Seems to me that an important part of promoting health over 70 is going to be a better understanding of our food sources and how we’re being duped by the food industry.

The larger players in our food industry have already picked up on that trend towards organic and natural foods and they’re relying on the idea that they can dupe us by using clever labeling practices to make sure think we’re getting what we want while we’re not.

As an example, we all think we know what USDA Organic means but a lack of strong regulation and rules with lots of loop holes might surprise you as to the difference in what you think you’re getting and what’s really on your plate at higher costs.

Here is a video worth watching about the differences in four different food industries. It’s called “Unbroken Ground” – I recommend that the 25 minutes watching will be well-spent.

I’ll be focusing a number of my articles in future on our food supply and the labelling tricks that are being utilized to fool us into thinking we’re getting what we want.

Eating broccoli or broccoli sprouts can have tremendous health benefits and also help reduce your risk for cancer.

Research shows this cruciferous veggie (in the same family as Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and more) may reduce your risk for many common diseases, including but not limited to:

• Arthritis
• Cancer – Including Fatty Liver and Liver Cancer
• High blood pressure and heart disease
• Kidney disease
• Diabetes

Broccoli Ingredients

• Fiber, which helps nourish your gut microbiome and strengthen your immune function.

• Sulforaphane, a naturally occurring organic sulfur compound shown to have potent anti-cancer activity.

Studies have shown sulforaphane causes apoptosis (programmed cell death) in colon, prostate, breast and tobacco-induced lung cancer cells. Three servings of broccoli per week may reduce your risk of prostate cancer by more than 60 percent.

Sulforaphane encourages production of enzymes that protect your blood vessels, and reduces the number of molecules that cause cell damage — known as reactive oxygen species (ROS) — by as much as 73 percent.

Sulforaphane is both an immune stimulant and an anti-inflammatory.

Sulforaphane also helps raise testosterone levels, inhibits the retention of body fat, helps detox carcinogens, blocks certain enzymes linked to joint destruction and helps protect your muscles against exercise-induced damage.

Please note that frozen broccoli has diminished ability to produce sulforaphane as the enzyme myrosinase, which converts glucoraphanin to sulforaphane, is quickly destroyed during the blanching process.

• Glucoraphanin, a glucosinolate precursor of sulforaphane that also influences the process of carcinogenesis and mutagenesis. Compared to mature broccoli, broccoli sprouts can contain up to 20 times more glucoraphanin.

• Phenolic compounds, including flavonoids and phenolic acids, which have a potent ability to eliminate damaging free radicals and quell inflammation, resulting in a lower risk for diseases such as asthma, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

One of the ways phenolic compounds slow the encroachment of disease is by defending against infection, most dramatically by zapping ROS linked to atherosclerosis and neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

• Diindolylmethane (DIM). Your body produces DIM when it breaks down cruciferous vegetables. Like many other broccoli compounds, DIM has shown multiple potential benefits, including boosting your immune system and helping to prevent or treat cancer.

Lightly Steam Broccoli

To get the ultimate benefit from Broccoli, follow these tips:

When you eat raw mature broccoli, you only get about 12 percent of the total sulforaphane content theoretically available based on the parent compound. You can increase this amount and really maximize the cancer-fighting power of broccoli by preparing it properly.

Steaming your broccoli for three to four minutes is ideal. Do not go past five minutes.

Steaming your broccoli spears for three to four minutes will optimize the sulforaphane content by eliminating epithiospecifier protein — a heat-sensitive sulfur-grabbing protein that inactivates sulforaphane — while still retaining the enzyme myrosinase, which converts glucoraphanin to sulforaphane. Without it, you cannot get any sulforaphane.

Boiling or microwaving your broccoli is NOT recommended, as it will destroy a majority of the myrosinase. If you want to boil your broccoli, blanch it in boiling water for no more than 20 to 30 seconds, then immerse it in cold water to stop the cooking process.

Maximize Sulforaphane Content

Research shows that sulforaphane content can be further optimized by adding a myrosinase-containing food to it.

Foods containing this important enzyme include:

• Mustard seed
• Daikon radishes
• Wasabi
• Arugula
• Cole slaw

Summary

Try to get 2-3 helpings of this important food everyday. It has plenty of fiber so will help you feel full and you can change up the flavor by steaming it with the various whole foods above.

