It’s easy for all of us just to stuff food into our mouths, enjoy the temporary taste, and not really think about what goes on after that. Out of sight, out of mind, right? But this approach will not help you reach your goal of building your Radical Beauty. In order to do that, you need to be able to connect with what you are eating and become conscious of how what you are eating makes you feel, both in the short- and long-term.
A good place to start is by connecting visually to what is taking place when you eat, beyond what you can see with your eyes. In other words, try visualizing what you know is taking place without literally seeing it and connecting that to the experience in your body, which you cannot help but feel. Try this now. Think of your last food binge—maybe on a “cheat” day, while on vacation, or when out with your friends. It can be any time you decided to just let loose and eat that pizza or ice cream or french fries followed by a cupcake or donut. Maybe it was on that hungover Sunday when you dug into the third serving of macaroni and cheese that you knew you really shouldn’t have but were craving so badly (and you felt so crappy you didn’t put up much of a defense). Imagine how the particular foods you indulged in tasted, felt, and looked.
Now try taking the visualization internally, imagining what is going on in your stomach after you binged. Picture your stomach expanding outward, trying to contend with the heavy digestive load you just burdened it with. Imagine a churning volcano. Now create the image of congestive toxicity and envision it building up on the insides of your gut.
Next, visualize inflammation striking your cells, causing friction and disharmonious aggravation. Think about diminished circulation throughout your body, the growth of the toxins, nutrients passing through but not being absorbed, your cells suffering, and ultimately your skin getting duller and wrinkling like a raisin. Sit with that for a moment, and internalize these images and imagined feeling of your digestive distress. Compare these feelings to the physical sensations you’ve felt in your body when indulging in a binge.
The purpose of this exercise is not to make you feel horrible or to picture disturbing images for no reason. It is to help foster a deeper mindfulness of just how much the food you are eating impacts your body, your energy, and your beauty.
Now visualize eating something healthy. Imagine eating a delicious all-vegetable ginger-squash soup, for example. The food feels warming as it goes in, and it feels grounding and filling in your stomach, but you don’t feel overly stuffed. Think of this food going into your gut and various nutrients flowing into your bloodstream and circulating all around your body in a clear, healthy stream. Your skin is radiant and glowing, and you finish eating feeling great.
When you decide what to eat, it’s inevitable that sometimes you’ll make a less-than-ideal choice. This is perfectly fine. You are not meant to be perfect. But try to keep this imagery stored somewhere in your mind so the next time you are struggling with a food option on a menu or on the brink of going from a little treat to a full binge, you can pull this imagery back into the forefront of your mind. Hopefully this consciousness-building exercise (which can be done in as little as a few seconds) will pull you back to this side of whole, beauty-nourishing foods so that you can make the better choice more often.
Most people feel healthier and more connected to their food and energy when they cook most of their meals themselves. It’s also great from a beauty perspective, because cooking your own meals puts you in control of the oils and other ingredients that you consume. You can be sure to use beauty-building organic produce and cook with coconut oil, non-irradiated spices, and fresh herbs. No matter what you choose, you always know the source of your food when you cook for yourself.
This certainly does not have to be elaborate or take up copious amounts of time. Home-cooked meals can be simple, and it’s easy to rotate certain dishes you feel comfortable with over and over again, mixing and matching different vegetables and ingredients. Eating out can be social, celebratory, and a lot of fun, but it doesn’t have to be your norm. Save it for special occasions, or at least try to shift into eating out less and having more meals at home, and you will feel more grounded and empowered not only with your diet but perhaps your whole life.
At this point, you may be feeling really inspired by all this information about how to make big shifts in your life. There truly is so much you can do to eat your way to a fuller expression of your natural beauty. And it’s understandably thrilling, but then a passing dark thought may cloud your excitement: how are you actually going to have time to eat healthfully? You might feel as if you already don’t have enough time to jam all your professional and personal duties into your schedule, so how are you going to possibly add the further element of eating for Radical Beauty into the mix?
Don’t worry. You will not have to spend much more time preparing food to make these dietary shifts, but you will have to be a little bit strategic and take some time to plan ahead. Actually, the time you use to buy or make things in bulk and prep more at home instead of always running out to restaurants and take-out joints may actually help you save more time overall. This is especially true as you get more comfortable with simpler staple dishes and strategies.
