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10 Ways Your Food Can Bring Out the Best in Your Genes
Jan 30, 2010


From 10 Ways Your Food Can Bring Out the Best in Your Genes | Care2 Healthy & Green Living:

There are multiple factors in your diet, environment and lifestyle that affect your genes and how you age. Many of these are within your control. Of all the factors, diet is the easiest to control and probably the most important determinant of how our genes are expressed
IN BRIEF
   1. Eat real food, not junk.
   2. Try to eat as close to natural as possible. 
   3. Select fruits/vegetables in a wide variety of colours. 
   4. Buy fresh, organic, local foods when possible.
   5. Stop eating when 80% full.
   6. Be skeptical of foods with individual
       labels bearing a health claim. 
   7. Be wary of advertised foods.
   8. Be careful of obsessive calorie counting. 
   9. Enjoy your food.
   10. Don’t waste your time feeling guilty
         if you ate the “wrong” thing.
_________________________________________________
A revolutionary new science, NUTRIGENOMICS, is showing how different foods may interact with specific genes, how food “talks” to our genes and how our genes express themselves after the conversation. It is confirming that food provides potent dietary signals that directly influence the metabolic programming of our cells and modify the risk of common chronic diseases. It is telling us that food is information, that it contains “instructions” which are communicated directly to our genes.
Armed with this information, your genes commandeer various metabolic actions and affect millions of critical biological processes, including cholesterol levels, aging, hormone regulation, weight gain and loss, and much more.
___________________________________________
Eat the right foods and they will send
instructions to your genes for good health.
Eating the wrong foods however,
sends messages for disease.
___________________________________________
What we are finding out is that there is so much more to food than just the nutrients we have discovered thus far. Real food is packed with thousands of compounds which have a complex and dynamic relationship with one another and your genes. With processed foods however, these micronutrients have either been altered or are missing, and therefore they can never deliver the same beneficial messages to your genes. Just as a computer program won’t function well when it gets fed bad data, neither will your body. Once you understand that food is “data” or complex information that the body uses to direct the multifaceted actions that keep us vibrantly alive, it’s easy to understand that loading up on junk food is like taking the fast lane to a giant system failure.
______________________________________________
Foods containing SUGAR, TRANS FATS and
CHEMICALS, and heavily PROCESSED foods,
are simply “bad data” for human consumption. 
_______________________________________________
Lipman call these food-like substances because they are not real food. If you eat these regularly, your body stops working properly. It makes perfect sense...
___________________________________________________
When you bathe your genes in an unhealthy
environment, like the one created when you eat
junk food, your genes “miscue” metabolic
actions that can trigger disease.
e.g. your body responds to food-like substances
as if they are foreign bodies. This prompts an
inflammatory response as your body tries to
protect itself.
___________________________________________________
Over time, continued consumption can lead to the development of a low grade chronic inflammatory condition which is now becoming recognized as an important precursor to a variety of more serious forms of illness.
____________________________________
Bottom line: the food you eat affects
the functioning of your genes.
____________________________________
10 ways to bring out the best in your genes
IN FULL
1. Eat real food i.e. fresh, whole, unrefined and unprocessed food. Food is more than a delivery system for nutrients containing protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. Real food is more than the sum of its parts, it’s about how it all works together, about the integrity of the information or the total message. Although you should know how to read food labels, most real food does not come with a label — vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grass fed meats, wild fish, organic chicken and eggs etc.
2. Although there is no one right diet for everyone (as we are all different), try to eat as close to nature as possible. The further removed food is from its source the less good data it will contain, and the more likely it is of being a “food-like substance” and not real food.
3. Select fruits and vegetables in a wide variety of colors. For a list of fruits and vegetables with the most and least pesticides, check out www.foodnews.org.
4. Buy fresh foods whenever you can, preferably organic and locally grown if possible. Fresh foods are better than frozen foods, which are better than canned foods.
5. Stop eating when you are 80 percent full.
6. Be skeptical of foods that come individually labeled with a health claim. Most healthy foods don’t need a health claim. Have you ever seen a health claim on a bunch of broccoli or on a box of blueberries?
7. Be wary of foods you’ve seen advertised as the vast majority of these are processed foods.
8. Be careful of obsessive calorie counting. Figuring your diet simply in terms of calories or even percentages of protein, fat and carbohydrate, can inadvertently deprive your body of the “complete” messages that real, whole foods provide.
9. Enjoy your food, preferably in the company of people you love.
10. Don’t waste your time feeling guilty if you ate the “wrong” thing. I think Michael Pollan summarizes it really well in his brilliant book, In Defense of Food: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” He too is talking about real food.
________________________________________________
LINKS
Dr Lipman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/lipmo
Nutrigenomics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrigenomics
Michael Pollan: http://www.michaelpollan.com/
In Defense of Food: http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Food-Eaters-Manifesto/dp/0143114964/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1242508699&sr=11-1
Frank Lipman MD, is the founder/director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center-emphasis on preventive health care and patient education. He blends Western and Eastern Medicine combined with other complimentary modalities. His books: SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003)..
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Posted: Jan 30, 2010 9:49pm

 
 
 
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