My whole family ate dinner last night at Beef O’Brady’s with a bunch of friends after a soccer game.. I hate Beefs because everytime I eat there I usually leave feeling pretty rotten. And, if I don’t feel terrible when I walk out of the place, it is a pretty good bet that I will feel terrible within a few hours or the next morning when I wake up.
It certainly wasn’t my choice to go to Beef O’Bradys. If it was up to me, I would have chosen some other restaurant that wasn’t a chain.
Chain restaurants serve the worst quality food, have you noticed? To get a decent meal, you really need to go to a sole proprietorship type of restaurant where the cook is usually the owner (or at least milling around the kitchen area) and there is some degree of pride in the quality of the food that is served.
But, you can’t live in a bubble, especially if you have children. When a bunch of friends want to go to Beef O’Brady’s to hang out after the big game, you go along and try to eat whatever will cause the least amount of pain and suffering later.
I’ve tried the “I’m going home to eat” approach and found that it just doesn’t work very well. Socializing with friends over a meal is a big part of getting to know folks and enjoying their company. Figuring out how to navigate the processed food landmines at a place like Beefs is just part of learning how to stay healthy in a world of garbage food. It isn’t easy, but it’s just part of the challenge.
All this blah blah blah about Beef O’Brady’s is a roundabout way of bringing me to the main point of this blog: Industrial Food Sickness, also known as IFS.
What is Industrial Food Sickness anyway?
Anyone who has embarked upon an unprocessed, Real Food lifestyle instinctively knows exactly what I’m talking about here.
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| Food That Will Cause Industrial Food Sickness |
Industrial Food Sickness is the short term illness folks experience when they eat highly processed, msg and additive laden food when their diet is unprocessed, nutrient dense, and whole foods based the majority of the time.
Dealing with IFS is one of the biggest concerns folks express to me when they transition to the unprocessed, Real Food way of life to experience their best health.
“Why can’t I eat out anymore without feeling terrible for 2 days afterward?”
“Church and school potlucks make me feel ill and I find that I don’t enjoy going anymore, why is that?”
Why do folks suddenly become prone to IFS? Why do foods that never seemed to bother you before you began to eat healthy suddenly keep you up all night with any combination of IFS symptoms: stomach cramps, headache, vomiting, diarrhea, joint pain, dizziness, and the most common symptom: absolute exhaustion (note: I zonked out on the couch for about an hour after getting home from Beefs).
The reason is because when you start eating whole, unprocessed Real Food the majority of the time, your gut begins to heal. Beneficial bacteria begin to re-establish dominance over the gut pathogens that have been ruling the roost for years, maybe even decades. Nutrient absorption improves tremendously as the perforations in the gut wall begin to heal and the enterocytes that are responsible for breaking down our food into particles that can be absorbed into the blood grow stronger with each passing day.
Throw some highly processed, additive laden food into this improving gut environment and suddenly, the entire healing process takes a violent step or two backwards. Processed food does not nourish beneficial gut flora; it encourages the growth of pathogens. This is why even a single meal of highly processed foods can cause a rapid surge of the gut pathogens at the expense of the beneficial flora. This battle between good and bad bacteria in your gut is what makes you feel so tired and sick after a meal at a typical American style restaurant, a potluck, or a birthday party with supermarket cake and high fructose corn syrup juice boxes.
Industrial Food Sickness can be compared to a teetotaler drinking a fifth of vodka and ending up in the Hospital Emergency Room with alcohol poisoning whereas a drunk doing the same thing would show little signs of drunkeness.
The difference is that the drunk is used to it!
Does being “used to it” mean that the fifth of vodka isn’t harming the drunk?
Absolutely not! The drunk’s liver is still getting slammed every time he drinks a fifth of vodka.
Similarly, just because you used to be able to go to Beef O’Brady’s and eat whatever you wanted and not feel sick for 2 days does not mean that it wasn’t devastating your insides!
Be thankful that now your body has healed enough from your Real Food lifestyle to tell you that it is in distress from the garbage you just fed it!
Industrial Food Sickness is your canary in the mine that what you just ate wasn’t the best of choices.
I used to detest Industrial Food Sickness. It used to bother me that I couldn’t eat garbage food anymore without feeling terrible.
Now I realize that IFS is just a signal that my body is so much healthier than before. My body is well enough to feel sick when it is assaulted by processed food instead of just numb. That is a very good thing!
If you are reading this and you haven’t ever experienced Industrial Food Sickness, I would recommend that you change over to the Real Food Lifestyle as quickly as possible. You are like the drunk drinking a fifth of vodka and not feeling a thing. Your body is so messed up it has become numb to the pain.
Industrial Food Sickness is the one illness you want to experience as it is a very strong deterrent to eating the foods that will bring you chronic ill health. It’s also a very good sign that your health is improving!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
It's helpful to try to forgive ourselves, our mothers, whoever was involved in yesterday's poor choices, while at the same time being proactive and vigilant in the areas where we can make changes moving forward, not only in terms of what we eat and how it's raised, but our right to access it.
