The S.A.D. truth

Spring greetings, Sonoma. It’s time to kick outdoor party season into full gear, and, with a little education regarding the Standard American Diet, you can do it in the healthiest way possible.

While it’s no secret that we Sonoman’s love to celebrate the season with good food and good wine, you may not have an understanding of how the Standard American Diet is affecting your health.

The Standard American Diet, or commonly known as S.A.D. among nutritionists and holistic health care practitioners, is largely associated with high amounts of refined carbohydrates, such as breads, pastas, and cereals, as well as foods that have been processed and packaged for convenience, which are generally laden with sugars, chemicals, preservatives, and unhealthy fats. The Standard American Diet has become the main reason people are sick, depressed, and over weight.

The S.A.D. way of eating in this country has developed over the past 50 years, while, at the same time, disease rates have sky rocketed and people have become ill.  The problem with the S.A.D. way of eating is that it’s highly pro-inflammatory (processed and genetically modified grains, chemicals, and processed fats), high-glycemic (sugars, processed and fake sweeteners, simple and refined carbs), and largely Genetically Modified (GMO’s), which are all harmful to human health.

The S.A.D. way of eating has quickly caught on to the rest of the world, and has now become internationally known as The Western Diet. We can see the S.A.D. effects reaching across the globe where obesity and disease rates increase wherever it goes.

By learning to eat a diet that avoids these three things, you will greatly improve your health, vitality, and longevity. Here are my tips for changing from a S.A.D. to a G.L.A.D (GMO-free, Low-glycemic, Anti-inflammatory, Diet) way of living.

Avoid GMO’s! This is not easy to do, but I suggest buying Trader Joe’s label foods, as they claim foods with their label on them are 100% GMO free. Also, Whole Foods labels non-GMO foods with a green label under their non-GMO project. Buy fresh, local and organc. Get to know your farmers and where your food comes from, or, better yet, grow your own! Also, get educated on the dangers of GMO’s to your health. This is, in my opinion, the most important education you can have at this point in time.

Avoid grains. Yes, I said it. Avoid all grains, when possible. This may be hard to believe, because you have been told for so long that grains are the most important part of your diet (remember the food pyramids) but you need to know that grains, especially American grains, come from poor, depleted soils, deliver little or no nutrition, are often treated with chemicals, are typically high-glycemic, mostly genetically modified, and are highly inflammatory. Grains have traditionally been big business in a money-making sense, but they are not an ideal for the human diet. I recommend the recent documentary “The Perfect Human Diet.” This movie will be showed at EA’s Crossfit this Friday night, May 17 at 7pm, served with a G.L.A.D. dinner. RSVP at 415-314-1399.

Go Paleo. Research the Paleo Diet, the diet of our Paleolithic ancestors, which focuses on organic, non-GMO, unprocessed foods, which are all naturally G.L.A.D. To learn more about paleo living, go to Facebook.com/eacrossfit.