Food Fight #2Last week we learned:
(1) What “food” really is.
(2) We can significantly influence our health every time we eat.
This week is about how food affects the immune system. The immune system is the second biggest item affecting our health. The first reader to respond last week referred to it. It is also mentioned most of the time when food and nutrition are discussed. It has one function. The immune system is the body's fight system.
The immune system is our defense department. Its job is to fight off non-beneficial germs. Its weapons are millions of cells. These cells need ammunition. This ammunition is energy from food. If cells don't get this energy, the immune system cannot protect us. In many instances, our health starts to slowly lose ground, so there could be a tendency to not believe this or think it's not that serious.
My immune system has been so weak and so confused for so long, I am suffering from “friendly fire.” My immune system is fighting me instead of protecting me. My immune cells are attacking my skin cells. That's like the police attacking citizens. Hmmn!
What causes an immune system to malfunction like this? Generally accepted medical professionals, their organizations and the governments in this country say they don't know. I am certain years of not giving these cells the energy they need has contributed to this infighting. I am certain years of opening my mouth and swallowing a lot of chemicals in the stuff I've eaten has messed up the mental circuitry of these already weak cells. When the mind is messed up anything can happen. My mind has been short circuited due to shortsightedness and this is what has happened. My immune system has significantly broken down. I'm reaping what I've eaten.
Whenever we eat things that contain any portion that is not food, the body still has to decide what to do with it. If we're lucky it won't be digested and will pass through the stool. If we're partially lucky, non-food is absorbed into the blood but quickly swept out through the kidneys. If we're totally unlucky, which I suspect is usually the case, the non-food chemicals use up energy, interfere with nutrients, are absorbed into the blood, are circulated to cells, are stored in cells and alter cell performance. When cell after cell after cell is interfered with and cannot do its job, chaos and confusion becomes our general health condition. Where the negative effects stop, we're the last one to know.
One more analogy: Unnecessary chemicals/drugs/poisons/toxins in our food, in our bloodstream and in our bodies are not guests we can simply and eventually get to leave. Non-food ingredients are the kind of guests who steal something or harm us every time. Once we let these known criminals in, they take, little by little. These type of guests track mud, put their feet on the furniture, do their laundry, eat our food, take stuff...you get the picture. Tell someone your guests have been robbing you, are more trouble than they're worth and have been acting this way for years. They will immediately ask who keeps inviting them and why invite criminals and good-for-nothings into your body in the first place. As we open our mouths and swallow before answering, those two seemingly small actions, will be the entire answer.
Just because we get check ups, vaccines, flu shots, wash our hands, stay home when sick, go to the doctor, take medicine, get rest, drink fluids and eat something doesn't mean we are taking care of the basics of health if what we eat is lacking the energy our cells need. We can make improvements right now by educating ourselves about food, especially nutrition and the immune system. This should help us understand how critical it is to drastically reduce eating things that work against our immune system and therefore, against our health. Since our immune system is designed to fight for us, the immediate, intelligent, life choice is to stop fighting the system.
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