-Beth
Hi Sarah! I loved this post. I am very new to all this Real Food stuff. 3 months ago I thought I was feeding my family a healthy diet: low or nonfat dairy, chickens breasts or ground turkey (if any meat at all), canola oil for baking, 100% whole wheat bread, NO butter because this is what our doctors and the main stream media tell us we should be eating. I was getting frustrated with being told one thing and then a few years later being told the opposite. That is when I decided that God doesn't make mistakes. A friend recommended the Maker's Diet, which introduced me to Nourishing Traditions and since then I have been trying to change everything: raw dairy, pasture beef, chicken and eggs, grinding my own organic wheat and then trying to make sourdough whatever. Since beginning all of this I have often felt discouraged over the fact that I really thought I was feeding my family a healthy wholesome diet when in fact it was a nutrient poor diet full of poison. What kind of damage must I have been doing all these years? The part of your post that I loved the most was the idea of healing. I haven't read that anywhere else, so it gives me hope that some of that damage can be undone.
Thank you!
Kari
Oh, I know this feeling all too well! I dread going out to eat and most times I just refuse to do it. I ate at a place called Just Fresh today because my niece works there, and it was much better than most places. I will still suffer a little for a couple of days though.
Linda
This is an issue in our family. My husband grew up on these restaurants and still has lunch out a few times a week. His parents only go to such restaurants and do so on a regular basis. They also cook faux food at home.
While I only prepare real food at home, my son is with them a few times a week. When he eats with them he doesn't sleep and is unconsolably cranky. I put him on GAPS with some success, but have found we don't have to be strict at home. As long as he eats real food he has no problems. Still, they try to give him things they *think* are GAPS acceptable without reading the ingredient label and he comes home with the same problems as before.
They don't understand the idea of real vs. faux food. Neither does my husband. He has no idea why I'm irritable and fatigued with a migraine everytime we eat out. He has no trouble with the food, so why would I? It's so hard to fight this battle alone. Thank you for reminding me that I'm not a crazy, shut in, stay at home mother. The reactions I notice in my son and me are real and they are signs that we are eating well and healthy. We aren't the crazy ones.
In the last couple days I went to a baby shower and out with my parents. I had some white pasta (which I loaded up with butter, cheese, bacon, broccoli, turkey, etc.) and a small piece of the cake. Oh my! I could feel my blood sugar spiking after that cake, and I could barely finish the pasta. I REALLY feel it. It's awful.
And my husband, if he doesn't take snacks to work (we make him breakfast, lunch, and also peanuts, raisins, etc. to take, but occasionally get busy and forget), will eat someone's candy. I can always tell because he is irritable and unreasonable at home after.
We need to find more GOOD restaurants, because going out is a huge part of my parents' lives and so I often do with them. I do the best I can, but…yeah.
Interestingly, my kids — especially my son — often will not eat very much while out. At "good" restaurants they will eat okay, but fast food? Forget it. They just DON'T eat! Whereas if I'd made the same food at home (with real food, of course), they would have eaten a ton.
Blame junk science and blatant greed. It seems anything goes in the world of faux food as long as there is a buying public and little risk of being sued for damage to health.
I'm so glad you posted this. For me, the worst is processed cheese. If I eat it, it's stomach cramps and heart palpitations – scary! I hear you about the social gatherings, especially with family who think I'm crazy and try to feed me every processed food under the sun.
HaHa HaHaHa! "I'm mad as hell and not going to eat crappity crap anymore!" Maybe we could have t-shirts made for the next WAPF conference?
You obviously struck a chord with this post, Sarah. So many of us can relate.
Here's a thought: In some locales it is possible to find privately-owned restaurants like you mentioned, and for example there are several here in Minneapolis that have only local grassfed meats and a majority organic vegetables. (I still always wonder about the oils — maybe we all should start asking and gently requesting the good ones.) There's a state by state listing of "beyond the farm" sources on EatWild.com; click the shopping button, select your state, and then choose "beyond the farm" for farmer's markets and restaurants. Oh, and be sure to submit new ones if you know of any not listed.
-Beth
For the same reason as what Sarah said, socialization, I will eat at restaurants you wouldn't find me going to otherwise. I had a horrible Beef-O'Brady experience a few years ago. I was served a hamburger that was clearly made out of cow parts. It had noticeable veins sticking out of it and on close inspection it seemed to be made out of little else. When I pointed this out to the restaurant manager, he didn't try to deny that he was serving food only fit for dogs (if that). He said he had no control over it – that he had to accept and serve whatever corporate sent to him. I was shocked and I looked around to see families laughing and enjoying themselves after a baseball game – their boys still in uniform – and I was equally shocked that they were unaware of the trash they were being fed.
Hi Amanda, the only advice I can give for the social events is to try to eat before you go. Then you can eat as little as possible at the actual event and still enjoy yourself. Sometimes things don't work out and you can't get something beforehand, though, and you just have to do your best to navigate the processed food minefield as best you can.