Foods That Can Burden the Body

Most foods contain some nutrients. But certain everyday items burden the body more than they nourish it, especially when the liver is overloaded or a child is constantly ill. When you are actively trying to heal, it helps to know which foods to limit or set aside for a while.

Inflammation

Dairy, eggs, fried foods, processed sugars, and seed oils all contribute to inflammation in the body.

Gut & flora

Animal foods and additives can imbalance intestinal flora and feed pathogenic organisms.

Hidden chemicals

Conventional dairy and meat carry hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, and other pollutants.

Digestive burden

Hard-to-process foods pull on the liver, kidneys, and the body's resources to digest and eliminate.

Dairy

Cow's milk is the perfect food — for baby cows. It contains some nutrients, but its proteins, fats, and sugars are difficult for the human body to process. Dairy causes the intestines to produce a lot of mucous, and it contributes to inflammation, allergies, congestion, and skin issues. For a child who is constantly ill, avoiding dairy can be very helpful. It can burden the kidneys, deplete the bones of calcium, and create a favorable environment for pathogenic organisms, while its high fat content burdens the liver. Conventional dairy also carries hormones (from the cow and added for lactation), antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, and other pollutants. Dairy burdens the body more than it nourishes it and is best avoided completely while you are trying to heal.

Meat & fish

Meat and fish contain nutrients, but like dairy they can burden the body more than they nourish it when the liver is already overloaded. Eating high on the food chain comes at a price: any contaminants or chemicals an animal was exposed to become concentrated in its tissues. Conventionally farmed animals and fish carry environmental contaminants, hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, and more. Meat takes a lot of the body's resources to digest and eliminate, and its high protein content makes it acidic. Eating animal foods regularly contributes to imbalanced intestinal flora, which interferes with digestion of all food and can lead to deficiencies. Buy organic when you do prepare meat. Pork is labeled a carcinogen and is best avoided.

Eggs

Eggs are best limited or avoided when dealing with inflammation and a viral load. In laboratories they are used to culture viruses, and in the body they likewise feed viruses such as Epstein-Barr and shingles, which drive a host of symptoms. They also feed bacteria like strep, contribute to inflammation and allergies, and create an environment where abnormal cells can grow. Eggs can burden the uterus and ovaries, contributing to issues with the female reproductive system.

Sugar

Glucose is the perfect fuel for the body's engine — in whole-fruit form. Fresh and dried fruit can be eaten frequently and abundantly, and vegetables such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and squash are also a good source of natural sugar. Processed, fake, and synthetic sugars are different: they burden the liver, circulation, and metabolic health, raise blood sugar, and contribute to inflammation. Concentrated sugars are especially hard on the body when eaten with fat — the fat makes the liver sluggish, which in turn compromises the pancreas's ability to produce insulin.

Fat

Fat has many functions in the body: omega 3, 6, and 9 are essential for the brain and endocrine system. Fats are most beneficial in whole-food form — avocados, seeds, nuts, coconut, and other plant foods — and ideally eaten raw. When you do cook with fat, choose a heat-stable oil like refined sesame oil. Fried foods are hard for the liver to process; high heat destroys nutrients, and fat reacting with carbohydrates at high temperatures produces carcinogenic compounds. Even good fats are hard to digest, so it is best to limit fats while healing. Avoid seed oils, which cause inflammation and dis-ease in the body.

GMO foods

GMO crops include corn, soy, wheat, sugar beets, and canola — and almost all of these crops grown commercially in the U.S. are GMO, even when a label says otherwise. They contain compounds the body cannot process. Corn and its derivatives (corn oil, high-fructose corn syrup, grain alcohol) and soy and its by-products (including soy lecithin) are best avoided, and it helps to know where the sugar in a product comes from.

Food additives

Additives such as MSG, "natural flavors," artificial flavors, hydrolyzed protein, and caseinate are best left out of your food. They contain free glutamate, an amino acid that overstimulates nerve cells until they die, leading to poor brain function and other nervous-system problems, and they are a precursor to many diseases. Read ingredient lists and make sure you recognize what each one is. MSG hides under many names — "natural flavor," "hydrolyzed vegetable protein," "yeast extract," and more — which can fool shoppers into thinking something is more natural than it is.