If you’ve been reading this blog very long, you’ve probably already become familiar with the role of inflammation in chronic disease. It’s the ultimate cause of everything that happens to us over time including diabetes 2, heart disease, obesity, Alzheimers, MS, and more.

And it turns out the #1 root cause of inflammation in older folks is dental issues including root canals, mercury or amalgam fillings, gum infections, and all other such related ailments.

It’s not the dentists fault. They’re doing everything that technology has given them to work with. But I do think they blame themselves in some way – how else can you explain that the suicide rate for dentists is higher than any other profession?

So if you have any of these dental issues, I recommend you seriously consider what it would take to permanently solve them. If you have a root canal, have that tooth removed whether you can afford a bridge or not, it’s not about cosmetics, it’s about survival and living a life worth living. And if you have mercury fillings, start getting quotes on removal. The consequences as we get older are just too serious to ignore.

And if you just have bad teeth and gums, it’s time to start worrying about more than just your bad looks and bad breath – those bacteria you’re collecting in your mouth can put you into the hospital.

Chronic illness is at an all time high, and people are scrambling to find the answer to health problems like autoimmune disease, diabetes, pain, chronic fatigue, anxiety, poor immune function, cancers, symptoms of multiple sclerosis and other neurological disorders, Alzheimers, dementia, and more.

People are suffering from joint pain, headaches, indigestion, sleep difficulties, sinus problems, skin rashes and irritation, hair loss, obesity, foggy thinking, and many more symptoms that everyone tried to ignore but really should not.

We seem to have the idea that the human body just gets old and wears out. But all of the research tells us that’s not what’s happening. Our bodies are made to renew themselves. We have a mechanism that creates new cells, yes, even brain cells – replaces them all within a matter of months. We have a mechanism that can remove bad cells, yes, even cancer cells, and can heal our body when it is functioning correctly.

The Lie

But what we’re “bought into” is the lie that our body gets old and worn out and we need to take things to get better. The typical story is that your body gets old and worn out and you need to take supplements to make up for nutrients or hormones, or things that your body no longer produces. Nobody who is selling a pharmaceutical or supplement is going to tell you that if you just stopped eating or drinking something you currently consume regularly, your body would begin to recover and heal itself. There’s no profit in telling you that and you need to think twice when you’re accepting advice or even paid research where the people paying are also trying to sell you a cure.

The Truth

The truth is that the only reason we need those things is that the people who sell them – chemical companies, pharmaceutical companies, supplement companies, all want to sell you their products.

Once farmer put it quite wisely – he said, “The companies that sell us our seeds also make pharmaceuticals (drugs) and don’t you think they’ve had a conversation that goes something like ‘if we put something in our seeds that makes you feel bad, then we can sell you drugs that make you feel better.?'”

I think that’s a very reasonable assumption and given the profit motivation and the prevailing behavior of these companies, I think it’s better than 90% likely that conversation has happened more than once.

Did you know what farmers know that are forced to buy seeds from the chemical companies? if they don’t buy seeds from those companies, a black van full of ex-military private security folks show up on their doorstep and ask them why they’re not purchasing GMO seeds. Do you think that’s not true? Ask any midwestern farmer or what the variety of videos now available on Youtube – the evidence is already out there for this massive coercion of farmers.

Bending Your Mind

So what’s called for is just a slight bending of the mind – a single thought like, “Maybe everything I’m being told isn’t really true.” And with that thought some reading and investigation – the information is readily available – it’s out there if you look for it. The answers are everywhere.

Inflammation is the Culprit

If you read my prior article on this site then you know about this already, but let’s just review the key points because understanding this is EVERYTHING.

• Inflammation is a chronic cause of all of the symptoms you can feel and think are normal aging.
• Inflammation is not natural nor is it necessary.
• Inflammation is caused by eating, drinking, or breathing or exposure to things that you body doesn’t like.
• You know when you’re suffering from inflammation when your joints hurt, your head hurts, you stomach hurts, your muscles hurt, your vision blurs, you thinking gets foggy, or you start developing the hold list of chronic diseases I listed at the start of this article.
• The warning signs are the minor aches and pains which if ignored turn into the chronic diseases which are much worse.

