Filed under: Health, Healthy Eating, Dear Healthy Foodie
If you’ve visited Thatsfit.ca recently, you’ve heard about the 30-Day Challenge in which three participants have signed on to eliminate all sources of gluten, dairy, caffeine, alcohol and processed foods from their diets for 30 days to see how they feel at the end of it.
One reader following the challenge sent me a very good question about meat-eating during the challenge. She writes: “I’m quite surprised you have not eliminated meat from the 30-Day Challenge. Meat, even free-range or grain fed (organic), once out of the stomach, sits in our intestines for 24-72 hours depending on the type (chicken, beef pork), producing very toxic acids that many cancers feed off of. Dead meat in our bodies is very toxic and causes a number of ailments. What’s the reason for not adding the elimination of meat to the 30-Day Challenge?”
There are a lot of myths out there surrounding the issue of meat consumption. Much of what you read about meat is simply not true. Firstly, meat does not sit in our intestines for 24-72 hours. A healthy digestive system eliminates all foods within 18-24 hours, from the time you swallow it. You can test this by eating beets with your meat and then keeping an eye on the toilet. If anything is “sitting” in your digestive tract, you have a much bigger problem than meat consumption. And although protein foods do have an acidifying effect on the body, this can (in fact, needs to) be countered by alkalizing foods. And while cancer is said to thrive in an acidic environment, acidifying foods cannot be eliminated completely or else you would not be getting any protein. The key is balance.
Continue reading Eating Meat: Myths About Meat Digestion