Ultra-processed foods make up 60 percent of calories consumed by adults and 67 percent of calories consumed by children, and they drive Bad Energy di… - Casey Means

About 74 percent of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, and 93.2 percent have metabolic dysfunction. These numbers sound high until you realize how many levers of modern society are stacked against our mitochondria and metabolism: too much sugar, too much stress, too much sitting, too much pollution, too many pills, too many pesticides, too many screens, too little sleep, and too little micronutrients. These trends — with trillions of dollars behind them — are causing epidemic levels of mitochondrial dysfunction and underpowered, sick, inflamed bodies.

Another way to practice mindfulness at any moment is to close your eyes and scan every sensation in your body: your heartbeat, your butt on the chair, any areas of warmth or cold, your toes on the ground, the air moving into your nose and lungs. Because this body scan forces you into the present moment, it takes you away from mental states of anxiety or stress.

and I am convinced that healthy emotional boundaries — such as being clear and vocal about what you will and will not let into your life — are what make relationships functional. Your gut lining is a boundary between you and everything else in the universe that is poised to inundate and overwhelm your biology and generate unrelenting inflammation. Healing and strengthening your gut lining with food — therefore creating and strengthening this critical boundary and reducing intestinal permeability or “leaky gut” — allows you to be selective about what you want to take in from the universe on a material level. You can choose what serves you. I reflect on the fact that many of the problems in society — including violence, mental illness, developmental issues, and pain — start in humans, and humans are made by cells that become dysfunctional largely because of oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and chronic inflammation. How miraculous that food can directly combat those things. We can’t have a healthy society without well-functioning humans. We can’t have well-functioning humans without well-functioning cells. And we can’t have well-functioning cells with mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and cellular and hormone disruption from toxic chemicals in our food. We combat those things through nutrient-dense, unprocessed foods grown in living, thriving soil.