Why the Obese are Hungry: The Chemical Maze of Cheap Fast Foods

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The Chemical Maze by Bill Statham

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uploaded by Joy Gugeler

According to Sam Dolnick in an article in the NY Times, the link between hunger and obesity has to do with the scarcity of healthy options in low-income areas, driving those who cannot afford to spend more on food to become cheap fast food addicts and dangerously overweight.

“Hunger and obesity are often flip sides to the same malnutrition coin,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger. “Hunger is certainly almost an exclusive symptom of poverty. And extra obesity is one of the symptoms of poverty.”

South Bronx: A Case Study

Such studies present a different way to look at hunger: not starving, but “food insecure,” as the Department of Agriculture calls it now (in 2006 it stopped using the word “hunger” in its reports).

Harlem: Precious as Poster Girl

Precious, the Harlem teen at the center of the Academy Award-winning movie by the same name, is food insecure even though she is severely overweight. She steals a family-size bucket of fried chicken from a fast-food restaurant for breakfast. She vomits it up in a subsequent scene.

Health experts like Australian homeopath Bill Statham who wrote the The Chemical Maze, an easy-to-use guide to additives and ingredients in all processed foods, as well as cosmetics and personal care products, offers these tips to avoid the worst fast food side effects and adopt an affordable and healthy relationship with food.

1. Avoid Artificial Flavours & Preservatives
Like soil, the body needs regular compost and humus. A basic rule-of-thumb: stay away from foods that contain colours, preservatives, artificial flavours. The ingredients list must say natural flavour. If the ingredients list says "flavour" it will be artificial.

2. Don't Consume Canola Oil
Canola oil seems to be the current default oil in everything processed. Canola is a made-up word from Canada-oil. It is actually rapeseed oil, which humans cannot digest, but animals can.

3. Find Affordable Local Organic Veggies & Fruit
The week’s menu should include complex salads (lots of different ingredients) and/or lightly steamed, stir-fried, baked or raw veggies—using natural seasonings. Snack on fresh fruit, dried fruits and nuts - trail mixes are great snacks, and are easy to carry around.

4. High-quality Multigrain Bread
Be sure it doesn't have canola oil in it. 

5. Drink Lots of Water
According to Dr. F. Batmanghelidj M.D., in his seminal book on the impacts of dehydration, “Your body’s many cries are for water: you are not sick, you are thirsty” (1992), we should drink half our body weight in ounces every day. If possible, use a water filter that alkalizes water, for more efficient absorption.

6. Take a Multivitamin Daily
A multivitamin will have a variety of important vitamin and mineral ingredients.

7. Take Healthy Remedies and Supplements Keep these on hand:

• Celery extract and /or Cherry Fruit extract Keep the kidneys flushed, so that uric acid doesn't build up, thus it prevents arthritis and rheumatism and will cure pseudo gout.
• Pine Bark Extract– Good for runner’s knee joints and the Chinese use it as a brain booster.
• Barleygreen will help make the blood alkaline.
• Schuessler Tissue Salts (6x represents homeopathic mineral formulation) are excellent for digestive issues related to mineral nutrient uptake.
• Olive Leaf Extract is an anti-bacteria, anti-mould, anti-virus, anti-fungus, anti-oxidant. Take 2ml periodically, especially when tired, or when infections threaten. It will prevent most colds.
• Colloidal Silver (99.99% only) is excellent as an occasional eye, nose and mouthwash, and natural antibiotic that doesn’t kill the good bacteria, only the single-celled bacteria. You can drink 10ml in a liter of water every day for 10 days if a virus has set in and you can dab it on wounds to instantly get rid of bacteria.
• Peroxide is especially good for periodic mouthwash, mixed with water half and half. Do not swallow.
• Tooth Mousse is a milk enzyme very effective for occasional deep dental cleaning and only available from dentists.
• Epsom Salts as a bath /foot soak, with a tablespoon Nagiri, which the body takes up through the skin most efficiently.
• Magnesium(Nagiri) supports alkalinity, which helps memory and empowers good cell building.
• Bi-Carb Soda is a fast way to turn acid pH alkaline. Take 1/2 teaspoon morning or night of bicarb soda. Ordinary brands (Arm & Hammer, etc.) will do, but it is best to get the food-grade bi-carb processed without aluminum.