FOOD TABLES, and an explanation

If you have read the unit on Food Stress, you know I developed a food for my son who had a metabolic problem. And the way I did it is, I studied Food tables the way some people read stock market reports or comic books--because I cared.

PRINTING THIS OUT, it's 20-pages, black-and-white, for you to refer to and use everyday. It's yours. I tried to make it all obvious and clear. I hope I succeeded.

Of course, USDA's on-line tables are the most detailed, but they are tedious to access, one-at-a-time, mixed in with junk food. So I collected data for a while, and put it all in my own table. That's why this looks a little rough. Oh well. It's accurate, especially in the folate and amino acids departments.

So I made up my own tables, out of the USDA info, so I had a ready reference. And I made sure that folate and amino acid values were present for every food, because those were the nutrients vital to my son's recovery from PKU (phenylketonuria). Whether Steven actually had PKU, I don't know because I BALKED and REFUSED to allow him to be come toxic enough to be tested. I just assumed it was PKU; I treated him as if he had PKU, and the outcome was successful. After 3 and a half years on his special "milk," he recovered, and he has remained well until now, at 23 he is an Army Officer.

So, I began recording what I PREFER into one table and what's GOOD FOR ME, in another table; and finally, mother's milk values that I needed anyway. So the first table you see is Restaurant and Comfort Food that we associate with feeling good.

Just to get your oriented to these tables, you will find FOOD NAMES, in alphabetical order, common foods, beginning at the top of the page, left margin, moving toward the right. Cumulative SUMS are given at the right margin, so you can see for yourself how you accumulate NUTRIENTS, as you consume meal-after-meal.

I'll meet you at page four

Okay, here we are at the summary; and what it says is that Restaurant and Comfort Food RESEMBLE Mother's Milk in how it makes us feel.

• It also points out, Comfort Food has three times the protein values of Mother's Milk. And since protein is acid, the Comfort Diet is predominantly acid-forming.
• Complex carbs and fiber are definitely missing from comfort food, if you've ever gotten a hankering for ice cream, cheese cake, chocolate, sodas and/or candy. This is not good.
• Comfort food has a lot of fat, saturated and compacted. These eventually clog the circulatory system. This too is not good.
• As you will find out when you compare the Comfort Diet to the Simple Foods diet, there aren't even 1/3 as many minerals in comfort food (they don't TASTE THAT GOOD, you know); and so the whole metabolism slows down for lack of minerals. This isn't good either.
• Eating out or making Comfort food for your family doubles the sodium you get, and amps up digestion without amping up the B vitamins that make digestion work. This means people who primarily eat out or cook comfort food are running in deficit for vitamins and minerals; and they have an excess of sodium, sugar and fat. This is why they get fat. Ta! Dah!
• Selecting foods from natural foods changes the whole picture. Your next page is the SUMMARY of what happens when you compare "what you get from comfort food" TO "what you get from plain food." And it's telling.
• Plain food gives you the vitamins and minerals that comfort food lacked; and it lacks the excesses in salt, fat and glucose that you don't need. So, the best thing you can do for your family is, just eat out once a week and the rest of the time, eat and serve your family, simple food.

And that in a nutshell is the whole point of these food tables, to show you how it all adds up in each case.

So use these Tables (or the ones on-line from USDA) and keep track of what you're eating. You'll feel much better once you know.