Eric Bakker the naturopath from New Zealand. Thanks for coming back.
I thought it might be appropriate to do a few videos like this. Now it's not click bait or
shock tactics, the title, but the title of this video is five foods you shouldn't really eat.
Now a lot of people eat these foods, so what I mean by should not,
meaning they're not really great foods. We all like these foods and many of us
eat these foods, I've eaten them in the past and continue to eat them in the future,
but they're not really good for you. That's the thing, we know that.
Most people will be nodding their head saying, "Yes, I know that" when I go through this food
list, but these are not really the best kind of foods for your digestive system, for your immune
system, for your body overall. They're crappy foods, really. So I made a cheat sheet here,
but I had to think about this. What am I going to put on this list of the five no-no foods? So,
I think I've got it pretty well sussed.
So, a lot of people will say,
"Well, there are no bad foods really, it's all about moderation. You can eat anything you want
long, as you eat a little bit of it." Well, you wouldn't say that when it comes to stuff like
plutonium or radioactive waste, like, "Oh, you can just have a tiny little bit, it'll be fine."
I mean, that stuff will kill you just sniffing at it or looking at it.
So, that's a chemical. Chemicals can be created by people, and of course these chemicals can vary,
ranging from being innocuous or what would they call grass generally regarded as safe, but the
problem is there are thousands of chemicals, that we've got no idea how safe they are.
It's a bit like when you walk in in Times Square, you're walking past a lot of people.
Now, most people you're going to walk past are going to be perfectly nice people, but you could
be walking past a guy that's not really nice at all, that's got the wrong kind of intentions.
Some foods are like that. They've got bad intentions when they're inside us.
They weren't created to make these bad things happen, but they do.
For example, there's a chemical called PFAS, polyfluoroalkyl substances. So, these are found in
pizza boxes or they're found in a lot of takeaway packaging. Look at styrofoam cups, for example,
plasticy crap. There is so much stuff that people get as part as food packaging of takeaway
that can be as add as the food itself. So, that's the problem. With so many chemicals
in the environment now, and most of them have never been tested on women or unborn children,
maybe on a bunch of rats in laboratory, but I don't really want to be part of a big experiment.
So, we all succumb to these foods from time to time. I've had all of these foods,
I'm not going to deny that. In fact, some of these foods I may still even eat, but it's up to you
to decide whether you should eat them or not, okay? Now, when I say I have eaten these foods,
it definitely is not like a daily or weekly occurrence,
we could be talking maybe once at a birthday party in 12 months.
The hot dog, the first one on the list, I definitely have had hot dogs,
but I won't be eating those in the future. So that's the first one, hot dogs or processed meats.
Now you've probably heard about this in the news about bacon, about nitrates and nitrates,
about the bad stuff that goes in processed meat. Processed meat is a crap food, it's not really
good to eat. I love bacon like many people, but it's not something I really eat anymore.
If I do, I have a small piece every now and then, not certainly a whole plateful of the stuff.
So, hot dogs and processed meat are generally not really good food choices. That's the first one.
Foods like bacon, hot dogs, ham, salami, pastrami, all that kind of stuff.
So, there are also chemicals often used in this like mold inhibitors
and the different chemicals to stop these meats from going off.
I've written here these chemicals are used by fast food restaurants as an additive to
retain meat color and to inhibit bacterial growth on the food. Both chemicals can break
down the nitrozine substances with potential to cause cancer, and that's that the preservatives
and the colorings and the flavorings and the additives. Hot dogs may taste great,
but they're not really a good food, so I reckon they should go on the no-no list.
Second one is something that I really like, and I struggle with personally, and I know a lot of
people out there love these, and you're going to have to guess what it is. Hundreds and thousands
of tons of this stuff get eaten every year in America and in the UK, people in England love
this. They're crunchy and they're salty and they're called potato chips, right? Pretzels,
potato chips. You know those sticks you can get, I don't think they're pretzels, they're like
pretzels that are straightened out, but all that kind of stuff, all those snacky kind of foods.
They're generally deep fried, they're full of salt, they're full of colors, they're full of
sugars, they're full of hydrogenated fats, all the wrong kind of stuff, right? High fat and high
in refined carbohydrates and lots of calories. No protein or anything useful like fiber, no
vitamins or minerals in this food. So, basically you might as well eat that piece of plastic
or this pen or a piece of cardboard, because you'll probably get the same nutrition out of it.
Apart from salt, of course. So, people want to argue there are no
minerals in it. Of course sodium's a mineral, and that will be in pretzels and salted peanuts and
foods like that, but it's not really the type of salt that you want in your body.
It's just refined sodium chloride, it's not sea salt. They use the cheapest salt they can.
But I can't deny, I mean, I love chippies. I can easily sit there with crisps as the
English call it and eat them, but I don't really go there anymore. It may be once in a sixth month
occurrence, because otherwise, I'm going to just end up like a beach ball. A lot of people
end up with a packet of Lay chips or whatever they call them in America, you know that brand.
