There is so much information written on nutrition that it can be an overwhelming topic to research and the more you read the more confusing it can become.
Please let me help you with the basic principles that you need to keep in mind whenever you are looking into what you should and should not put into your mouth.
1. Is the advice coming from someone who has no financial interest in what they are advising/telling you?
2. Can you see yourself being able to follow the recommendations and suggestions long term because if not then STOP right there and move onto another piece of advice.
3. Does the recommendation make common sense? – now I know you may not feel that you are qualified to make that call but in truth you really can, has this food been changed or manipulated in any way to change its natural purpose?
Let me give you some examples:
Fortified foods such as juice that has added Folate and Vitamin E – Orange juice is a source of sugar, Vitamin C, energy etc it does not have Folate or Vitamin E naturally occurring in its ingredients which begs the question – why are we adding it in?
Foods that you would want to eat if you are wanting Folate are things like liver, dark leafy vegetables, asparagus, beans (mung, lima, kidney) lentils and chickpeas. If wanting to increase Vitamin E things such as sunflower seeds, oils (sunflower seed, safflower, peanut, olive), almonds and peanut butter.
Milk is another great example – when we remove the fat out of milk we also remove the Vitamin D. We need Vitamin D to be able to absorb the calcium in the milk. To combat this, the manufacturer will now re-add Vitamin D to the milk to improve the calcium absorbing qualities of the milk.
STOP PRESS – we drink milk for the calcium!
You could argue that with the fat content in milk it is very easy to drink large amounts of energy with very little effort (which is the thought regarding juice as well incidentally); however a small amount of common sense says that it is important to consume all foods in moderation – milk included.
Next time you are in the supermarket look at the back of the milk containers – those that are promoting 97% fat free are in fact 3% fat – full cream milk is 4% fat, in other words full cream milk is 96% fat free.
So what is really being said here? When all is said and done – the best way to eat and live is as close to Mother Nature as possible. Remember the second golden rule which is everything in moderation so if eating less processed food is not always possible for you then so be it, just aim to make as many achievable adjustments as you can.
Next time you are in the supermarket look down into your trolley and ask yourself a couple of quick questions:
1. Does most of the food in my trolley look like it came out of the ground (or as close to nature as possible)?
2. Did I do the majority of my shopping around the outer perimeter of the shop (the less processed food)?
3. Is most of my food in packets, jars etc?
If you can answer ‘yes’ to the first two questions and ‘no’ to the third you know that you are well on track to improving the quality of what goes into your mouth.
My last tip regarding processed food is the high amount of sodium in that food. To only look at the fat and carbohydrate component of what we are eating is not a clear enough indication of eating for good health. Highly processed food has large amounts of sodium (salt). Your daily intake of sodium is 930 – 2300mg. A 100 gram bag of vege chips has 760 milligrams of sodium and it is not hard to eat 100gms of chips!
You only get one body – make the most of looking after it.
Here is to common sense and nature based food that tastes great!
Jo Barr
I love common sense stuff-well done
Hi Jo, I’m with Don, food should be “common sense”, we all need it (food, and common sense).
Vitamin-fortification has never made sense to me; even a Homeopath-Nutritionist lecturer I had years ago didn’t help to clear that up – her mainstream education had reinforced that dogma. The body knows what it needs to maintain homeostasis (internal balance), but how can it deal with chemicals (i.e. synthetic vitamins) that turn up in unexpected places, such as folate in processed cereals? Like trans fats (in margarine, etc), the body doesn’t know how to handle these substances, so it stores them in the body, increasing the burden on the liver, etc; trans fats, for instance, are stored in the cell walls, worsening problems like insulin resistance.
Whether we follow a full-on Paleo diet, or just aim to eat clean (around the perimeter of the supermarket, as you suggested), it is not a difficult thing to maintain (or even to regain) good health and well-being. The latest media-worthy research says that it is not poor diet, but lack of exercise that is causing childhood obesity. I beg to differ – nothing new for one who has swum against the tide, raising a (now 18 yr old) son amidst all the onslaught of McDonald’s parties, with their Coke, white bread “burgers” and “nuggets” of unknown origin – as an observer of life, it is my perception that many parents (or most adult human beings, really) have no real clue. Were they taught any better themselves? How could they teach their children to eat well, if they were taught poor lessons. Long term, developing good exercise habits is the best path to take; but it does not encourage life-long health and wellness, if your diet is dirty (i.e. not clean). You may start with a strong constitution, but if you fill it with toxins, it may not start to show until you 30s or 40s – when it is harder to undo all the damage. Being skinny in your 20s, can be a mask for future potential, not necessarily as you might assume – that you might always be like that.
As far as I can see, good diet and regular exercise work in tandem, they are not mutually exclusive. The body is a whole organism, not a sum of its parts.