Allergic?

I am going different today...and you know why? Cause I feel like it. I am taking a stance on something health related and making a statement. I am not backing this up with scientific research nor going to quote you any fancy statistics. I take in what I see, hear, learn, integrate it through what I have learned as a health professional and Very Curious Observer, and then churn it out through my hands onto the keyboard. Or through my mouth over a cup of coffee. Bottom line, here it is. And after seeing the actual physical changes for me and my family while on a US diet (and we ate relatively healthy - except for some Dunkin Donuts ;) - so don't start thinking I would eat straight out junk and then blame the US market), and reading a report I disagree with, this blog popped in my head and so here it is:

Wow. The more I learn, the more I amass proof of how living life calmly so greatly affects our health and well-being. And, of course, the opposite is true.

Stress and increased over-stimulation, which the modern world seems to encourage en mass, is barraging our body to a point of inability to filter. If you pour too much flour into a sifter, it will not filter through the holes, for overstress on the filtration system. The same is true of our bodies.

Our main filters in our bodies are the liver and the kidneys. When there is so much overstimulation of information and material coming into our bodies, such as environmental pollutants, daily medications, radio and cellular waves, chemicals from processed foods, constant barrages on our sensory system with loud music, screens attached to everything, etc, our livers are so barraged with input that they have a harder time filtering out the flooding of unwanted material.

Outcome: an overtaxed liver, and extra toxins backed up and floating around our body.

I recently read an article about the increase in allergies in the United States. The author stated that the incredible rise in allergies is partly due to the materials placed in vaccines. She used this as an arrow pointing to why more developed countries, who, by nature, have better health care and an increase in vaccinated children, have seen more of a rise in food allergies.

And I wholeheartedly disagree.

If this was about vaccinations, wouldn’t Israel also be plagued by the same rise in food allergies?

While I do see the connection in the rise of allergies in developed countries, I blame another factor – pollutants. One does not see the same pollutants in Africa in the middle of the tribal deserts as one sees in the heart of NY, LA, or even smaller areas of the US. In Africa, one does not witness 2 year olds playing Subway Surfer on their parent’s phone, nor pregnant working women sitting at wirelessly connected computers with their cell phones in their pockets for 8 hours a day. Teenagers with their fingers permanently glued to their smartphone screens, and then taking a break to play video games or watch a streaming show online.

And that’s just the technological part of things.

How many cars are hogging the roads in Africa? How many factories?

How many crops are being sprayed with pesticides, and how much of their food is genetically modified?? What foods do they eat with preservatives, and food coloring that are derived from petroleum?

So yes, I would say that developed countries are ahead of the times in allergies and increased health issues. Because they are ahead of the times in modifying a natural healthy lifestyle into one of processed and over-stimulated everything.

Back to daily life. Why is Israel - which can certainly be described as a developed country - not a fore-leader in the rise in food allergies (thank G-d, ptu ptu ptu)? Because while we still may have high technology and high pollutants, we, in general, as a country, eat more healthy, natural, and wholesome foods.

I recently came back from a 10 day trip to the States. Within days of landing in the US my family felt ill (as in bloated and slightly off). As much as we tried to eat salads, whole grain foods, and the less preserved of the food available to us, we just felt yucky. 24 hours after our return to Israel, when I personally put as many fresh fruits and veggies into my system, as well as soup and healthy carbohydrates, the bloating went down. Within a few days, we felt “normal” again, digestively speaking.

So why isn’t all of America walking around feeling yucky and bloated? Well, actually, I do believe many of them do feel negative side-effects to the foods they ingest, but what choice do they have? And, there is the “our bodies get used to what it gets used to” factoid. If that is what is available, then that is what we have to work with, and our bodies deal on a day to day basis. But not without negative outcomes. Not without increases in illness and disease of the digestive tract. Not without increases in our bodies’ disability to flush toxins from our systems. Not without children being born with already compromised natural filtration systems, leading to the gamut of allergies and increase in infant reflux and colic.

But don’t get me started.

With love and always with serenity,

Devorah