Just starting and feeling defeated! (Please forgive the ranting) page

[Traderjodie]

Hi everyone,

I have been doing what I thought was great for a couple of months now. It started with the youtube video by Dr. Lustig. I heard it and gave up sugar on the spot. I felt better. I started reading and found Garry Taubes, Jimmy Moore, Caveman Doctor and finally this wonderful site. I gave up wheat and processed refined starches. I added delicious whole fats to my diet and started cooking in coconut oil -- amazing! I felt great and lost weight. I had energy. I got off some medication I had been on for years. I should have stopped reading.

But no. I learned about the dangers of legumes and soy and started cutting back on my peanut butter. I decided I had to make my own mayo becuase of the soybean oil. Ok...I can still do this. I learned about grass fed beef and pastured eggs. I am feeling overwhelmed but looking into it.

And then....I find out that my tuna, my favorite go to snack and quick meal is made with SOY!!! Its all enough to make me want to throw up my hands and give up. I honestly don't know if I can afford the grass fed, pastured meats. I don't know what I'm going to do if I have to give up my tuna as well as my peanut butter.

This may be healthy, but darn its anything but simple! I'm starting to wonder if I can really live my whole life this way.

[sbhikes]

Tuna with soy? WTF?? Why don't you just by regular tuna in water? And get some salmon in a can, too, while you are at it.

As for the meats, you don't have to eat grass fed or pastured meats. If you can find them and afford them, great, but if not, don't sweat it. Grass fed beef sometimes doesn't taste as good as corn fed. But pastured pork and chicken almost always tastes better. But no big deal. I eat standard stuff all the time, mostly because I like organ and variety meats and the only way I can get that without resorting to mail order is to get the non-grass fed stuff.

I have a friend who all he did was go to FA (one of those anonymous groups for food addicts) and the prescription there is to abstain from sugar and flour. That's all he and his wife have done and they have had all the health improvements we all talk about here.

Don't make it harder than it has to be.

[SCruz Carter]

Seriously listen to SB Hikes. Dont make it too hard, work up to everything and if you are not 100% that is OK, relax, dont stress and enjoy your food. That is what the 80/20 rule is all about. A little bit of soy wont kill you, neither will a small fail every now and then, just do the best you can on your budget and you will see the results you want. I am a teacher and cannot afford grass fed beef, BUT I pay a bit more than conventional for excellent LOCAL beef, pork and chicken. I love it and get my smug factor from the lower carbon footprint and that Santa Cruz has plenty of grass to feed these cows so much of what they are eating is probably grass. Some things need to be organic (berries) and some not so much (bananas). Stress can be as harmfull as bad food so do not stress about what should be the best part of your day- EATING (ok, maybe the 2nd best part of your day if you have had a great night)

[Traderjodie]

Thanks for the reminders to stay calm. The Tuna is regular tuna in water in a can. Its Bumblebee. I had no idea but most brands have soy as an ingredient. Look on your can. I know I can't shoot for 100% but at the beginning its hard to know what is important and what is not. Sometimes it seems that the posts on these topics make it feel as if each element is enough to destroy your health. Gluten is terrible, Soy is terrible, vegatable oils. Its overwhelming. But You guys are right.

Thanks.

[JoanieL]

I freaked out when I saw that my tuna had soy in it also. The front of the can reads tuna packed in water. Then you read the ingredients and see the soy. It sucks.

I gave up tuna, and anything in a can. And almost anything in a jar. In fact, if it's packaged, I read the ingredients like some paranoid freakazoid. Because paranoid freakazoid I have become.

The top of the food chain is where poisons concentrate. This is because if animals eat plants that are poison, the poison is more concentrated in the animal. So, when starting to allocate your food dollar on healthy food, start with animal products. When you start eating organic produce, search "the dirty dozen" and "the clean 15" to find out which plants you should try to buy organic and which you can get away with traditionally grown.

You'll get there. You're only paranoid if they're not out to get you. And they are out to get you. heh.

[Noctiluca]

And just pay attention to how you feel. You said you were feeling pretty awesome with just giving you grains and sugars. You started getting super stressed as you tried to cut more foods. So don't cut them yet. Get comfortable with your new style of eating. Then, when you have developed a new level of comfort with what you are eating and you want to try something (like eliminating soy entirely perhaps?) you could quit the tuna. Or not. And for what it's worth... I buy regular old mayo. I've made my own and I don't like how it tastes. I don't eat it particularly often so I'm not gonna worry about it.

[Sceptic]

Thanks for the reminders to stay calm. The Tuna is regular tuna in water in a can. Its Bumblebee. I had no idea but most brands have soy as an ingredient. Look on your can. I know I can't shoot for 100% but at the beginning its hard to know what is important and what is not. Sometimes it seems that the posts on these topics make it feel as if each element is enough to destroy your health. Gluten is terrible, Soy is terrible, vegatable oils. Its overwhelming. But You guys are right.

Avoid wheat (and most other grains, while you're at it), avoid vegetable oils, avoid GM soy, and cut your sugar right back and you're probably over 90% there. It's important to not sweat the details too much; stress is probably more unhealthy than a lot of the things that some of us tend to stress about eating.

Do what many of us do: if food advice says that what you want to eat is healthy, then take that as the Word of God. If food advice says that what you want to eat is unhealthy, then take that with a pinch of salt

[BratKat]

About the tuna: the low-sodium Bumblebee (I think it's Bumblebee, but it could be Starkist, but definitely low-sodium) doesn't have soy-- just tuna and water. Tastes fine. But either way, don't sweat the details TOO much, just do the best you reasonably can.

[afsjesse]

And really, you shouldn't be having too much tuna as it is. Try for canned sardine, oyster, wild salmon, clams, etc... There's a whole other world out there in the canned food department.

[Omni]

Cut the processed foods and grains first, their your worst offenders, if you eat meat, fruit, veg, natural yoghurt, nuts & seeds your'e already 80% of the way there, irrespective of whether they are pasture, organic etc.
Then gradually as you locate affordable sources of better quality foods you can fine tune your diet, remember diet is only half of it, lifestyle, exercise & stress management is the other half of good health, so don't stress if your diet isn't 100% primal.