Your Doctor

Unfortunately unless your doctor has been trained in functional/integrative medicine, he’s bought into the same lie. He believes like you that your body is just going to get older and there’s nothing you can do except medicate, medicate, medicate. His job, as he has been trained, is to identify your disease, and then prescribe the right drug or procedure. It’s not his fault but he’s not really trained to find the real cause and treat that.

Normally the correct treatment for what you have is 180 degrees away from what your doctor has said. He will always tell you to add things – take a drug or a medicine, take a supplement, and of course the old standby – GET MORE EXERCISE, EAT LESS.

Against All Odds

You’re in a tough situation. In order to get better you have to disagree, even if silently, with everyone around you. You have to develop a belief and evidence that drugs and traditional advice will make you worse not better.

Now I’m not saying you need to disregard or go against medical advice. There are times like when you have Type 2 Diabetes that your condition is such that you have to follow your prescribed treatment plan until you don’t need to anymore.

But once you identify the root cause and begin to treat that, your body will know when you no longer need insulin or whatever it is you’re taking to mask your symptoms.

Getting to the Root Cause

Now the fastest way to get to a root cause if money is not an object is to select a functional medicine doctor and go see him or her. They will employ tests that will look for the root cause and will never prescribe anything until they know what is underneath your symptoms.

If you’re obese and diabetic, they look underneath that and find the underlying cause.

If you can’t afford that or even one of the over-the-counter tests then the next best approach is to start making “lifestyle changes.”

Lifestyle Changes

What’s meant by “lifestyle change”? it refers to things you consider to be normal and natural parts of your life like eating bread or drinking coke. Lifestyle changes are changes you currently believe to involve activities that couldn’t possibly be causing you to age and to malfunction.

When it comes to getting older, experiencing pain, and chronic diseases, you have to decide that you don’t believe those are in fact a part of getting old and commit yourself to finding out if there’s a better state of being than getting old and sick, becoming a burden to your family, and living for another 10-20 years in pain.

Can you get up enough motivation to at least test your lifestyle to see if you give up things that something about your health changes?

Most people have to wait until the situation gets dire – a heart attack, a stroke, a failure in the liver, pancreas, or adrenals. Are you the type that has to wait that long to wake up and smell the coffee?

If not, then you’ll need to make some massive changes rather quickly to find out if anything you eat and drink or use is the problem. Your approach is to eliminate the things that statistically almost always cause problems for most people. You’re not being very scientific, you’re just going to operate on the clinical experience when functional medicine doctors treat other patients with your illness.

Here’s your plan – for 4 weeks…

• Remove all sugar from your diet – don’t use sugar in cooking, don’t take a litter in your coffee, don’t eat any fruit besides berries occasionally.
• Remove all grains from your diet – that includes any kind of bread, cereal, muffin, bagel, and not even whole grains. That includes rice, millet, barley, Quinoa, and anything that remotely resembles any of those.
• Remove all dairy from your diet and that includes cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, and anything else made from milk or dairy of any kind.
• Remove all GMO from your diet and that will include anything made from corn or soy because those are the two crops that contain GMO throughout 90% of our fields.

Believe it or not, that still leaves a lot of things you can eat but after 4 weeks you will know whether any of these is causing the problem. If not, you can transition to your next phase of testing but the chances are better than 80% that you’ll find your symptoms changing just based on this list alone. Once you do, you can put things back in to your diet until you find the one or two things causing the problem. Generally your reaction will be greater and more pronounced when you introduce it back than when you took if off your list before.

Here are some extra tips on foods that might help you get there faster…

• At each meal, try to eat mostly vegetables – steamed broccoli will fill you up so you don’t have to eat as much meat. Make your plate “mostly vegetables”
• When it’s beef, try to find “grass fed” beef and eat less of it.
• When it’s fish, try to find “wild caught” and salmon is probably your best choices because of the Omega 3.
• Eat salads and use virgin olive oil and vinegar as your dressing.
• Don’t cook with vegetable oils or any bulk oils – safflower corn oil, sunflower, peanut oil, etc. If you have to use oil, find some coconut, avocado, or olive oil and cook on low heat.
• When it’s chicken, try to find some cage free organic chicken and eat less at each meal and more vegetables.