Here are some great time-saving tricks to get you on your way to eating for Radical Beauty.
As soon as you get home from work, turn on the oven and throw some whole winter squash or sweet potatoes on a pan. Yes, that’s right—whole! You can prick some slits in them with a knife, but don’t struggle with breaking down a super-tough raw squash; it simply takes too much energy. Throwing these rock-hard root veggies into the oven whole is going to save you a lot of precious time that you would otherwise spend trying to cut them up. Let them soften up while you change, relax, and catch up with your spouse and your kids, or simply chill out. After 45 minutes or so, take them out of the oven, cube or slice them, and either sauté them with a little coconut oil or let them bake a bit longer. Sprinkle them with simple seasonings like paprika, turmeric, and a pinch of sea salt, and eat them over a salad or with some other veggies or greens. Super easy and delicious. The key is to let your oven work for you while you are getting your post-work relaxation in.
This is the equivalent of a fast-food health meal. It’s hearty, protein dense, and fermented so it tends to digest better than other soy products. Plus, the fermentation is believed to deactivate some of the potentially less-than-great features of soy products, including digestive difficulties. And the key feature: speed. Open up a package of tempeh, cut it into squares or strips, heat it up in a pan, and you’re good to go. Eat it either with some lightly cooked veggies, like zucchini or broccoli, or on top of a leafy, green salad. Play around with spices and flavorings. Tempeh goes well with everything from tamari to cayenne and paprika, cumin, or even marinara sauce. You can literally make this meal in less than 5 minutes!
If you get home late and are exhausted, you can always make a simple smoothie for dinner that’s loaded with beauty nutrition. It doesn’t get much easier than that, and if you have a Vitamix, cleanup only takes a few minutes. Eating late at night, especially when you’re exhausted, isn’t great for digesting heavier foods, anyway. Smoothies are great for these times because they are blended and easy to digest. With the ingredients already broken down, it’s brilliantly simple for your system to absorb the nutrition. You can bulk up a smoothie to make it feel satisfying in the evening by using almond milk as the base. Other great smoothie ingredients to stock at home include bananas, coconut water, maca, spirulina, bee pollen, stevia, vanilla extract, sprouted plant-based protein powder, cinnamon, raw cacao, and acai.
One-pot cooking is popular in many parts of the world, and with good reason. If you make a soup or a stew, you can throw everything into the pot (you can even get your kids to help you!) and go do other things (change after a long day, help your kids with their homework, talk with a friend on the phone, and so on). Secondly, cooking this way instead of boiling ingredients and then throwing out the water means that the liquid in your soup or stew will retain the nutrition of the foods. Make your own vegetable broth in big batches or buy an organic variety from the market. When you get home or when you want an easy meal, heat the vegetable broth on the stove and throw in various veggies, lentils, or even beans (from cartons if you are in a rush) for an easy, nutritious, and family-friendly meal. Try pureeing everything if you like a smoother soup. You can even add brown rice or quinoa to stews, and toast up some gluten-free or whole-grain bread for extra-hungry kids and teenagers to dip into their stew. Invest in a large, good-quality soup pot, and it will be a great friend to you for years to come.
When you do have time to cook, make extra and freeze portion sizes in bisphenol A (BPA)–free containers (a chemical believed to potentially cause hormonal, developmental, and brain issues, among other health concerns). You can freeze anything from gluten-free lasagna to soups, bananas, and even dark chocolate. (Sweet-tooth emergencies are still emergencies!) When you get busy, you can rest assured that not only won’t you starve, you also won’t have to resort to Taco Bell or the equivalent fast-and-easy but incredibly beauty-busting option nearby. This is especially great if you have an erratic schedule that doesn’t always allow for regular grocery shopping. You can grab something to thaw out in the morning before leaving for work, or stick the container in a pot of hot water when you get home if you forgot. Either way, nutritious food that you made yourself is on the way!
