GFSH Newsletter March 2006: Hype vs Discernment

Hype vs Discernment

1. Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

I decided this month to talk about how we go about discerning the truth among all the conflicting information we hear about health and healing. In one sense it can be really confusing and frustrating, when we just want to know what to do for ourselves and our families, but we don’t know how to judge the validity of what we’re hearing.

In another sense, the process of developing discernment, whether it’s to decide whether soy foods are healthy or to decide anything else in life, can be part of a deeper process of personal and spiritual development. When you’re seeking the truth and are willing to let go of any favorite beliefs if they turn out to be false, even though you sometimes feel like you’re a bit lost in the dark, you’re really engaging in a transformative process that takes you beyond merely figuring out the answer you were looking for.

Your own critical thinking, given some sound guidance, is the real key. That can’t be taught in the hundreds of health newsletters that keep talking about some new supplement that’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It’s a bit like reading individual recipes with detailed instructions on cooking certain dishes, but after you’ve accumulated dozens of recipes and can follow them by rote, you find that you still don’t really know how to cook intuitively. That’s because you weren’t taught the underlying principles involved.

Mostly in the natural healing field we find methods that are largely hit-or-miss, offering a hodgepodge of therapies, pills to swallow, special diets, and we’re never trained to discern for ourselves which among the multitude of stuff we really need.

I’ll be talking about this more in future newsletters, but I just wanted to introduce the idea that there are just as many fallacies in the world of natural healing as there are in the world of conventional medicine. The truth doesn’t come neatly labeled for us, and sometimes things come in packages of half-truths, and we need to develop a kind of discernment that can spot the red flags and know when to stop and question and not just swallow whole what we read.

To continue reading about this, here’s an article I just posted on my website:
http://www.guideforselfhealing.com/hypevsdiscernment.html

2. The “LABEL-FREE” diet.

Well, with this I’m partly I’m doing a bit of a sendup of popular diets, just in case you were envisioning a new bestseller there :). But there actually is some useful advice here, because I DID promise you practical tips in each newsletter, and here’s one that can make a big difference:

* Avoid all forms of MSG in foods and supplements.

That means not just MSG added to foods, but all the *hidden* sources of MSG. These days practically EVERY packaged/processed food is really a food “product” with a label that lists dozens of ingredients. And almost all of those contain forms of MSG or free glutamic acid (same thing for all practical purposes), as a result of processing, even when the manufacturer claims that no MSG is added to their product.

Food manufacturers are NOT required to list MSG on the label if MSG is contained within another ingredient!

Some of the hidden sources of MSG that you’ll see on food labels are:

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
Yeast extract or autolyzed yeast
Maltodextrin
Sodium and calcium caseinate

Some ingredients that *often* contain MSG are:

Any kind of “protein” (soy protein, whey protein, etc.)
Natural flavoring
carrageenan
milk powder
cornstarch
Barley malt
caramel flavoring

What’s so bad about MSG?
Long story short, MSG is a potent neurotoxin, whether or not a person notices any negative reactions to it in the short run. Many people are sensitive to it; there are many symptoms associated with it, and it’s in practically every food product in the supermarket that has a list of ingredients.

One of the most common effects of MSG is: Overeating and food cravings. It really boils down to the fact that all the processed foods that people are eating are causing pervasive eating disorders. MSG isn’t the only factor there, of course, but it’s a major contributor. And there are even much more damaging health effects associated with MSG.

So here’s my “LABEL-FREE” diet.

If anyone who’s trying to lose weight or just get healthier would first eliminate or reduce the processed foods and eat simple unprocessed foods..in other words, foods that are foods and not “food products” , and if that’s the *only* dietary adjustment they make, I think that will go a long way toward correcting the underlying problems.

Whether it helps your symptoms 100% or just 25%, it’s an important first step to eliminate the dietary factors that might be causing or exacerbating the problems. That’s a very broad brush stroke, and dietary needs will be more individual, but it’s often helpful to do a broad brush stroke first to see how much can be covered with a very simple, basic approach.

Just as a reminder, foods without labels would be foods like meats cooked from scratch, vegetables, fruits, rice, potatoes, good quality fats like avocados, olive oil, virgin coconut oil.. not being concerned at all about calories or fat, but just avoiding processed food and eating simple foods *without labels*,

There’s more. See http://www.msgtruth.org for more complete information about hidden sources of MSG and health effects.

Thanks for reading, and be well!

-Karen

A Guide for Self-Healing
http://www.guideforselfhealing.com

(This newsletter is educational, not medicinal. Do not ingest :-).