Stop for just a minute and think about the importance of food in your life.
Something Soooo crucial to our health… perhaps THE most important thing after genetics.
Food provides the fuel and nutrients for our bodies, it impacts the quality of our digestion, our hair, our organs … everything.
Having too much will cause obesity, diseases and other physical ailments. Not eating enough will cause sickness and death.
So here’s my question:
Why do so many people not think about something that is so important at all? They eat by habit and desire, not by consideration. In my experience, almost everyone I speak with believes they eat healthy foods. Each ethnic group believes that their food is the healthiest, even when the evidence in both their population and their own health would disagree.
Furthermore, I find that people don’t even have a framework for what constitutes healthy eating and foods. They merely eat what they have always eaten, even when evidence suggest it is not the best course for them.
In my research both theoretical and practical, I find that the closer to its natural state you eat a food the more benefit you get from it. It’s generally referred to as “whole foods” but the term is a bit distancing. Whole foods means an apple instead of apple juice. Why are whole grain breads better than white bread? The wheat in white bread is bleached (more processing) to make it more successful as a product, but not more nutritious.
In short, take a few minutes, learn about fat, protein, and carbohydrates – simple and complex. Then quiz yourself to begin understanding what you are eating. Once you understand your diet, then you can begin to make those small changes that will have a big impact on your health over the intermediate to long term.