Dear Coach. I’m trying to eat better and improve my diet but the cost of food is getting ridicules. Are organic and GMO free foods really worth the added cost over already expensive foods?

Oh my! Coach’s answer may upset some deeply held beliefs some people have regarding diet and nutrition. The bottom line is that you would be hard pressed to find any serious research that shows either organic foods are more nutritious then other foods or that GMOs cause any adverse health effects. Most of what you will find is rhetoric promoting a point of view with a profit motive.

Sorry, but if you look past the marketing propaganda from the purveyors of these products you will find a lot of critics whose science holds water discrediting these claims. Basically, the benefits of these products are mostly in your imagination. Don’t believe me, check out the American Council on Science and Health (acsh.org), and Quackwatch.org for unbiased information regarding your health and well being. Trigger Warning: If nutrition, supplements and various health beliefs have a religious like devotion in your life, I would avoid researching these nonprofit organizations. You won’t like what you see. It would be better for you all to stick to advertisements, hair salon or barber shop advice and infomercials for your health devotionals. (sarcasm) You now may be saying to yourself, “what about all the pesticides in commercial foods?” As you may know, pesticide use in agriculture is very regulated. These regulations kinda work like this: Some agency is tasked with determining if something is not good for you. Through a bunch of testing and conversation a safe level of the substance is determined. The agency, just to be real careful, reduces the safe level by a factor of 10 or more to determine and regulate how much of this or that is allowed. It would be really difficult to overdose any of these regulated substances. Even if something is detectable in parts per billion with modern testing it doesn’t mean there is any health risk except once again in your imagination. It would take a few hundred years for these tiny levels of commonly demonized chemicals to accumulate enough in your system to cause harm.

Now if someone wanted to sell you their latest magic concoction, they would tell you that their magic stuff is better because it has half the levels of the bad chemical then what the regulating agency has established as very safe. So is the magic stuff really better? Is it worth a premium price? In the most simple of terms, No. It’s an emotionally focused sales pitch and it is a very effective methodology.

Unless you have a diagnosed absorption problem or allergy or metabolic disorder or autoimmune disorder like celiac disease, 97 percent of these concoctions are simply bogus Don’t waste your money. Worse, there is no regulation on what or how much ingredient is in these products no matter what the label is trying to sell you.

Coach always says that FITNESS is the most effective method for gaining and maintaining good health for a lifetime. It is as simple as walking five minutes away from your house then getting back home in under three minutes. Stand up and down out of a chair continuously for two minutes a day if you don’t want to walk.. The results that you will get from this FREE intervention is greater and more valuable than anything you can buy in a bottle, pill or any trendy diet program you can partake in.

Remember, only you can prevent forest fires.