Pesticides, Vegetables and Health

Pesticides

You can’t see, smell or taste them. But if you could, would you eat food that has been tainted with these chemicals?

Pesticides work by damaging the insect’s nervous system. In humans there is now ample evidence that Parkinson’s disease, a disease of the nervous system, is strongly linked with exposure to pesticides. Other diseases which affect the nervous system include motor neurone disease or ALS (Stephen Hawking’s disease), progressive supranuclear palsy (Dudley Moore died from this) and multiple sclerosis.

If you could buy health protection which would drastically reduce your chance of getting these diseases, how much would you spend? A few dollars a week? There is a widely available health protection policy. It’s known as ‘organic food’ and is worth every penny.

By buying organic food not only are you reducing the amount of pesticide you consume in food, but you are also helping to fund organic farmers. Every time someone buys food that is not organically produced they are ensuring that a little more pesticide is sprayed here and there for us all to breathe in and raise our risk of crippling diseases.

Most of us donate to charities. Does it really make sense to give money to charities to research diseases if we don’t take any notice of the research and continue buying foods that contribute to these diseases?

Worried about your food bill?

If you’re on a low income and are worried about your food bill, it could be that you are spending too much money on expensive, processed food. Cooking with fresh ingredients can reduce your food bill by half.

Vegetables

When clients consult naturopathic nutritionists for help with their health, one of the first things they always say is how healthy their diet is, rich in fresh fruit and vegetables. But when we ask them ‘When did you last eat some fresh green vegetables?’ a common answer is ‘over a week ago’.

We can usually guess this from what health problem the client is suffering from. If she is a woman with PMS, fibroids, ovarian cysts, breast lumps or endometriosis, we can guarantee she is not eating enough broccoli, kale, spring or collard greens, spinach, dark green lettuce or green cabbage.

Why are these vegetables so important? They are one of the few good sources of the mineral magnesium, and most of them also help your liver break down the female hormone oestradiol (estradiol in the U.S.). Oestradiol is a form of oestrogen which stimulates the growth of lumps, cysts and tumours in female body tissues. Too many women have too much of this hormone swimming around. In fact we would go as far as to say that a lack of green vegetables is probably the main cause of requiring hysterectomy surgery.

Men too need fresh green vegetables for the magnesium content and to help their liver break down hormones and toxins. ‘Man boobs’ are caused by oestrogen in men, which is produced by body fat and is also ingested into the body as a result of environmental pollution. Many pollutants from plastics are related to oestrogen and have powerful oestrogenic effects on the bodies of both men and women.

If you don’t want to eat green vegetables on their own, add them to soups and casserole dishes. Drinking the juices of these vegetables will also provide benefits. You can put them through a juice extractor machine and mix with tomato and lemon juice. A little goes a long way.

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