If you can find a great local (and preferably organic) market with bins, try to buy large amounts of quinoa, lentils, brown rice, steel-cut oats, and whatever other dried staples you love. Quinoa is a great one because it is mineral and nutrient dense, gluten-free, and cooks up in about 12 to 14 minutes. It’s perfect for quick meals. Having these dried staples around is great when you are busy and don’t have time to go out and shop. It’s ideal to soak them overnight or at least during the day if you can throw them in water on the way to work. But, hey, if you forgot or are in a real time crunch and the choice is between unsoaked quinoa and takeout made with questionable oils and ingredients you aren’t completely sure of, the quinoa option is the clear winner.
Food shopping can take up a lot of time. Not all of us can do daily vegetable shopping like some lucky locals in the South of France. If you can only go grocery shopping once a week or so, be sure to get veggies that are heartier and can last until the end of the week. Red/purple cabbage, onions, shallots, garlic, root vegetables such as yams and spaghetti squash, carrots, and radishes are great in this regard. Use up the more perishable veggies like broccoli or watercress earlier in the week. By being strategic with your veggies’ timetables, you should be able to enjoy a range of veggies over the week.
In addition to freezing spare portions of entrées, it’s also easier and more convenient to make large portion sizes of kale chips, zucchini hummus, and washed and chopped veggies that you can chomp on and dip when you get hungry. Keep everything in airtight glass or BPA-free containers in your fridge and you’ll have a ready supply of beautifying foods even when you’re exhausted or pressed for time.
If you are a Glowing Green Smoothie (this page) drinker, try making a master batch on Sunday (or whatever day of the week is the easiest for you), keeping some portions out for the next day or so, and freezing portion sizes that you can thaw out later in the week. This is a great time-saver and ensures you are following this all-important habit as much as possible.
The fact that you ultimately ingest whatever the animals you eat ingest is an uncomfortable reality for many of us, but getting in touch with your food means really understanding what it is composed of and facing the good, the bad, and the ugly. The harsh truth is that compounds in an animal’s diet bio-accumulate, meaning they become concentrated in the animal’s tissues2 and end up on your fork whether you’re eating a piece of roast chicken or digging into a steak. Upon close examination of what commercially raised animals are fed, this fact is not only uncomfortable, it’s frightening and downright ugly.
First of all, if you eat factory-farmed animals, which means pretty much any animal product that isn’t labeled organic and grass-fed, you’re most likely ingesting genetically modified corn and soy along with that seemingly innocent grilled chicken or hamburger at your weekend barbecue. The United States currently provides subsidies to farmers who grow corn and soybeans, and currently around 90 percent of these crops in the United States are now genetically modified. Livestock producers choose to use corn and soy as the basis of their animal feed not only because it’s cheaper but also because these foods help the animals gain weight faster.3
Genetically modified crops weren’t released until 1996 and started with soy, corn, and cotton (cottonseed oil is commonly used in products like salad dressings and mayonnaise) before spreading into other foods. There hasn’t been enough time to assess the full health ramifications for humans, but research on the effects of genetically modified organism (GMO) consumption in animals (with a much shorter life span than humans) has revealed frightening effects, including reproductive issues, liver and kidney toxicity, sperm damage, and infant mortality.4,5 Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine accidentally discovered that rats that were fed GMO corn material had reproductive issues, and tests on the feed revealed two compounds that “stopped the sexual cycle in females at concentrations approximately two-hundredfold lower than classical phytoestrogens.”6 Both of these substances were also found to contribute to the growth of breast and prostate cancer in cell cultures.7
GMO corn and soy crops rely heavily on pesticides and herbicides (such as Roundup, an herbicide produced by Monsanto that is designed to work with their GMO crop seeds) that build up in animals’ tissues after being consumed, and the meat from these animals therefore contains these residues.8 Exposure to pesticides has been shown to have a negative impact on reproductive, nervous, and immune system functions and increases the risk of cancer.9
But wait, there’s more—much, much more.
On a global scale, commercial animal feed is laced with a cornucopia of toxins, including mycotoxins, antibiotics, prion proteins, pesticides, heavy metals, and bacterial pathogens.10 These toxins can cause a variety of problems, including reproductive dysfunction, bacterial infections, imbalanced gut flora, and reduced immunity. You obviously want to avoid consuming these toxins, but unfortunately that’s not always simple. Comprehensive legislation is already in place to restrict several of the chemical compounds and pathogens in feed, but as we’ve seen from outbreaks of contaminated meat in the past, complete bacterial monitoring is impossible to enforce.
