People ask me all the time to help them lose weight. In some cases, I cannot help because they only want a diet and diets don’t work. In fact, the research is pretty clear, if you diet, you not only gain all the weight back that you lost, you usually gain back more than you lost. That’s because the “diet” mentally goes something like this:  “I can do anything for a few weeks, or even a few months, as long as I can have the food I love again once I lose the weight.” In other words we go right back to the pattern that caused the weight gain in the first place.

     Another reason dieting doesn’t work is that people on a diet eat less food instead of eating healthier food. US foods have some of the unhealthiest ingredients in the world added to them, many of which are fattening as well as addicting, which is why we are #1 for obesity compared to all other developed nations. Talk about a terrible trio; US foods taste really good, they are actually very damaging, and they are incredibly addicting.

     No wonder most people trying to lose weight do so by eating less of their favorite foods, long enough to lose the weight, and then go right back to eating them again, and, of course, gaining the weight back. It’s called yo-yo dieting. Unfortunately, almost all of us have been there.

     If this applies to you, it’s really not your fault. The odds are stacked against you. You probably have no idea how addicting and fattening many of the foods are that you eat. Likewise, if you are like most people, you have been sold  a bill of goods by the diet industry, i.e. that diets actually work. They don’t, but the diet industry makes a whopping $192 billion/year selling you on the idea that they do.

     But let’s say you are one of the enlightened ones and you know you have to change the way you eat, and not just how much you eat, but you still cannot lose the weight. Then this article is for you.

     The following is a list of all the things that are hidden in US foods that make us fat. Most people do not know what these things are, let alone how dangerous they are. I am on a mission to enlighten folks. Knowledge is power. It is also the first step toward regaining your health, and in the process, ending up at a healthy weight that you can maintain without giving up delicious food.

Glyphosate

Glyphosate is one of the most dangerous herbicides ever to be unleashed on the world population. Here in America, we are drowning in it. Banned in most other countries and constantly fighting lawsuits, the parent company, Monsanto now Bayer, is still able to douse most of our food in it despite the danger it poses. We represent only 4% of the world population but we eat 34% of the world’s glyphosate. 

Why is that a problem? Glyphosate has been shown to be an obesogen , meaning it causes obesity, a carcinogen, meaning it causes cancer, an autogen, meaning, it causes autoimmune diseases, and an allergen, meaning it causes allergies. As far as this discussion is concerned, it is the first one that we are concerned about, i.e. its ability to cause obesity.

      In 1996 Monsanto began spraying glyphosate on all GMO corn and soy crops in the United States. When you understand that there is some form of GMO corn or soy in almost every processed food on the market in the US, you understand why this is such an enormous issue. Eventually, it was also sprayed on wheat despite the fact that wheat doesn’t need a bug killer. 

     It was also in 1996 that the United States began gaining weight. While we were a comparatively healthy country prior to that time, and the majority of us were a normal weight compared with all other developed nations, we are now the most obese nation in the world with the most obese children. This trend began in the mid-1990s, or at the same time that crops were being doused with glyphosate. Today’s obesity is a major health issue, so it is no surprise that we have also dropped in the ranking of 54 out of 57 among the wealthiest countries in the world for overall wellness.  

     There are a couple of other indicators that set us apart from other countries. Most wealthy nations are getting taller and living longer. We are getting shorter and fatter relating to obesity. Beginning in 2016,we are also living shorter lives. This is a  first in recorded history unless there was a nuclear event.

     All of these problems are related to toxins in the food supply. Glyphosate is the number one most dangerous toxin and therefore at the top of my list of things to avoid if you are trying to manage your weight.

     To avoid glyphosate, eat 100% organic, non-GMO, grass-fed, wild-caught foods as a starting point. Stay tuned for our next article which covers a host of other toxins in the U.S. foods that contribute to obesity.