Small Change #5: Stop drinking soda
photo credit: mukluk
If you want to do only one thing that can change your fertility for the better, stop drinking soda!
The average American drinks about 56 gallons of soda each year. And quoting another statistic, most sodas contain about 10 teaspoons of sugar per can. If that somehow doesn’t seem like a lot to you, put 10 teaspoons of sugar in your hand and see what it really looks like.
Things soda does to your body:
- It can cause blood sugar spikes and hormonal fluctuations. Hormonal fluctuations are not something you want. Whether or not you’re trying to get pregnant, unbalanced hormones can cause PMS to be worse, headaches, sickness, and even morning sickness if you’re already pregnant.
- Soda contains phosphoric acid which can in turn pull calcium out of your bones. It also neutralizes the hydrochloric acid your stomach uses to digest food, making digestion and the absorption of nutrients difficult.
- It contains sodium benzoate (a preservative) that reduces the availability of potassium in your body.
- While this particular topic is debated in the medical field, soda is actually a very highly acidic beverage. And some say that consuming to many acidic foods can alter your own bodies pH. Having an acidic pH can actually harm the sperm and cause them to die due to lack of nutrients. Like I said, while completely controversial, I tend to side on the “why take chances” end of the table.
- Diet soda contains aspartame. There are over 92 different health side effects associated with aspartame consumption including brain tumors, birth defects, diabetes, emotional disorders and epilepsy/seizures. (a bit of my own story here- diet sodas actually caused numbing sensations in my hands and feet! Whether it was a direct cause of the aspartame or the fact that it was robbing my body of nutrients, the fact remains. Just a couple days after I stopped drinking it, I had no issues what so ever!) Further, when aspartame is stored for long periods of time or kept in warm areas it changes to methanol, and alcohol that converts to formaldehyde and formic acid, which are known carcinogens. (stay away from fake sugars!)
- And of course, things we’ve already discussed; it includes high fructose corn syrup and caffeine. Both detrimental to your body.
In our society, giving up soda is hard. Restaurants serve either soda or sweetened tea and we’ve become so used to drinking it with certain meals (pizza, burgers, etc.) that it becomes normal. Back in high school, it was pretty much the only thing I drank. Unfortunate but true. After experiencing major numbness in my hands and feet I decided it couldn’t be doing anything good to my body and I quit drinking it cold turkey. While difficult to deal with the withdrawal headaches and the caffeine and sugar cravings, I found myself feeling much better than I had in months. And I was no longer reliant on a substance to wake me up!
Now don’t get me wrong, through the years I have had my share of soda. But now, I treat it as something only to be ingested very occasionally, if at all. And while trying to conceive, I cut it out completely. Not only do I want to remain at my healthiest, I don’t want to pass any of those toxins on to my baby. At a time in our lives when we need to be absorbing all the nutrients we can, it doesn’t make sense to damage our chances just because we like the taste. And personally, if I find a craving for something sweet and bubbly to much to handle, I’ll splurge on an organic soda from the health food store. While still not healthy, at least it’s not full of toxins.
*Update – and better yet I make my own kefir soda! Just as bubbly but it’s actually good for you!
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Small Change #4: Trans Fat and Fertility
photo credit: psd
We know trans fats aren’t good for us. Some cities have even banned them, and restaurants are starting to eliminate them as well. Even food packaging claims 0 grams trans fat! (by the way-it doesn’t really mean zero. They can have up to a half a gram per serving and still claim no trans fats!)
What is trans fat?
A bit about it from Health and Goodness
Vegetable oils are generally liquid at room temperature, so how is it that we have margarine made from sunflower oil and corn oil? The process involved in this transformation is called hydrogenation. Food manufacturers want a solid fat that does not go rancid easily and doesn’t have any real taste. Hydrogenation gives them this.
Hydrogenation is a high tech process. Vegetable seeds are cleaned and bleached to remove all colour, taste, smells and impurities. The liquid vegetable oil is then heated to high temperatures and a catalyst (commonly nickel, but could be palladium, platinum or rhodium) is added. Hydrogen is bubbled through the liquid. The mixture is then filtered to remove the metal, leaving hydrogenated vegetable oil. Water, whey, salt, vitamins, colourings, flavourings and emulsifiers may then be added to produce hydrogenated margarine.
How it affects us
Trans fat can suppress the activity in cell receptors that are involved in inflammation, glucose metabolism, and insulin sensitivity. A study led by Dr. Jorge E. Chavarro of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston found that this suppression can lead to low fertility and can also manifest itself as PCOS.
This study was done with 18,555 women who were trying to get pregnant between 1991 and 1999. The risk of infertility rose 73% for every 2% of energy a woman took from trans fats instead of carbohydrates (two percent of energy is equivalent to 4 grams of trans fats per 1800 calories consumed). And get this, Americans eat (on average) 6 grams of trans fats each day! So you can see how much this might affect women quite drastically. In men, trans fats can decrease testosterone and increase the number of abnormal sperm (source).
How to avoid it
- Check labels for every food you buy. Even if it says zero trans fats, look for partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in the ingredient list. If it’s in there, put those chips/ice cream/crackers back on the shelf!
- Don’t fry your foods in vegetable oil. Even normal vegetable oil (which is still not good for you!) can turn to trans fat when subjected to high heat.
- Avoid shortening and margarine. While butter may have a higher percentage of saturated fat (total fat in 1 Tbsp 10.8 {saturated 7.2} it contains almost no trans fat, at 0.03 grams. Stick margarine on the other hand has 11 grams total, 2.1 saturated and 2.8grams of trans fat)
- Eat more whole foods and less processed foods.
- Buy organic chips/crackers if you must have them, or have children who are used to them. They aren’t allowed to have partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in them.
- Eat out less, as restaurants don’t always disclose an ingredient list with their nutritional information!