Here is a breakdown of some of the most harmful toxins found in commercial animal feed:
Dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are industrial pollutants that may contaminate feeds and have been detected in milk and dairy products in particular. Dioxins are highly dangerous toxins that are linked to reproductive, developmental, and hormonal problems as well as cancer.11 According to the World Health Organization, “More than 90 percent of human exposure to dioxins is through the food supply, mainly meat and dairy products, fish, and shellfish….Contaminated animal feed is often the root-cause of food contamination.”12
Mercury has been found to contaminate the fishmeal that is used to feed certain animals.13 Mercury is a heavy metal that causes slow but steady damage in your body in a sneaky way. It causes your cell membranes to become leaky, inhibits key enzymes your body needs for energy production and toxin removal, and creates oxidation in your tissues. Oxidation is one of the main reasons you develop disease, as well as the primary reason you age.
Some feed studied revealed samples of bacterial E. coli (short for Escherichia coli) variations (though not strain 0157:H7)14 as well as Salmonella enterica bacteria.15 We have seen E. coli O157:H7 rear its ugly head from time to time in outbreaks, which have unfortunately caused fatalities. Not only potentially deadly, it also can cause bloody diarrhea, dehydration, and kidney failure. There have been numerous beef recalls in recent history, including one of over 50,000 pounds of meat sold by the National Beef Packing Company in 2013.16
There are consistent reports of worldwide feed contamination with fungi and their spores.17,18 Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites of fungi that have the capacity to impair health19 and lead to a range of illnesses and diseases. One German study found that 94 percent of feed samples analyzed were contaminated by two to six different Fusarium mycotoxins.20 Forms of the extremely dangerous toxin aflatoxin have also been identified in contaminated feed.21 This is of particularly grave concern, as chronic aflatoxin exposure has been linked to cancer in humans.22
Another ugly ingredient in animal products is…well, other animals. These include members of the same species that have died in the factory farm. Some commercial feed even includes meat and bonemeal, containing prion proteins. These components of animal tissue have the capacity to transform into agents that cause fatal neurological lesions in a wide range of species.23 Cows were not meant to eat other cows. Period.
Then there are the copious amounts of antibiotics that are added to commercial animal feed on purpose. Animal products are frequently contaminated with residues from drugs that were purposely added to the feed to control disease and enhance livestock performance. In other words, they’re meant to keep the animals alive and healthy enough to grow hefty before being slaughtered. Many of the drugs added to animal feed are undeclared, and residues of these drugs can be found in the meat. One study that examined animal feed in Northern Ireland showed that out of 247 medicated feeds, 35 percent contained undeclared antimicrobials. Even worse, out of 161 “un-medicated” feeds, 44 percent were found to contain antimicrobials. The contaminants most frequently identified included chlortetracycline, sulfonamides, penicillin, and ionophores.24 Yes, you read that right—penicillin. Who knew you were eating one of the strongest antibiotics available with your Sunday morning bacon and eggs?
Farms also use a range of antibiotics to get their chickens to market weight faster, and low-dose-antibiotic use in animals has been linked to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains. This can also wipe out your gut flora—and your whole health, really.25 In 2011, the pharmaceutical company Pfizer temporarily suspended use of the poultry drug Roxarsone after US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports showed that compounds in the drug could break down into inorganic arsenic, a toxin that can produce skin lesions, respiratory irritation, and several types of cancer. Inorganic arsenic was leaching into local water supplies and remaining in chicken tissue after slaughter.26
The effects of chronic low-arsenic exposure are not well known, but studies have indicated that even low-level exposure may contribute to endocrine and cognitive deficits.27 Although use of Roxarsone has been suspended, there are several other similar drugs being used in animal production that have the possibility of exposing consumers to toxic forms of arsenic. Some have even hypothesized that arsenic can be linked to the rise in autism rates.28
Clearly, there is nothing pretty about commercial meat. If and when you choose to eat animal products, look for items that are organic, grass-fed, and free of steroids and hormones. Ideally, try to find someone who sells these products at a local farmer’s market and talk to him or her about how the animals are fed and treated in general.