The Cheeseburger: Part 2

Okay, so the wheat and sugar argument wasn’t that hard – I’m sure everyone has heard at this point that sugar can do funky things to the brain, and now that the “whole grain” craze is happening it isn’t hard to convince people that refined flour is bad for you. Still, before I move on to the next ingredient I want to address one other thing. If you read the ingredients of the Mcdonalds bun, I’m sure you noticed the list of 25 or so other funny sounding ingredients that may or may not all be included in the recipe.

In the Nurse’s Handbook of Alternative and Complementary Therapies, it states on page 346:

“About 2,000 additives – including artificial colorings and flavors, stabilizers, sweeteners, preservatives, and antibiotics – are approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in food. Many are believed to be carcinogenic. Some additives have been linked to hyperactivity and learning disorders in children.”

Moving on!

The next key ingredient in a Mcdonald’s cheeseburger is the cheese:

Processed Cheese Slice: Cheese (milk, modified milk ingredients, bacterial culture, salt, calcium chloride, microbial)

Okay, fair enough. It’s cheese. Processed cheese, but still – what's cheese got to do with it?

Again, in the excerpt from the book, Food and Healing, by Annemarie Colbin, PHD, it claims:

“The most common foods to cause mental disturbances are sugar, milk, and milk products . . . Negative reactions to milk . . . such as depression, weepiness, and feelings of helplessness and inability to cope, are so widespread that they are almost considered the norm. . . .”

In the book, Depression-Free for Life, by Gabriel Cousens and Mark Mayell, milk and dairy products top the lists of foods that cause allergic reactions and depression (30).

One of the all-time top selling workbooks on anxiety, The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, by Edmund J. Bourne, PHD, states: “An allergic reaction occurs when the body attempts to resist the intrusion of a foreign substance. For some people, certain foods affect the body like a foreign substance, not only causing classic allergic symptoms such as a runny nose, mucous, and sneezing, but a host of psychological or psychosomatic symptoms, including any of the following:

• Anxiety or panic
• Depression or mood swings
• Dizziness
• Irritability
• Insomnia
• Headaches
• Confusion and disorientation
• Fatigue

In our culture the two most common foods causing allergic reactions are milk or dairy products and wheat. It is casein in milk and gluten in wheat that tend to cause problems.” (339-340)

These facts are backed up in a study discussed in an article called, Food Allergies and Depression, which you can read here.

Aside from depression, dairy contributes to great deal of other problems. In the Self Healing Cookbook by Christina Turner, she writes:

-Digestive disorders often settle down when dairy is reduced. This is because casein, the major protein in milk, forms indigestible sticky curds in the stomach, which then line the intestinal walls and interfere with the ability to absorb nutrients (Fit for Life, Harvey & Marilyn Diamond).

-Pre-Menstrual symptoms such as bloating, headaches, irritability, confusion, and cramps, often improve significantly on a dairy free diet.

-Allergies of all kinds are often benefited by non-dairy diets… chronic sinus conditions, food allergies, and environmental allergies. This may be because the by-products of milk digestion create large quantities of mucus, which lead to sluggish organ function, lethargy, and fatigue.

-Hyperactive and chronically fatigued kids are quite often allergic to dairy (as well as sugar and corn) according to William Crook, M.Dl, who has worked with thousands of allergic children. (Don’t Drink Your Milk, Frank Oski. M.D).

-Breast cancer incidence is much higher in countries which consume lots of dairy foods. The high-fat content in diary can cause hormonal changes (by encouraging over-growth of estrogen-producing bacteria in the intestines).This estrogen imbalance is linked not only to breast cancer, but also to early onset of menstruation and late menopause (McDougall’s Medicine, John McDougall, M.D). (48-49)

Chapter 3: The Beef… coming up next!