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Op/Ed – Claire Nielsen – Eating for Health During Covid-19

Vancouver (Claire Neilson) – I am a health and wellness educator and public speaker in BC and for several years I have been a speaker at several large Health Expos in the Lower Mainland including The Fraser Valley Women’s Expo, The Health and Wellness Show, and the Westcoast Women’s Show. I would like to share part of my speech notes on Eating for Health. This portion of my speech talks about our food cravings pertaining to sugar. It is no secret that sugar kills our immune system.

We all need to be as healthy as possible in case there is an influx of Covid-19 in our BC communities, especially now that our province is starting to reduce social restrictions. We aren’t out of the woods yet and I worry that we may have a surge of cases after relaxing our social distancing and/or our diligent hand washing. It is my feeling that if/when the coronavirus finds it’s way into our community, it will be the healthy people who will be least affected. I urge everyone to be as healthy as possible in the choices of what we put in our bodies.

I have noticed a huge increase in social media posts showing the delicious things everyone has been baking while in isolation at home. I call this ‘food porn’. I have also witnessed the great increase in the purchases of white flour, sugar, garbage breakfast cereals & pop at the grocery stores. This causes me alarm, as these dietary choices can adversely affect our health and therefore our ability to fight the Coronavirus. I have always encouraged people to eat foods that boost their immunity, but in these troubling times I have seen so many people stock up on foods that are very detrimental to their health. In the face of this pandemic we should be doing all we can to build our immunity, not destroy it. I would like to encourage everyone to be very mindful of what they are eating, and to continually ask themselves if their food & drink choices are helping or harming their immunity.

Cravings: We all have addictions. These can take the form of food or other consumed food substances (sugar, carbs, alcohol), medications & drugs, emotional & mental addictions (control, victimization, drama, conflict, being right…). I think that being human comes with this type of behaviour and we need to understand our own addictions. There is also a strong connection between food and Mental Health, not only a physical connection but an emotional one. Food is our first comfort as human beings – as soon as we cry we are encouraged to eat or soother to comfort us. When we are upset as a child, we are often given something sweet to cheer us up. This can be our first connection between eating and emotional comfort, and often it remains where we find comfort for the rest of our lives. The term “comfort food” refers to this connection. Eating feels good in the present moment, and eating certain addictive foods feels even better… but the long-term results make us feel worse: compromised health, body image, self-esteem, lack of self-discipline & self-worth issues…

Maybe those cravings are telling us something that we are mis-interpreting. Maybe our bodies are telling us that we need whole sweet foods like fruit rather than sugary junk foods. If we choose a piece of fruit when we have that sugar craving, we are being kinder to our bodies and still feeding our cravings.

Sugar affects our health: Our culture seems to routinely reach for a sweet treat. Don’t we all have something “sweet” on hand in our cupboards or stashed in our homes or cars or office drawers, for when that craving hits? Why do we crave something sweet in the first place? As mentioned above, it is our body’s way of telling us that we need the vitamins – the vitamins that we need to build our immunity. Our bodies speak to us all the time and when our diet is deficient, our bodies tell us what we need through our cravings – we just misinterpret the messages. Unfortunately, the food industry has taken advantage of our natural cravings, and created products that fill those cravings – products that satiate our tongues but are detrimental to our bodies. In fact, these processed sugary foods often do a better job of fulfilling our taste bud desires than natural fruit does. And because they are so readily available, they replace vitamin rich foods in many people’s diet. If we are mindful of what our bodies are really asking for, we should resist the urge to go after the quick sugar fix when we have a sweet tooth craving, and seek out some organic fruit source. I am a fan of dried organic fruit that isn’t soaked in sugar, but in small doses. Our craving will be taken care of with dried fruit because of the concentrated sweetness which is naturally sourced. Dried fruit is a great way to “get off” processed sugar addiction, and then we can work on replacing the dry fruit with fresh fruit whenever we can. We do have to change how we shop, including more fruit and limiting or cutting out processed sugar products in our shopping cart.

Processed sugar can be as addictive as a drug but is one of the hardest things for our bodies to metabolize – so our bodies get stressed and inflamed. There is an abundance of sugar in processed (convenience) foods. This is why processed foods are so enjoyable to our taste buds. Too much sugar in our bloodstream (high blood sugar) causes our pancreas to work harder and harder to produce insulin to process and convert the sugar into something the body can use. This overwork of our pancreas causes it to slows down or quit altogether. This causes a disease called Type 2 Diabetes and can be avoided if we work on our addiction to carbs and sugars. An abundance of insulin in our system causes the inflammatory weight gain. That is why weight gain and diabetes tend to go hand in hand. Exercise burns blood sugar so if you are diabetic or prone to diabetes , getting adequate exercise should be a crucial part of your health regime.

Pop / Soda: Never forget that there is enough sugar in a can of pop to suppress the immune system for 6 hours – not to mention the inflammatory effect of the sugar itself. Most people in North America suffering from obesity have a strong addiction to their favourite pop (or soda). And diet sodas do not help at all but contribute to more obesity. Sorry to say this but pop (soda) should be eliminated from our diet. There is no healthy way to have it except making your own with fizzy water & juice.

Email info@elixirforlife.ca if you wish to get more information from Claire.

Claire Nielsen/Facebook

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