Drugs Where You may not Expect to Find Them [e.g. in your dinner]

Food additives [manufactured]

One good reason to watch your diet is that a lot of food additives are harmful to the brain. Here is a list of some of the worst:

• Acesulphame K
• Aspartame & other artificial sweeteners
• BGH (Bovine Growth Hormone)
• BHA & BHT
• Coal tar dyes & food colorings
• MSG (monosodium glutamate)
• Olestra
• Potassium bromate
• Propyl gallate
• Sodium nitrite
• Sulfur dioxide
• Table sugar (sucrose)
• Table salt (sodium chloride)
• Taurine (bull bile)
• Trans fats

Avoiding Toxins

We’re not just talking about car exhausts and coal smoke here…the worst pollutants affecting the brain (and body) currently are aerosols. Show me a household where a previously healthy person suddenly develops asthma, and I’ll show you a cupboard full of aerosols.

Air fresheners are pretty bad too…you may not know this, but those little cardboard ‘fresh-air’ or ‘de-odorizer’ things that people hang in their cars/bathrooms/office don’t actually make the smell go away. They work by blocking your nasal neuron receptors, and after a certain length of exposure the receptors die. You are actually destroying your own sense of smell by using the things. The worst part is, to people who don’t use them, you car/house/office still smells of whatever it did before you became unable to smell it!

As well as scents that we are conscious of, our sense of smell gives us vital input regarding pheromones/trace chemicals that we don’t actually detect consciously, and without those receptor neurons your amygdala can’t accurately compute danger signals (or even take hints). Do your perception a favor and avoid these things.

Metals are important, especially if you are suffering memory loss. If the brain begins to degenerate it can have trouble getting rid of trace metals, so avoid aluminium foil or pans, copper and brass jewellery [despite the rumors] and any unnecessary metallic packaging on food. Always wash fruit and veg –[either it is non-organic and has been sprayed with pesticides, or it is organic, in which case the insects probably didn’t bother climbing off it to go to the toilet.]

Nasty things get put into street drugs too, and are the cause of many deaths that then get the original substance a bad press. In some countries you can get substances tested to confirm what they are, or you can look into how to test things yourself. If you are ever offered anything from anywhere that you doubt the quality or authenticity of, don’t risk it. Some people are sadly very unscrupulous and you could be swallowing anything, including toilet cleaner.

Here is a list of rogue chemicals you should try to avoid in personal products: 

• 1, 4 Dioxane
• Bentonite
• Benzylphanone
• Diethanolamine (DEA)
• Dioxin
• Glycerin
• PABA / Oxybenzone / benzophenone
• Polyethylene glycol
• Propylene glycol (antifreeze)
• Sodium benzoate
• Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate (SLES)