What a "Muscle Head" Says about Organic Food

By Tom Venuto
www.burnthefat.com

Part 1

Last week I was talking about nutrition with one of my workout buddies and when I mentioned grass fed beef and "organic food” he asked, "Do you mean like what you get at Whole Foods Market?"

I said, "Yes, exactly... that's a natural food and organic supermarket." He said, "Yeah well, that place costs so much, I call it Whole Paycheck!"

I was rolling on the floor laughing, but the truth is, organic food really is expensive and so is grass fed beef and free range chicken, so it's a valid question to ask, “Is it worth it?”

After researching the subject and doing some personal experiments with my own diet, let me offer you my take on it from a bodybuilder’s viewpoint. This is a perspective on organics you may not have heard before.

First, look at it this way - if you put the cheapest fuel in your luxury car, how well is it going to run and how many miles are you going to get out of it?

While I'm on car analogies, health and fitness author and educator Paul Chek once wrote about how ridiculous it is to watch how many $75,000 + cars pull up to the Mcdonald's or Burger King drive through window to buy $1.99 hamburgers.

I would say that's a serious case of screwed up priorities, wouldn't you? The driver has no problem shelling out the $1,100 monthly car payment, but it's too much to ask him to put premium fuel into his own "bodily vehicle."

How can you put ANY price tag on your body and your health? You can buy another car, but you've only got one body.

Now, as for the grass fed beef and organic foods question….

For best results in body composition improvement, which I define as burning fat and or building muscle, (and I'll even go as far as to say for optimal health as well), I am a believer in including animal proteins, including lean meats.

I have no wish to take up the vegetarian debate in this article. I respect vegetarians and acknowledge that a healthy and lean body can be developed with a vegetarian diet if it is done properly, although it may be more challenging for strict vegans to gain muscle for various reasons.

However, in recommending animal protein as part of a healthy fat loss and muscle building nutrition program, I do agree that we all need to give some serious thought to what is in our meat (and in the rest of our food).

Some people say that meat is part of our “evolutionary” diet and it’s the way we were intended to eat and I wouldn’t argue with that. But is the meat we’re eating in today’s modern society the same as what was hunted and eaten many thousands of years ago by our cave-man ancestors, or has some “toxic stuff” found its way into our beef, poultry and fish that wasn’t there before?

I also think we should consider what is *missing* from our commercially grown food, that is supposed to be in there, that probably used to be there in the past, but may not be today.

A lot of people are not paying any attention to this... even people who should know better. I admit it - I was oblivious to this for a long time myself. Here’s why:

I am not your typical "health and wellness" or "weight loss" expert. I am also competitive bodybuilder. We bodybuilders are well known for eating very clean diets with lots of lean protein and natural carbs, as well as for looking like "the picture of health" with our ripped abs and impressive muscularity.

We eat our oatmeal and egg whites for breakfast, and proudly walk around with our chicken breast, rice and broccoli or our flank steak, yams and asparagus, and boast about how perfect and clean our meals are and how our diets are already “clean” and could not be improved.

But how many bodybuilders or fitness enthusiasts are there - even serious, dedicated and educated ones - who don't give a single thought to the poisonous chemicals that might be lurking in our supposedly "clean" food?

The Food and Drug Administration lists more than 3,000 chemicals that can be added to our food supply. One billion pounds of pesticides and farming chemicals are used on our crops every year.

Depending on what source you quote, the average American consumes as much as 150 pounds of chemicals and food additives per year.

Does ANYBODY out there think that this is good for you?

Didn't think so.

If you had a way to avoid all these chemicals and toxins, would you at least explore it, even if it cost a little more?

Although this topic is controversial and hotly debated, organic food is gaining in popularity and seems to fit this bill.

Food grown on certified organic farms does not contain:

• Pesticides
• Herbicides
• Fungicides
• Hormones
• Antibiotics
• Chemical fertilizers

It is also not:

• Irradiated
• Genetically modified