If you’ve been following the blog the last couple of weeks, you’ll know of the changes we’ve made here in our diets. The Macrobiotic way of eating and juicing lifestyle have made profound impacts in our health, our focus and our overall energy levels and performance. Gone are the days of tired, lethargic people trudging through the workload with frequent visits to the couch. Our energy abounds now, our clear-headed focus has given us the ability to make wise decisions quickly, and our emotions are stable and level.
I’ve never felt so clear-headed, honestly. And another side benefit of our new clean eating is that our taste buds are no longer dull and insensitive, but instead vibrant and aware! Maybe a little too aware.
I’ve read the stories, and I’m sure you have too, about our meat being rinsed in ammonia to diminish the risk of e-coli from feed lot animals (see Food, Inc.
This post is not about whether we should agree or disagree with these practices, as we’re each entitled to our own opinions in life. There are thousands of articles on the net that agree, or disagree about whether or not there are dangerous chemicals in or on our food.
However, after 2 months of mostly clean eating now, I found it interesting that when we picked up a take-out pizza last night (running short on time – no time to prepare a proper dinner), 3 out of the 5 of us (Rick was at work), as we ate the pizza, tasted bleach. As in, chlorine bleach that’s used in pools and in laundries. We sniffed the boxes; no, it wasn’t the boxes. It couldn’t have been strictly the green peppers on the one pizza, as the cheese pizza tasted like bleach too, although the bleach taste was definitely stronger on the green pepper pizza. Maybe the pizza maker guy was overzealous in his sanitation methods and not so overzealous in his rinsing methods? Who knows?
But I can’t help but wonder if bleach has been in the pizzas all along, and we are just now noticing it with our new and improved, more vibrant taste buds, which have appeared as a result of our new, clean eating. And that leads me to wonder what else we’ve been eating for all these years; what other chemicals that we’ve been ingesting that our taste buds have been too dulled by a crappy diet to realize it?
It’s an interesting process isn’t it! Taste buds come alive, and for that matter – everything else! 🙂 It may not be bleach – but I wouldn’t doubt it either. Kudos on the change. It improves all aspects of your life and there are so many benefits.
Yes, it is an interesting process! We are loving it, but man, I’m so glad I’m learning the truth.
Bleach and vinegar make an excellent vinaigrette.
DB40, thanks for making me LOL as usual. 🙂
I haven’t tasted bleach in my food, but I wouldn’t be happy if I did! I’m currently reading the book, Pandora’s Lunchbox, about the processed food industry. Interesting and sometimes scary stuff!
I haven’t heard of that one, Amy! I’ll have to check it out!
I’ve been clean eating for years & years and any processed food smells nasty to me. Nothing smells *real*… it all smells like chemicals to me! Some stuff *really* turns my stomach, but really anything that’s not a whole food to me, just doesn’t smell like food.
Carla, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts here. This stuff is fairly new to us and it’s good to hear correlating stories from people more experienced on the issue.
Oh that’s not a good taste at all! Yikes!
I know – isn’t that weird??
Don’t you love it when food you crave doesn’t taste good?! It diminishes future cravings and keeps us healthy. Did you know the little pre-peeled carrots you can buy are washed in bleach? I see health conscious people eating them … they just don’t know and it’s sad. I’m so happy for your family and the great health you are experiencing!
Yes, actually, I had heard about the bleach recently on the carrots! Ironically, there are dozens of stories on the net that poo poo the bleach stuff, saying that it’s “food grade” so we shouldn’t be so paranoid. Yeah, right.
This happened to me eating Doritos for the first time in years. Honestly just tasted like chemicals and salt.
Interesting, Taylor!!! But in reality, it’s probably not much more than chemicals and salt. 🙂
Pizza? Definitely a yum for me! lol! How I wish I should start to clean eating, I have been trying to eat meat less and shift to white rice to brown rice.
It’s a process, Clarisse, but I know you can do it. 🙂
In the town we came from, the water smelled like a chlorinated pool. All the time. We put in a whole house filter, which helped some, but I still couldn’t tolerate it. I couldn’t eat or drink in local restaurants because of the water in the food, drinks, and ice. I’ve had so many problems with food sensitivities that I’m really excited to read about your upcoming discoveries since eating and drinking clean. Way to go Laurie and Family! 🙂
That is so scary about the water!!! We had our water back in the suburbs super-filtered too. Here we have fairly clean well water, which is nice. 🙂
Yikes, but not terribly surprising. I bet if we all really thought about and investigated where our food comes from and how it’s prepared, we would all be running for the hills.
I think you’re right, Kim. The more I learn/discover, the more I want to grow all of our own food.
I believe I had mentioned to you how we discovered that organic baby carrots we had been buying from Costco were being washed in bleach water. Long story short, we all had been having intestinal issues and we moved to actual carrots and the issues all left within 2 weeks. I’ve seen the hard reset of my tastebuds as well, crazy but cool to see. 🙂
Yep, you sure did, John. There is a plethora of info on the Net about how the bleach on the carrots is “no big deal”. I was amazed by that.
Gosh! That pizza looks gorgeous though :))))
Yeah, but not gorgeous enough. 🙂
I have to say, I am not surprised by the bleach you were smelling. I haven’t totally gotten rid of junk food, but I do eat clean for the most part. I have realized that the junk food I used to eat is no longer anywhere near appealing as it once was. I also get that lethargic feeling whenever I eat these unhealthy foods.
It’s amazing, isn’t it, Alexis? Yeah, my taste for pizza has definitely gone by the wayside now. 🙁
That is both amazing and alarming. I’m sure that rates of cancer are so high in part because of the processed, genetically modified, over-sanitized food that we eat. How difficult was it for you to make the switch to “clean” eating? Do you find it takes more time to prepare your food now? Time is a huge factor for most of us – leading us to settle for bleached pizza.
Well, once we did clean eating for a couple of weeks, we felt SO much better that we didn’t want to go back. Time preparation isn’t a factor so much as coming up with recipes is, but we’re working on that. Falling off the clean eating wagon isn’t very much fun anymore, though, so often times we’ll gladly eat a bowl of plain brown rice with salt as opposed to eating a pizza, and we all still love our mean green juice.
Bleach? I feel like I would not have a slice of pizza for a week, Laurie.
Let’s just say it turned off my craving for takeout pizza real quick.
Bleach on pizza?!?! That’s news to me. They probably took “clean” eating literally. Ha ha.
I enjoy pizza once awhile. I don’t think I could ever give it up. Maybe try a different pizza place or if you have time, make a pizza. At least with the latter choice, you’ll know what’s being put on it.
LOL, funny. 🙂 Yeah, we do homemade pizzas 90% of the time, but this was one of those things where we were out and needed to eat. I might try again just to see if it tastes that way again to us.
Oh ick! That’s a terrible smell anywhere, but especially awful in association with food! I think our bodies do indeed acclimate to what we eat, so it makes sense to me that you’d now be more sensitive to chemicals in food.
Yeah, it was SO weird!!! Made me wonder what other kind of stuff I’m eating that I never realized before. 🙁
I just ate a pizza that smelled like either ammonia or bleach. I asked if the large knife or the platter was not properly rinsed in the dishwasher. It certainly has turned me off from ordering there again.
Paul, so sorry you had that same experience!! Makes me wonder what they’re putting in our food that we don’t know about.