Mindful eating is a vital component of good health.
Outside of the obvious need of food we have as humans, what foods we give our bodies daily greatly impacts our wellbeing.
Nutrition is linked to many preventable diseases and chronic conditions like hypertension, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, and even some cancers. It also has been shown to largely affect our mental health.
This is why I am very conscious of what foods I nourish my body with.
I strive to make every meal as fresh, clean, and natural as possible. Whenever I can, I buy vegetables, fruits, and meats that are organically grown and raised.
So you could imagine my surprise when several years ago, I found my health declining and noticed an increase in my heavy metal toxicity. Despite all of my careful and conscious efforts to give my body the best support nutritionally, I discovered through testing that I had a toxicity of Thallium in my body that was off the charts.
Thallium is a heavy metal commonly used in things such as rat poison. Tasteless and odorless, it’s near undetectable without the proper tools. Thallium toxicity can present itself in the body as symptoms such as fatigue, neurological issues, nausea, digestive problems, and hair loss.
This example of environmental toxicity is not exclusively my own experience. Over the last several years, I have noticed a steady increase in thallium and other heavy metals in many of my patients, who like myself, strive to eat as holistically and as clean as possible.
My clean diet had not changed for years, so where did this rise in heavy metals come from?
I spent weeks searching every possible route trying to find exactly where the heavy metals were coming from. Finally, I found the source…
It was kale!
My favorite organic superfood had been poisoning me for years and I had no idea!
This discovery led me to look a little closer at the foods I eat. Through my efforts to determine the source, I learned that many organic foods might also not be as clean as we think.
If these foods are certified organic, where is the toxicity coming from?
1. Industrial Ash
Use of Fly Ash as a soil amendment in crops has become more prevalent in today’s agriculture. While it is believed to add many valuable nutrients to soil, the hazards of using such ash are hardly acknowledged. Research shows that despite the benefits of using fly ash as a soil amendment, the fertilizer also adds many heavy metals and toxins to soil that ultimately ends up absorbed by the crops it’s used to nourish.
2. Fracking
Fracking is the process of injecting fluids at high pressure into rock deep within the Earth’s crust to create larger fissures in already existing faults to extract oil or gas. This poses as risk to our environment as it pulls to the surface many naturally occurring toxins that would otherwise remain settled deep within the Earth and contaminates the topsoil used to grow the crops we eat as well as our local water supply.
These are only two of many heavy environmental hitters that pollute the ground we use to grow our food. In our industrial world, there are many sources of toxins to be mindful of when considering from where you should purchase your food.
But which certified organic foods are affected by this pollution of heavy metals in our soils?
I’ve created a list of which foods to pay special attention to when making your selections.
The “organic” foods potentially containing higher amounts of heavy metals like Thallium include:
- Cabbage
- Cauliflower
- Collard greens
- Broccoli
- Kale
- Spinach
- and other common greens
Now that you know what toxic hazards to look out for, what can you do to protect your health?
Shop local
Shopping local is the first and best step you can take towards taking control of your health, but always ask your local farmers if their produce is grown in fields that have been fracked, or if the water used to irrigate those fields has been contaminated with fracking water. If their sources are clean, frequenting your local farmers market is a great alternative to shopping industrially grown produce at your nearby grocery store. There are many reasons to shop for your food locally, but the number one reason being that eating fresh, holistically grown food from your home environment is proven to be incredibly beneficial to your health.
Once I had determined my heavy metal toxicity was caused by all of the contaminated kale I was eating, I quickly took action to eliminate the source and chelate my body of the metals poisoning my body. Completely detoxing my body was not a quick process as I was severely toxic, but after following the proper chelation protocol, my thallium levels are back to normal. The body can truly heal if we practice full awareness of our environment.
xo,
