About food. What should we eat? Miracle super foods? The latest, never heard of previously, berry from some remote primitive tribe that can be added to coffee? Specially formulated and processed ‘health’ food from a packet that helps you regulate your bowels?
What should we eat? This seems to be a question that nobody asked until around 60 odd years ago. Prior to that people simply ate what their grandmothers and mothers served up. Food was mostly fresh and the choices were regional, dependent on local producers and stores or maybe in cities most people could get a variety of fresh food by shopping at an individual fruit and veg. shop, a butcher, a seafood shop, a baker or maybe a delicatessen. People considered their budget and the freshness and that was it. Nearly all food came from natural sources with little modification or processing.
Sugar was something added in small quantities to some dishes, mostly deserts, sweets or cakes, usually eaten in moderation. Sugar was not added to every conceivable everyday, packaged food product you purchased. High fructose corn syrup hadn’t been invented as a cheaper, sweeter alternative to sugar to be added in even higher quantities.
Same sort of scenario was in Europe, Britain, USA, Australia and most Western countries. In Asian countries it was common to shop daily at markets and the choices were usually locality dependant, what came out of the local vegetable gardens, fish if you lived near water, fresh meat and poultry and some rice that was also usually local.
That was pretty much the way we all ate back then. This has been slowly changing over the years until today in most populated parts of Western and Eastern countries the small local stores have ceased to exist and supermarket (SUPER market) chains compete with each other for your money. Your choices of products are limitless, in supermarkets you can get almost any food product from anywhere in the world and because these supermarkets are located in populated areas the ‘fresh’ produce does not come from just down the road, it usually comes from a central depot where it’s been refrigerated or frozen for a long period prior to sale.
The upside of supermarket shopping is convenience, no doubt about that. You can buy everything you need in one place, your food and most of your household cleaning products, toiletries, as well as books, insurance, liquor and much more — all in the one place. They even give you huge carts to wheel around so you can load up more stuff.
The downside of supermarket shopping is a huge variety of mostly processed, sweetened, packaged products, many of which did not exist years ago. This tempts people to over buy (and over eat) and the consumer has choice of huge varieties of meats, dairy, fruit and vegetables, most of which would not have passed for fresh produce back in the day. The meat is raised in an unnatural way and is modified to look good, the fruit is ripened artificially and the vegetables have probably been sprayed with chemicals to keep the bugs off until they grow to uniform monster size for sale.
Am I going to tell you to never shop at supermarkets? No, where you shop and what you eat is totally your choice. But what I would like to do is explain to you what I eat in order to be able to stay well and active. I’ll explain what I eat and try to give you the reasons for my choices.
What I try to eat is natural real food. What I mean by this is food that is not processed or interfered with. I am not going to list all the stuff I avoid but as much as possible this is what comes out of packets or boxes, ‘foods’ that are processed for convenience of marketing and consuming. Foods that contain added sweeteners and substances with names I need to look up online because I never heard of them and I do not have a degree in chemistry.
When I leave out processed foods I’m left with fresh vegetables, meat, poultry, fish and seafood, naturally produced butter, eggs, cream, cheese and fruit. Also I consider nuts, cold pressed oils and herbs and spices contribute to a well rounded balanced diet. Basically I try to eat the least harmful substances to my overall health and wellbeing.
I eat beef that is fed only on grass, fish and seafood from various sources but if at all possible fresh caught and occasionally poultry if I can find it fresh, also eggs.
For me personally I find that any kind of natural fat/protein food and some vegetables, mostly leafy green, form my main meals. This keeps me active and healthy. For snacks I might have some quality cheese or a small piece of fruit or maybe some nuts.
Pretty much that is what I eat, it’s not any kind of diet that has a name tag that needs a book written about it. This is what came from advice that made sense or from my research over the last 25 odd years. It is based on what I consider the least harmful to my wellbeing and most beneficial to keeping me able to function without any medical interference.
I do eat some processed and even fast food occasionally but it’s a minor part of my overall eating habits and mostly it is when I eat away from home with other people socially.
Do I advise people to eat this way? Well, all I can say is, it works for me and it keeps me healthy and my presumption is it will do the same for you.
In this day and age with regards to food and your health: It is what you don’t eat that contributes more to good health and wellness than what you do eat. VIDEOS CLICK HERE