation. There are even examples of farmers who grind up their sick and diseased cow meat that they couldn’t sell and feed it back to the rest of the healthy cows. I mean, cows aren’t even designed to digest meat — that would slowly putrefy and rot within a cow’s long intestinal tract and cause so many health issues which then can affect the rest of the tissues in its body, which ultimately wind up on your dinner plate.

Definitely avoid this type of meat product, just as you would avoid eating directly the chemicals, drugs, and types of foods that are being fed to these animals.

I’m going to spare organic, grass-fed, free-range, etc. type meats for now. Don’t get me wrong, even naturally-raised meat has its problems. It is acidic-forming, very intensive digestively and energy-consuming. Meat also rots slowly as it moves through our intestinal tract, causing the intestines to get congested with mucus, and attracting harmful organisms, among other issues.

But, this section is about the ‘Top’ Foods to Avoid Consuming, not ‘All’ Foods which You Should Ideally Avoid Consuming in a Perfect World. And I think that while organic meats have their problems, they’re not in the top category, in my opinion. Aside from that, I understand how challenging it is to transition to a more healthful diet, and so organic meats could be a sort of stepping stone food to rely on while cutting out many of the worst-offending foods.

I am also aware that there are numerous individuals who seem to do OK on a food intake consisting of fruits, vegetables, nuts, cooked vegetables, organic meat and organic eggs. That’s what I did for awhile and I was still able to see incredible results while doing it. So, for now, maybe plow ahead avoiding toxic conventionally-treated meat products and figure out later on whether you are going to give up animal products entirely and go fully plant-based or not. It’s your journey, and you will figure out I’m sure what will work best for you.

For now, I hope this provides a bit of a roadmap in terms of the minefield that we’re navigating here, which is to say the landscape of your day-to-day life, in the modern marketplace of food products. It’s almost as though you are in a war against the marketing machine of Big Agri, and you need to know where the mines are buried, waiting to explode, so you can traverse the land and complete your mission — just remember, your mission is to arrive to your destination of optimum vitality and a lack of health problems.

I will help you figure out how to avoid these explosive liabilities, or in the very least, how to reduce your consumption of them or find substitutes. For now, it is important that we identify them so you can have a heightened level of awareness about the true nature of the reality we live in today and the source of health problems.
Hang in there with me and I promise I will help you with the solutions of how to get yourself healthy, well, and energized in the segments ahead!