How to stay alive (in toxic times)
Eat seasonally. Our bodies and nutritional needs change with the seasons. Berries are ripe in summer and apples and pears ripen in autumn. That’s when they taste better and are more nutritious. By eating all fruit all year round, you’re putting a continuous dose of sugar into your gut, which promotes yeast growth and unfriendly bacteria. Plus, aeroplanes transport the fruit around the world, contributing to pollution and climate change.
Eat leafy greens: spinach, cabbage, pak choi, broccoli, watercress, parsley and lettuce. They make a clean sweep through the digestive tract, so your intestines move properly. They’re also rich in magnesium, which is an antidote to stress, helping muscles relax.
Avoid sugar. Natural sugars exist in foods like fruit, but the problem is the concentration in sweets, cakes and even some savoury products. Avoid white flour, white bread, white rice, white pasta – these break down very quickly into sugar. High levels of sugar drain good minerals out of the body and damage the pancreas, which can contribute to diabetes. If you’re a sugar addict, cut it out slowly (switch to dark chocolate and gradually increase the percentage of cocoa).
But don’t feel guilty – we are programmed to crave sugar. Don’t have it near you – if it’s there, you’ll go for it. Make sure you eat three meals a day. If you’re really hungry, you’ll go straight for the sweet stuff
Be hyper-aware in the supermarket. Look out for artificial preservatives and any word that ends in ‘ose’ (aka sugar). Sometimes, an ingredients list will have sugar on it four or five times, with names like fructose and dextrose.
Finally, eat organic so that you’re not consuming harmful pesticides, synthetic hormones or antibiotics.