So yeah, I used to tell my patients, people who need a snack need a snack.
Not in the violent sense. I'd say the same to cigarette smokers,
that they need beating around the head, but with soft objects like pillows or things like that.
A bit of humor or comedy goes a long way when we're talking about smacking.
But yeah, studies have shown many times over that those who refrain or don't eat
sugary snacks or snacks high in refined carbs like pretzels, chips, salted peanuts, foods like that,
they have a lot better cholesterol profile.
Meaning that they're not going to have a blood fat problem,
meaning there's less chance they're going to get clogged arteries and heart problems,
and they've also got a significantly better blood sugar control. So by avoiding this junk in your
diet, your blood sugar will be controlled more evenly, meaning you're going to snack
less and you're going to keep your waistline a lot more in control. So that's number two,
pretzels, potato chips, peanuts. We know they're no good, but we like them.
The third one, donuts and processed pastries. Sometimes you go to maybe a weekend away with
your partner or you'll have a nice breakfast in the morning, it could be Airbnb or it could be
a restaurant or something, and what do you see there laid and they're all out there
on the table? Pastries and all this sort of junk. Here again, we've got a high carb food
often containing lots of cheap, crappy fats. White sugar, white flour, hydrogenated fats,
emulsifiers, anti-molding agents, and lots more junk thrown in for good measure.
So, I can't see the fascination with Dunkin' Donuts or food like that.
In New Zealand now, recently in the last several years, I've seen these
things pop up at airports, these Dunkin' Donut stands. It's looking more like Los
Angeles here all the time. So yeah, not a good food people, not a good food at all.
The fourth one on the list is artificially sweetened foods. Now, many people have beaten the
drum over this for many years and say aspartame and cancer and all these kind of things, but
I've had a good friend who passed away now at only 58 of a massive heart attack.
Now he was a diabetic, but his favorite drink was Diet Coke. Now this guy had a
masters in chemistry, he was clever man, but he steadfastly maintained to me that sugar free Coke
or Diet Coke was definitely okay for your health, because there was no sugar in it.
I can remember telling him that it was linked up with strokes and metabolic syndrome,
but it fell on deaf ears. This poor man was drinking up to two liters of Diet Coke a day,
and it's not a good idea, he passed away. I can't say whether the Coke killed him or the diabetes,
but I felt pretty upset about that, that I couldn't even save my own friend.
So, this is the wrong way of thinking. If you think diet foods and diet drinks are going to
save you, they're not. There's a lot of lies out there perpetuated by companies who make these
products. So a really nice drink that I would like in summertime is just plain water with some lime
or lemon squeezed in it, and if I want a bit of a sugar kick, I'll put a teaspoon of honey
in a large mug of water and it's a beautiful drink. Add a bit of lime juice to it,
there's nothing more refreshing in summertime. So, you don't need this artificial stuff in your life.
The fifth one, deep fried foods. I got rid of deep fried pan years ago,
I threw it out. My mum always had a deep fryer and I know a lot of people have got them at home,
some smelly old thing in the cupboard you pull out every now and then. Take the lid off it,
they put old yucky oil in it. This is not the way to eat food people, it's not the way.
Every time you heat that oil up, you saturate it further and further. You're just breaking
the bonds down and you're making it more toxic, but it's not a good thing to do.
We're talking fried chicken, fried calamari, pork rinds, french fries. So besides the high fat and
caloric content, the main issue with these fried foods is they contain high levels of advanced
glycation end products, AGEs. So, these compounds form in animal-derived products like fats,
for example, or in proteins, are cooked at very high temperatures for prolonged periods of time.
According to a study or many studies I've looked at,
we get high oxidative stress and inflammation in the body, and these are precursors of disease.
So, eating food that is a potential to cause a lot of inflammation in the body
makes you more of a sitting duck for a chronic illness. This is why I don't eat deep fried foods.
If I do fry, it's in shallow, it's only in about probably a half
inch or inch of olive oil, tiny bit of olive oil in a wok. I'll cook something in that,
but I prefer poaching now or stir frying. I'm trying to get away from this heat,
this lots of oil. So I know how nice Kentucky Fried Chicken is, but it's not good.
So, let's just quickly tell you those five again. Hot dogs and processed meats, number
one. Number two, pretzels, potatoes and salted peanuts, and those snack kind of pack foods.
Number three, donuts, processed pastries. The other one I'd put at number two would
be Bhuja Mix, like that Indian Bhuja Mix. That's all deep fried stuff too.
So, three was donuts and processed pastry, four is artificially sweetened foods and drinks or
diet kind of foods, and the fifth one is deep fried stuff, Kentucky Fried Chicken and food
like that. So, that's my list of five foods to avoid and drinks. Thanks for tuning in.