Your Body Is Not A Garbage Can

It’s spring, and ’tis the season for cleaning things out. Every now and then I do a ‘pantry cleanse’ for a client. I will go into their kitchen and remove all of the unhealthy items from their pantry and refrigerator and throw it in a trash bag. What’s fascinating about this process, is that even when it’s quite clear that a food item contains harmful chemicals, dyes, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, or otherwise damaging ingredients, my client will go through a guilt-ridden last ditch effort to save the item from the garbage can. “I feel badly just throwing it out. I’ll just finish this bottle of [insert unhealthy item here], and then I won’t buy it again.” And here lies the crux of a serious problem we’ve created for ourselves, in our ‘finish the food on your plate, there are starving children in other countries,’ culture; we have turned our bodies into garbage cans. 

Now, I’m as much for conservation of resources as the next person. But we really need to take a look at what we’re saying about ourselves here. Food that is literally ‘junk’ will end up in our bodies, often-times purely out of guilt. Can you relate? You buy a box of generic doughnuts from the 7-11 because you’re hungry. They taste terrible, are obviously of poor quality, contain refined sugars and flours that will harm your health, and you realize you’ve made a mistake buying them. Instead of discarding them where they belong, you think, well, I better finish them. I can’t just throw them away. What a waste of food. And once again, you’ve become a human garbage can.

Anyone ever been to a restaurant where they served you a very large portion of food that you couldn’t finish? Maybe there’s only five bites left; not enough to warrant a to-go box, but enough for the guilt to set in. As full as you might feel, how many of you have just ‘sucked it up,’ and cleaned your plate so you didn’t have to bare leaving it for waste?

I understand. I feel your pain. I truly do. But I can tell you this; eating past full out of guilt, or shoving questionable and possibly damaging ingredients into your body because you feel like it’s your duty as a good citizen, will not solve world hunger, will not save the environment, and will lead to extra weight and an over-taxed liver and digestive system.

Here’s what I suggest instead:

• Treat your body as the temple that it is. Eat only what you want and in the portion that’s right for your body, no matter what social pact you think you might be breaking.
• Choose food that is befitting a human body, not a trash can; i.e., eat real food.
• Compost! All food ‘waste’ can be recycled and returned to the earth, and can even become the soil for growing fresh food. If you have any outdoor space, a compost is very easy to set up. A friend even told me that her apartment building in Brooklyn has a compost in the basement! This is a simple yet profound way to reduce waste.
• Instead of stuffing yourself at a restaurant, bring leftovers home to eat the next day, or give them to someone who needs and will enjoy it.
• For vegetables in your refrigerator that are about to go bad, chop them up, throw them into a pot and make soup. When you puree them together, you’ll be surprised at how delicious any combination of vegetables will be!
• I recommend reading the ingredient list for food products while you’re still in the grocery store, so you can identify unacceptable ingredients before you buy them. But if it’s already in your pantry, do yourself a favor and throw it where it belongs- in the trash.

 

ps- Interested in a 7-day Guided Liver Cleanse? Click here for more information!

 

Happy Spring!