Luckily so much bad press has been released about trans fat the last couple years that food manufacturers are finally starting to listen and not include it as much as in the past. But unfortunately some of those manufacturers are also getting a bit sneaky and putting in just under a half a gram so they can label it “zero trans fats”. If anything you pick up off the shelf has hydrogenated oil in it, Put. It. Back.
Interested in the supplements, herbs, books, or products I like? I recently set up an Amazon store so that I could easily share them with you.
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Small Change #2: Consume Whole Wheat Products
The second small change I made to better my health was to switch from white flour and pastas to whole wheat flours and pastas. And I’m not talking about the breads that have just a touch of wheat in them, you know, the ones that have just enough to make them look darker. I’m talking about finding a bread where the first ingredient is whole wheat. It may take a few tries to find one you really like and enjoy to eat, but it is worth the effort.
Why choose whole wheat?
- Whole wheat products include all three parts of the wheat berry (the bran, the germ, and the endosperm). Eating these three components together benefits in digestion as well as in absorbing nutrients.
- Naturally has more fiber
- Because it has more fiber, it helps with digestion and leaves you fuller longer.
- Contains more vitamin B6, vitamin E, magnesium, folic acid, copper, zinc, and manganese.
- White flours are stripped of nutrients leaving you eating empty calories and not supplying your body with the nutrients it needs.
- White flours are also digested much in the same way as white sugars are, using up your vitamin B6 stores.
So when you hit the supermarket, what do you look for? Well, look for whole wheat to be the first ingredient (not wheat flour or enriched wheat flour). Look to see how many of the ingredients you can actually pronounce. Also check for high fructose corn syrup and caramel colorings and try to avoid those. Check the fiber content and choose a bread with a few grams per slice. Also compare the sodium and sugar content between brands and choose the one with the lowest amount.
Or try making your own! Baking bread is actually quite a simple process and we’ve come to love my homemade bread more than any store bought version.
Interested in the supplements, herbs, books, or products I like? I recently set up an Amazon store so that I could easily share them with you.
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Small Change #1: Where do you begin? HFCS
Knowing where to start can be a difficult thing to figure out. Especially when there seems to be so much information out there and so many things you can do! Through this series (Small Changes for Better Health), I’ll outline the steps I took, most of them just one at a time. Once I figured out each particular step, and how to get it work for me, I went on to the next.
In no way do you need to do any of these in the same order I did them in, but this should give you an idea on where to start. I’ll also be starting from the basics. From when I was really unhealthy, and I’ll outline all the tiny little steps I’ve had to take to get from where I was to where I am now. *Those of you already eating a Nourishing Traditions style diet may see things that you don’t agree with, and I just want to remind you that I most likely have evolved greatly since my first few steps, so bear with me, but I’m starting from the very beginning.
Step One: High Fructose Corn Syrup
What is it really?
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is made from natural ingredients. But, this natural ingredient from corn (corn syrup) then undergoes an enzymatic processing to increase it’s fructose content. Corn is milled into corn starch and then processed to yield corn syrup which is almost entirely glucose. Enzymes are then added to make it about 90% fructose. This fructose is then remixed with an amount of glucose to make high fructose corn syrup. Depending on the application and sweetness desired, it can be mixed at different ratios.
Fructose vs. Sucrose
Another name for HFCS on ingredient lists is fructose and for table sugar, it’s sucrose. The difference between these types of sugars is the way our bodies break them down. Sucrose is broken down before it ever finds it’s way to the liver and is converted into both fructose and glucose, which our body uses. It does get kind of tricky when you really focus on sucrose, because it is actually composed of both fructose and glucose, and fructose is the bad stuff right? Well, yes and no. With sucrose our bodies break it down during digestion through a process called hydrolysis through which it is able to regulate the rate of breakdown. Without this breakdown, our bodies have a harder time controlling the rate at which the sugar is absorbed into the bloodstream. The molecules of fructose and glucose in table sugar are also at a 50/50 ratio and are contained in the same molecule (called a disaccharide) and our bodies process them differently than when the fructose and glucose, as in high fructose corn syrup, are unbalanced and they remain separate molecules.
Fructose on the other hand, finds it’s way to the liver almost uncompletely broken down. And the amount of fructose overwhelms any amount of glucose in it. Our liver must then work harder to break up this substance and remove it from our bodies. And for a part of our bodies that need to function properly to expel old hormones, it’s not something we want to overwork (Remember the whole multi-tasking thing. Some ball will drop). And since fructose is metabolized differently in the body, it also contributes to weight gain even though it has the same number of calories per serving as table sugar.
What to do
Unfortunately HFCS seems to be in everything. Just check some labels of your favorite foods. We know it’s in most soft drinks, ice creams, and packaged baked goods. But did you also know it’s also in bread, crackers, and even ketchup? Because the cost of HFCS is so low, food manufacturers use it in place of regular sugar in almost everything. Cutting out HFCS was also my start down the road to eating organic, since organic foods do not have any HFCS in them at all. While high sugar diets of any kind are not healthy, replacing HFCS with regular table sugar is a step in the right direction.
I would challenge you all to reach into your cupboards and read just a few labels. Next time you head to the store, try and find a replacement for at least one product you buy regularly. If you replace just one or two items a week the impact on your budget will be lower, and the impact on your health will be great.
*As an added note, since I now eat only a very, very small amount of HFCS (usually when I eat at someone elses house) I actually can feel a difference when I do eat it, normally in the fact that I get a migraine almost every time I consume it in larger quantities. HFCS may have just been one of the reasons I suffered from migraines for years!
Interested in the supplements, herbs, books, or products I like? I recently set up an Amazon store so that I could easily share them with you.
All images and content are protected under US copyright laws, please do not copy and paste.
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