ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS
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SUPPLEMENTS & VITAMINS
Beating the Elimination Diet Blues: Putting Things in Perspective
By Jonathan Moore
If you love food, an elimination diet can sound like a death sentence. You immediately start thinking, “There goes ice cream…there goes pizza…there goes…” But it really doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, I dare say it may be the beginning of a whole new chapter of amazing food discoveries for you.
I once had to go on a raw food diet for 7 weeks at a German health clinic. No dairy, meat, fish, bread, sugar, or caffeine. I said to my nurse, “When do I get to eat something normal?!” She replied emphatically, “This is Normal!!”
The funny thing is, she was right.
Let’s consider for a moment the facts. 1 out of every 3 children born in America will now be diagnosed with type II diabetes. Obesity is rampant, but so is malnourishment. Do you realize what a freak of nature that really is? At any other place and time that would be impossible.
The question becomes: if everything we’re eating is wrong, what’s right?
My research led me to a 25-year long study of the eating habits of Okinawan islanders: the longest-living, healthiest people in the world. The Okinawa study began because scientists wanted to know why this tiny island had the largest number of centenarians (people who live past 100) on earth.
What did they discover? Among other things, the Okinawans eat far less dairy, bread, and meat than their Japanese neighbors. As far as vegetables are concerned, they consume somewhere in the neighborhood of 300% more than mainland Japan.
Another way of putting it is the healthiest people in the world have already largely cut out dairy, meat, and bread from their diet. They’re on a constant elimination diet, and it shows.
The point of all this is that your elimination diet may in fact become your window of opportunity to gain a much healthier lifestyle. From a world perspective, we are immersed in processed, nutritionally-depleted foods. What seems like a pain now may actually become a potentially life-saving measure. If you learn to eat more vegetables and natural foods and get away from allergy-causing foods, you may live longer and enjoy more of your time on earth.