The wrong foods can affect health adversely in many ways. They can be difficult to digest, contain nutrients that stress the body, or even cause toxic reactions within the body.

The process of digestion itself takes much energy. Digestion must occur before the body can extract energy from the foods you eat. Proteins must be broken down into amino acids, complex carbohydrates into simple sugars, and fats into fatty acids. For these breakdowns to occur, food is chemically acted upon by stomach acid, hormones, pancreatic enzymes, and fat emulsifiers, as well as by the mechanical process that propels food through the entire length of the digestive tract. Once the food is broken down, it must be absorbed from the digestive tract and taken into the blood. From there, the food particles circulate to cells throughout the body. At the cellular level, the energy contained in the food is finally captured to fuel the body's many chemical and physiological reactions.

This entire process requires a great deal of work. The body needs an abundance of reserve energy to produce the chemicals involved in the digestive process. Ideally, foods should be easy to digest, yet nutrient-rich, so that they can provide the body with needed energy.

Unfortunately, many of the most commonly eaten foods in our society are hard to digest. These include foods that are high in saturated fats, sugars, and animal protein. The long list includes pizza, steak, bacon, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, French fries, doughnuts, ice cream, chocolate, and many other processed and high stress foods. The body must work very hard to digest a typical meal of thick steak, French fries, buttered bread, wine, and a chocolate dessert. This meal is laden with saturated fats, red meat protein, and sugar. Upon finishing it, a woman will feel overly full and more tired than before she started eating. In contrast, a light meal of bean soup, mixed green salad, and baked potato is filled with vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, and easy to digest vegetable based protein. This meal is also low in fat and sugar. It is much more likely to enable that woman to leave the table feeling energized and comfortable.

Other foods stress the body through their toxicity. There are many ways a food can increase fatigue. Some foods have a toxic effect that damages the cells and affects their ability to function. One example is alcohol, which is particularly toxic to the liver, brain, and nervous system. Alcohol and sugar promote the growth of pathological organisms like candida, which can worsen fatigue. Many food additives and preservatives can cause an allergic or toxic reaction in susceptible women. Other foods, such as saturated fats, margarine, caffeine, salt, and food additives, will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter for their adverse affects on health.

Caffeine
Caffeine containing foods include coffee, black tea, cola drinks, cocoa, and chocolate. These foods are used almost universally in our culture both as stimulants and emotional "treats." Caffeine belongs to a class of chemicals called methylxanthines, which have a druglike stimulant effect on the body. In fact, caffeine-containing foods are the most commonly used legal drugs (along with alcohol) in Western societies. For thousands of years, people have used caffeine in rituals and ceremonies. It was also chewed in plant form or used in beverages as a mild daily stimulant. Traditional societies today continue to use caffeine containing plants like mate or kola nuts for their stimulatory effects.