by: Craig Stellpflug
(NaturalNews) Junk food is over-processed and too easy to digest. Junk food requires very little processing by the body because it is mostly sugar, over-processed grains and empty fillers like hydrolyzed starches, cellulose and maltodextrin. The digestive system is like any other system in the body, if you don't use it, you lose it. Your gut becomes lazy.
To avoid flaccid gut tone one needs a decent amount of unprocessed fiber in the diet. Plenty of raw veggies usually do the trick and help with gut tone maintenance. To restore the gut tone it takes extra exercise in the form of supplemental fiber like psyllium husk or flax seed. The bowels push against the bulk which scrubs the intestinal walls and strengthens the peristaltic movement of the muscles. Abdominal crunches, like sit-ups can also help prolapsed and sagging organs to return to better function and positions.
Complex digestive juices
When a junk food junkie lives off of devitalized and nutrient deficient foods, the digestive tract doesn't require complex enzymes to process the empty nutrition so it eventually quits making them. The body doesn't forget how to make them, it just makes less and less of them. When the repentant junkie changes the diet, the body can't make the required amounts of enzymes to glean the nutrients good food provides. Even on a new pristine diet, the junkie is effectively starving for nutrients. Never satisfied, the junkie turns back to the comfort of the easy food.
It can take years to destroy a digestive system and it takes many months of faithful diet and supplementing to restore it. To recover a junk food gut takes time and intervention. Critical digestive enzymes are needed to extract vital nutrients and supplemental enzymes are necessary until the system can make it on its own again.
Metal amalgam teeth fillings exude mercury vapor which suppresses our immune systems and destroys our digestive enzymes by upstaging the normal micronutrients that make enzymes work. Amalgams also suppress the thyroid, which further slows down gut function. Heavy metals from our everyday cookware destroy food nutrients and leach into our digestive system to further complicate our digestion (Teflon is the worst and titanium cookware is the best).
Complex junk food chemicals
Lots of chemicals are required to make unhealthy and devitalized food tasty. As the junk food junkie devours processed foods and their digestive tract becomes lazy, the detoxifying processes in the liver and kidney become overburdened with the plethora of indigestible chemicals being thrown at it. The overburdened liver has to store the excess toxins in fat to keep up with the toxic burden. This is especially true with high fructose corn syrup that is processed 100 percent by the liver. Fat cells contain up to 200 times the toxins than reside in the blood.
A conundrum arises when the dedicated junkie changes their ways. The liver is now free to tackle the stored toxins and the reformed junkie feels worse than ever, especially as the fat begins to dissolve and releases all the stored toxins at once. You can eat right, lose weight and feel worse than ever, but this lasts a short while. Activated charcoal can help ease the toxic burden on the digestive tract during acute weight loss but should only be taken short-term.
The fix
Restoration of digestive health is not an overnight fix. It is a lifestyle change and a commitment to your body for life. It's not easy, but it's easier than a slow death by junk food and disease!