There is no such thing as a one size fits all diet. There are so many different varieties of diets today. Everything from paleo, keto, vegan, carnivore, low fodmap, and gaps. The truth is that all of these diets have value, and they all work at certain times, and for certain people. We have to find out what the best diet is for us. As I said, there is no one diet for everyone, but there are some universal principals that do apply to everyone. They are eat real food, eat organic, eat local, eat seasonal, eat according to your genetics, and eat according to ancestry. To evaluate what real food actually is, Think of anything that was made by nature. Our genes do not recognize things that were made in the lab. Food that has been fortified with vitamins, and minerals is not the same as whole food. Our bodies do not absorb them as well. How do you find out what the best diet is for you? Start with those five factors listed above. After that, you may need to customize it based on your state of health, your goals, and your unique body. For example, if you have a chronic disease, you may need to eliminate certain foods. You are stuck in one way of eating, and it’s not working, give yourself permission to change. Everything is an option.

Should I Eat Organic?

Yes, organic is very important, but why? Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, the suffix cide means to kill. It’s designed to kill things that are much smaller than us, and it does this through two ways. They are either neurogenic, or estrogenic. This means that they are designed to disrupt the nervous system, or the endocrine system. The nervous system is related to the brain, while the endocrine system is related to hormones. Not to mention that we are made up of microorganisms. Science shows that we are 4-10 times more bacteria that we are human cells. So, they might not kill us instantly, but they are damaging are microbiome, and we have the data to back it up. “Pesticide pollution residues have become increasingly common health hazards over the last several decades because of the wide use of pesticides. The gastrointestinal tract is the first physical and biological barrier to contaminated food and is therefore the first exposure site. Interestingly, a number of studies have shown that the gut microbiota plays a key role in the toxicity of pesticides and has a profound relationship with environmental animal and human health. For instance, intake of the pesticide of chlorpyrifos can promote obesity and insulin resistance through influencing gut and gut microbiota of mice. In this review, we discussed the possible effects of different kinds of widely used pesticides on the gut microbiota in different experimental models and analyzed their possible subsequent effects on the health of the host. More and more studies indicated that the gut microbiota of animals played a very important role in pesticides-induced toxicity, suggesting that gut micriobita was also the unintended recipient of pesticides. We hope that more attention can focus on the relationship between pesticides, gut microbiota and environmental health risk assessment in near future.”Yuan X, Pan Z, Jin C, Ni Y, Fu Z, Jin Y. Gut microbiota: An underestimated and unintended recipient for pesticide-induced toxicity. Chemosphere. 2019 Jul;227:425-434. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2019.04.088. Epub 2019 Apr 13. PMID: 31003127.All this being said, don’t let this stop you from eating vegetables, if you go from the standard American diet, to eating conventionally grown produce, your still winning. Start where you are, and evolve from there.

Supplements

Should I take supplements? Supplements have there place, but we always need to start with food first. They are designed to supplement what your already doing. We need to customize our supplements based on us, but there are some that will be helpful to most people. These include fish oil, vitamin d3, magnesium, and some form of a green juice. These supplements are design to make up for the nutrients we are supposed to get in our diet, but our food is not the same as it once was. It’s very nutrient depleted do to modern day agricultural practices.