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When you’re anxious, you may look toward your circumstances for an explanation. But what if your tension could be the direct result of what you’re putting into your body?
If you’ve underestimated the link between your emotions and your diet, you are not alone. Most people trace their bad moods to parking tickets, subtle signs of disapproval from friends, and other troubling cues from the environment or those around them.
However, your physiology prefigures your reactions to your circumstances. If you change what’s going into your body, it will support different moods and interpretations.
Although frustrations and disappointments occasionally happen, operating from a foundation that supports wellness allows you to respond to difficulties with greater resilience. Your diet is essential to building this foundation.
I’d like to introduce you to a subtle, yet primary culprit of anxiety, depression, and even aggression: industrial seed oils.
How you cook matters as much as what you cook
Industrial seed oils are highly processed oils extracted from soybeans, corn, rapeseed, cottonseed, and safflower. They’re in all sorts of processed foods and even those with the non-GMO label. Due to their low costs, restaurants often repeatedly heat them to deep fry foods.
There are several problems with industrial seed oils, and they’ve been associated with health risks since their very recent introduction into the Standard American Diet (SAD) in the early 1900s (1). Some of these risks include heart disease, cancer, macular degeneration, progressive vision disruption, and eventual blindness (2).
These findings are troubling, but it’s easy to detach from their emotional reality. After all, progressive vision loss seems far off when there are hot pancakes on your countertop.
However, mental health issues hit you sooner. And even the most delicious foods lose their appeal when you discover they’re the reason you’re biting your nails, chronically fearful, or on edge.
