Today is my second day concentrating on the following goals:
- Looking after my endocrine system
- Reducing my weight back to normal after gaining 3kg
- Completing four weeks of C25K
- Creating a balcony garden
So here are some thoughts from my notebook about achieving progress in these areas. Today again I’ll be focusing on the endocrine system in my blog post.
Balancing the endocrine system
The problem with xenoestrogens is that our hormones generally go about their business quietly. We only produce small amounts of estrogen and small amounts of progesterone, and small amounts of the other hormones which greatly affect our moods and regulation of the body’s systems. They are very sensitive. Xenoestrogens are highly prevalent in the environment and mimic the natural estrogen in the body, which means that essentially our bodies are trying to quietly play a symphony while the kid next door is banging loudly on drums, crashing cymbals and playing the bagpipes. What happens is that any processes that would normally be handled by estrogen become magnified 100 times, and any processes that would normally be handled by other hormones become drowned out in all the clamour.
So these are the things I’ve been doing and writing about in my notebook:
Consuming maca in a smoothie at least once every day
I’m still doing this. I discovered that maca tastes surprisingly good with a tomato-based smoothie. I drank one and didn’t even remember that the maca was in it. Also banana, blueberry and maca is quite good, as is banana, tahihi and maca. Mixing just banana and maca together tends to taste over the top with the maca flavour however, and I’m also finding it a bit strong in this morning’s banana and kale green smoothie. From past experience I believe that maca goes well with cacao and nut mylk, but I don’t tend to consume nut mylk very often personally.
Avoiding plastic coming into contact with things I eat
Photo by James Dunn
Wow this one is tough. I am starting with awareness rather than trying to solve the problem immediately, and I am realising that the majority of my food is coming covered with plastic. And here was me thinking that because most of my diet consists of fruit and vegetables I should be saved from the modern packaging process – wrong!
The foods I eat that are in contact with plastic include:
- Marked-down fruit from the market tends to be sold in plastic bags (“three bags for two dollar!”).
- I buy a lot of pre-packaged green leafy salad mix from the supermarket because the sealed plastic bag keeps it fresh longer. But… lots of plastic!
- I eat some kind of yeast-free flat bread every day. This kind of bread, being so thin, tends to dry out easily so it always comes vacuum packed in plastic.
- If I buy hommous it always comes in a plastic container (but if I make it myself I put it into a glass container).
- If I buy loose-leaf salad instead of pre-packed salad, it gets put into a plastic bag at the shop in order for me to weigh and purchase it.
- All of my vegetables in the fridge are wrapped in plastic to keep them fresh.
The foods I eat that are not in contact with plastic include:
- Powdered superfoods from healthfood shop – I tend to buy them in tins.
- Fruit that was not marked down and purchased from the market often does not find its way into a plastic bag.
- Home-made hommous, dips and salad dressings.
It seems that the estrogenic properties of soft plastics have only just recently been an issue for consumers, due to a wider awareness of the side-effects of estrogen dominance. Some recent reports from health authorities have shown that the xenoestrogen Bisphenol A (BPA) found in soft plastics is having a negative effect on the population, especially for foetuses, infants and young children.
The Wikipedia article about BPA suggests that “people wishing to lower their exposure to bisphenol A [should] avoid canned food and polycarbonate plastic containers (which shares resin identification code 7 with many other plastics) unless the packaging indicates the plastic is bisphenol A-free. The National Toxicology Panel recommends avoiding microwaving food in plastic containers, putting plastics in the dishwasher, or using harsh detergents, to avoid leaching.”
Some more notes:
- The softer the plastic, the more likely it is to leach. Gladwrap, plastic bags, squeezeable containers and other very pliable plastics are the main offenders.
- BPA leakage dramatically increases if the food is heated, particularly microwaved, therefore eating food raw and/or cold will be a benefit (never microwave food while it is covered with gladwrap – it is like covering your food in birth control pills).
- Vegetables and salad greens I normally keep in plastic to keep them fresh. However, they will stay fresh in any airtight container in the fridge.
- Corn-based plastic is BPA-free, and so pre-packed salads in corn bags should be safe to eat.
Given that I am noticing some effects of estrogen dominance in my own body (for example I have learned that estrogen dominance tends to result in low levels of progesterone, and progesterone is necessary to hold a pregnancy until full term. Women with low levels of progesterone can experience unexpected miscarriages or premature birth in the second trimester. So, it seems that I am finding my answers) and I am still in my twenties, plastic bags seem as good a place as any to focus my attention. I am going to find some glass containers in which to store my salads, instead of storing them in plastic.
I am thinking that if I focus on reducing the amount of xenoestrogens in my high volume foods such as fruit, vegetables and salads then it will have the biggest affect on my intake. The reason being, I can eat an entire 200g packet of flat bread and that will give me 600 calories and is stored in one plastic bag. I would be very completely full if I ate that much. However, 200g of pre-packed lettuce comes in two plastic bags and only provides 30 calories which means I still need to eat a lot more. I typically eat about 4 bags of pre-packed salad each day, in addition to all my other fresh food. While this is incredibly healthy in terms of eating so much live, fresh, greens, it means that I am consuming much higher concentrations of BPA than I would if I was eating more concentrated food.
The next major area of concern is pesticides… I’ll cover that tomorrow, along with some notes from my other goals.
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