A saying so cliched we've come to ignore the wisdom in it.
I was so impressed by the changes I felt after my cleanse at the beginning of the year, that I've decided to do a 2-week cleanse biannually. One of the most pronounced changes was in my perception of food. Not just something to stuff in my mouth when I'm hungry, or to enjoy simply for the taste, but the conviction that food is medicine.
Americans are bombarded with information about "healthy eating," but we suffer from higher rates of obesity and chronic disease than ever before. We are told one year to avoid fat and the next to avoid carbohydrates. It's enough to make anyone distrust nutritional advice altogether, particularly anything that claims that "food is medicine."
If we're honest with ourselves, we don't really need much advice because we already know what we should do: eat a variety of foods, especially whole grains, fruits, and vegetables; minimize or eliminate processed foods; and be mindful of how much we eat. And, do some physical activity each day. If we know all this, then why do we have all the complicated nutritional advice, contradictory research studies, and endless health diets? In part because they give the food companies a way to sell more products. And for us, it is often easier to read about what we should do, then actually change our eating patterns. As a result, our standard American diet is ruining our health.
Diet and exercise have long been two important ingredients to staying health and living longer, but now there is a belief in using food as medicine. Foods may appear healthy because the sugar content is zero or it's “low carb.” But real health cannot be found in synthetic foods which falsely promise health by focusing merely on numbers. We need real food to thrive. Depriving our bodies of basic nutrition is more an attempt to fool our systems, not heal them!
The good news is that taste in a food can be changed. People often dislike certain foods because they’re not used to them. Once you’re used to a food, it can taste great . And when you know that that food is actually good for you, and is healing your body from the inside out, it can taste magical. Here's a great A-Z list of healing foods.
There are so many benefits of a healthy diet, but the primary one is that you only have one body. Does it make sense to harm the most precious thing that you have? Don’t wait until you have no choice but to become healthier. Adopt a healthy lifestyle that makes you look and feel better. A healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be something for the short term - it's a “lifestyle”. Head to your local farmer's market this week - it's never too late to start being healthy.
I was so impressed by the changes I felt after my cleanse at the beginning of the year, that I've decided to do a 2-week cleanse biannually. One of the most pronounced changes was in my perception of food. Not just something to stuff in my mouth when I'm hungry, or to enjoy simply for the taste, but the conviction that food is medicine.
Americans are bombarded with information about "healthy eating," but we suffer from higher rates of obesity and chronic disease than ever before. We are told one year to avoid fat and the next to avoid carbohydrates. It's enough to make anyone distrust nutritional advice altogether, particularly anything that claims that "food is medicine."
If we're honest with ourselves, we don't really need much advice because we already know what we should do: eat a variety of foods, especially whole grains, fruits, and vegetables; minimize or eliminate processed foods; and be mindful of how much we eat. And, do some physical activity each day. If we know all this, then why do we have all the complicated nutritional advice, contradictory research studies, and endless health diets? In part because they give the food companies a way to sell more products. And for us, it is often easier to read about what we should do, then actually change our eating patterns. As a result, our standard American diet is ruining our health.
As a nation, we're doing less cooking and increasingly eating more processed foods that have little to no nutritional benefit. We're also eating less variety of foods. Ironically, while 17,000 new products are introduced each year, two-thirds of our calories come from just four foods: corn, soy, wheat, and rice. It's easy to fall into the pattern of eating fast, convenient, prepared food, especially in our often frenetic lives. But we are not nurturing ourselves by doing so.
A John's Hopkins study found that only 10% of Americans eat the recommended "five a day" of fruits and vegetables. At least 50% don't eat any vegetables. Shocking statistics given that the people surveyed considered themselves nutrition "savvy". (American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2007).
Diet and exercise have long been two important ingredients to staying health and living longer, but now there is a belief in using food as medicine. Foods may appear healthy because the sugar content is zero or it's “low carb.” But real health cannot be found in synthetic foods which falsely promise health by focusing merely on numbers. We need real food to thrive. Depriving our bodies of basic nutrition is more an attempt to fool our systems, not heal them!
Eating well is not just about putting good food into your body, but also about enjoying the experience. People complain that healthy food doesn't taste good. This has a lot to do with the fact that we've become accustomed to the excess of salt, sugar and fat in our daily diets. Every year, the average American eats 33 pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and 70 pounds of sugar (about 22 teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year. (excerpted from Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss)"Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food" - Hippocrates
The good news is that taste in a food can be changed. People often dislike certain foods because they’re not used to them. Once you’re used to a food, it can taste great . And when you know that that food is actually good for you, and is healing your body from the inside out, it can taste magical. Here's a great A-Z list of healing foods.
There are so many benefits of a healthy diet, but the primary one is that you only have one body. Does it make sense to harm the most precious thing that you have? Don’t wait until you have no choice but to become healthier. Adopt a healthy lifestyle that makes you look and feel better. A healthy lifestyle shouldn’t be something for the short term - it's a “lifestyle”. Head to your local farmer's market this week - it's never too late to start being healthy.
"To keep the body in good health is a duty... otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear." - Buddha
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