Using this second list will give your body more to work with and eliminate some other possible sources of inflammation more quickly.

The idea is to make some “radical” lifestyle changes quickly in order to see if anything changes. Once you feel the changes, you motivation to keep moving forward will be a lot greater.

Remember, “In order for things to change for you, you have to change.”

Here is an excellent video introduction on the subject of grains. It goes way beyond Gluten and really explains the nuts and bolts and root causes of symptoms we all generally tolerate until they begin to get worse and that usually long before 70.

I also recommend reading the article.

Bottom Line

• eating grass-fed organic beef is better than eating feedlot beef
• eating too much beef is dangerous to your health no matter what the source
• supporting the beef industry in long term has serious and inescapable implications to our environment and our legacy for our children

First we need to understand the difference between regular beef, grass-fed beef, and grass-fed organic.

• regular beef – raised in feedlots – this is 95% of the beef on the market. 100 cows stand knew deep in their own excrement in a patch about the size of a basketball court in conditions so toxic they must be injected or fed antibiotics – fed growth hormones and GMO corn and grains for the 12 months it takes them to grow from 80 pounds to 1200 pounds and then slaughtered at age 14-16 months using horrendous and inhumane methods you could not watch and approve under any circumstances. It takes about 16 pounds of corn or grain to realize 1 pound of beef.
• grass-fed beef – raised at least part of their life on the open range but unless they are specified “100% grass-fed” or “grass-finished” then they could still be partly raised as described above. When 100% grass-fed they would take 2-3 years to reach their full size but might still be fed on fields sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, and even antibiotics and growth hormones may still be used.
• grass-fed organic beef – raised on the open range for 100% of their life-span free of herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics.

So knowing now what is actually the desired product you find that it costs too much. Why is that? Because the regular beef and some of the grass-fed beef finished on feed lots are 90% subsidized by the US government – aka OUR TAXES.

And raising this much beef no matter who we do it with eventually (and read not very long from now) ruins our water system, depletes our soil, and burns off our ozone layer. It is one of the largest contributors to these problems. footnote

So why do we care? Let our kids worry about it.

We care because as long as we keep eating beef we’re going to die from the toxic impact it will have on our bodies – we’ll become a burden on our families and our society. And it’s getting worse every year.

The call to action here is (1) eat 20% less beef, and (2) eat grass-fed organic beef whenever you do eat beef.

Now I’m over 71 years old so I’m not going to change what i do lightly.

But I think things have changed. What I mean is, when we were 30, you could eat vegetables and be comfortable that you’d be eating something that was good for you or at least wouldn’t kill you. And the same with beef or chicken or bread – you never had to worry about what you were eating because you knew that everyone was in the same boat and very smart farmers and ranchers were doing their best to give you the best food they could produce. After all, they ate it themselves.

But today, ranchers don’t necessarily eat their own beef, farmers don’t necessarily eat their own crops -it’s a different world.

99% of the US acreage for farming – about 950M acres – is used to produce our food supply and the food supply for our farm animals. 80% of that crop uses genetically modified seeds that are bred to be resistant to pesticides and herbicides. And those “GMO”s have already been proven to harm humans in many different ways.

Meanwhile we’re spraying pesticides and herbicides that are known to cause cancer and many other bad things, on all our crops and it’s getting into our water supply.

Deaths from cancer are increasing at an alarming rate – a pandemic rate along with neurological diseases such as MS, ADHD, Dementia, and Alzheimers.

If you’ve been eating non-organic for 50 years, you might say well too late for me. But it’s not. You could have a fairly healthy life and not become a burden to your family. Being in be all day long is not all it’s cracked up to be.

Starting an organic diet right now can still restore and reverse most of the symptoms that tell you there’s a problem. You think getting fatter is about you eating too much? It’s not. It’s a disease that comes from our food supply – and so is cancer and every other thing you think is just poor eating habits. Well, truth is, it is poor eating habits – we’re eating things that are no longer good for you or even safe.