Advice and Warnings About Holiday Feasts

Everyone loves the food traditions of the holidays. All of my life I have observed every detail of these and other holiday events. They usually start out with everyone arriving with their prized dishes to share, happy and excited for the celebration. A couple of hours later and after feasting well, everyone is sitting (mostly lying) on the couch, moaning that they ate too much, especially on Thanksgiving Day. Some announce they have stomach aches, headaches and even back aches. The bathroom door is usually revolving faster than a department store on Black Friday. At this point, many family members are asking Grandma if she has any over the counter medications to cure their ailments.

What causes these negative side effects of the feasting? The turkey always gets the blame. They say it’s the amino acid tryptophan in it that makes you tired. We have always been told this so everyone knows that to be true, right? If this were really true wouldn’t you think insomniacs would be taking tryptophan supplements at bedtime instead of taking all those dangerous and addictive sleep medications? No, tryptophan is not the culprit for that Thanksgiving Day post-feast coma. Turkey has less of the tryptophan amino acid than chicken, and chicken doesn’t knock us out when we eat any. When was the last time you heard someone eating a healthy lean chicken sandwich say it’s putting them to sleep? Most likely never.

From all of my years faithfully observing these holiday health disasters, I came to some probable conclusions for myself. After watching a couple of 5 pound bags of sugar, white flour and a can of hydrogenated trans fat disappear into that beautiful and tempting traditional family feast, I started putting the puzzle together. It’s obvious to me that the heavy overload of refined food ingredients in the feast is what bloats your family member’s stomachs all the way to the couch and bathroom.

An additional serious issue is the ingredients in all of those easy to fix ‘food’ items with seasoning packets. You see them stacked in all the grocery aisles and filling everyone’s shopping carts during the holiday season. These products may seem innocent enough but you need to be aware that these seasonings are not the kind of food you may have innocently thought you purchased. Your thoughts were of fresh dried herbs right out the garden, just like the picture on the packet. Nope. Most are nothing more than processed sugar, MSG, hydrogenated oils, dyes and highly addictive inflammatory chemicals, with a dash of onion and garlic powder.

What did we do for thousands of years prior to these products being introduced into our lifestyles? Are you starting to get the picture, and is it time to stop blaming the turkey? These chemicals are not only highly inflammatory (which can cause tremendous weight gain) but have also been known to cause a lot of disease. When you load your body with these neurotoxins and excitotoxins bad things happen, and I mean really bad things! These toxins kill healthy cells, and a lot of them! Besides the fact that your body becomes inflamed and is in distress when you ingest these chemicals, your thyroid crashes. What happens to your body besides the extreme swelling of your organs when you ingest these insulin exploding thyroid killing poisons? You become sleepy…very sleepy in fact. And it’s not just feeling tired. Most people become somewhat lethargic, some have headaches, some have kidney, bladder and bowel problems. Some can hardly catch their breath from all of the heart racing and palpitations caused by these refined chemical products.

So I advise you to take a step back from the traditional holiday feasting recipes, look at what’s really going into the bodies of your loved ones, and stop ignoring the truth: real food doesn’t cause you to feel ill, in fact it’s usually quite the opposite. Real foods make you feel alive and energetic! The truth is the truth, nothing more, nothing less! I invite you to learn these truths with me. I have spent over 4 ½ decades learning the truth about healthy living, and most of it I learned the hard way! I am extremely excited to share these truths with you in my new book, Healed by Farm. I know these truths will help you cook the healthiest meal ever during the next holiday season, and will most likely reward your family member’s bodies with extreme vitality. And when you make these healthy choices I suggest, know that your post-feasting coma and sickness will never come your way again. Blessings to everyone during the holidays ahead.

~John