The Right to Know... About What You’re Eating
country are ready to have a revelation, an epiphany, a sudden onset of searching for total truth and knowledge about our healthcare and food systems.
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The American Revelation - 2015 The American Revolution was the result of a series of social, political, and intellectual transformations in American society, government and ways of thinking. The American Revelation should result in a series of social, political and intellectual transformations in American society, government and ways of thinking...about food and health care.
The Right to Know People should know exactly what they are eating. The food industry should be required to disclose to us every detail about the food they provide so we can choose what we put in our
bodies.This American Revelation about food actually started years ago. Karen Hess, in 1977, wrote: “…we write with trepidation. How shall we tell our fellow Americans that our palates have been ravaged, that our food is awful, and that our most respected authorities on cookery are poseurs? Can most Americans be wrong?” “YES” was her response to her own question. Hess is credited with sparking the resurgence in farmers markets in New York and elsewhere. What does this have to do with dysbiosis? With health care in America? Everything.
Dysbiosis – What is It? The basic definition of dysbiosis is “an imbalance of bacteria in the intestinal tract.” This bacteria, also called flora, is key to the digestion and assimilation of nutrients into the body. Most people are familiar with acidophilus and probiotics, which are some of the many species of flora in the digestive tract. There are many more species working diligently at processing food into nutrients. The balance of the bacteria is crucial to keeping the body healthy and keeping the opportunistic organisms in check. There are living yeasts known as candida, and bacteria like
E.coli that reside in the intesti- nal tract harmlessly, as long as the proper balance of good bacteria outnumbers the opportunistic ones.
18 Natural Nutmeg - March 2015
ere we are in 2015, and there is so much to learn about our food and healthcare in America. Our food AND our health care, as they are one and the same. People across the
Digestive bacteria can be damaged by any number of things,
such as antibiotics, which can result in irregular bowel movements, and/ or increase yeast, due to decrease in the good bacteria. If the balance is not corrected quickly, often using probiotics like acidoph- ilus, the dysbiosis can become chronic. Chronic dysbiosis (bacterial imbalance) will cause digestive-tract dysfunction in many different ways.
Some patients will develop chronic diarrhea, some will suffer from constipation, and others will experience flatulence and bloat- ing. The longer proper digestion is inhibited, the more the symptoms will increase. Celiac patients, for instance, have a genetic mutation that inhibits the ability to digest wheat. The result of this over time is chronic diarrhea. The diarrhea and dysbiosis will then lead to other health issues until the elimination of wheat in the diet and correc- tion of bacterial balance in the digestive tract is accomplished.
Treating the Cause Resolves the Health Issues Dysbiosis can be looked at as a chicken or an egg, which- comes-first situation. Does the dysbiosis cause illness or does the ill- ness cause dysbiosis? Inside the digestive tract the microbial system lives symbiotically with the human body. When food is consumed, this garden of flora is responsible for helping to break food down into the nutrients that serve the rest of the system; nutrients that are needed to survive and thrive. It is, as I’m sure you have guessed, an incredibly complex process. There are many factors that all need to be in balance for this process to be efficient. An imbalance in just one part of the process can lead to many different health-related issues.
Dysbiosis will affect any and all parts of the body because each bodily function is important to the balance and proper function of all of the others. Health issues in other bodily functions can also cause the dysbiosis to occur, which will then lead to the symptoms and health issues.
For instance, what happens when the immune system malfunc- tions and begins to produce antibodies against a food, marking it as an intruder? What if the body decides to react by sending out antibodies every time that food is consumed? Antibodies are pro- duced by the immune system in response to intruders; that process
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