The food plan I will be explaining later in the article has as one of its goals reducing in your food supply chemicals that mimic estrogen (fat- making hormone). Certain foods increase estrogen and others decrease it. There’s one group of foods that is anti-estrogen and anti-toxin, called cruciferous (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, radish, kale, Brussels sprouts, etc.). Cruciferous comes from the Latin word crux, meaning “cross,” since the flowers of these vegetables are shaped like a cross. If we’re dealing with chemicals in the body, it makes sense to consume as many of these vegetables as possible or take them in whole-food supplement form. To make a natural cleaning fluid for washing vegetables, mix one-third of a cup of apple cider vinegar in a gallon of water. This will remove some superficial chemicals, although nothing can remove the internal chemicals. Also, break off and discard the outer leaves of leafy vegetables. Trim the fat from meat and the skin from poultry and fish if they are commercial.
Also, if given a choice between commercial fish and commercial meat, go for the fish. It takes 60 pounds of pesticide-sprayed feed and hay to produce 1 pound of edible beef, not to mention growth hormones are given throughout the lifetime of the cattle. It takes only 1 pound of feed to produce 1 pound of edible fish—hence fewer hormonedisrupting chemicals.
Coffee
Drinking two cups of coffee each day means buying some 18 pounds of beans each year—the total annual yield of 12 coffee trees. To keep those trees productive, coffee farmers apply 12 pounds of fertilizers and pesticides every year. Even though this program is going to recommend not drinking coffee, during the transition period I recommend consuming organic coffee. Coffee also contains caffeine and is damaging to your adrenal glands, a factor that can keep you from burning fat. Organic means without the use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. When you read labels, you want to make sure they say “Organic,” not “Natural.” These are not the same. Natural, in legal terminology, only means that those foods are not treated with chemicals during processing. Natural can mean many different things but it doesn’t mean without pesticides or insecticides. I’m not saying you have to start eating 100 percent organic foods tomorrow. However, I would recommend eating at least 50 percent organic foods.
Now, you are not going to go to your friend’s house for dinner and say, “You know, um . . . I recently read Dr. Berg’s book, and um . . . I noticed that that meal you’re about to serve me is filled with pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, heavy metals, antibiotics and growth hormones. . . . And that tuna has mercury in it. . . . I hope you don’t mind —I brought my own food in this bag here.” You wouldn’t do that; it’s not socially accepted—you’d never be invited over again. Maybe that’s why no one invites me to dinner anymore.
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