What makes a diet healthy? Does it have to be complicated? Do we really need to learn about saturated fat, omega-3's, carbohydrates, and antioxidants? Maybe it’s time to simplify what and how we eat…
A recent news report described how the scientists, who first claimed that saturated fat was bad for us years ago, had received payments from the sugar industry. Newer reports are saying that it is really sugar, and not fat, we should avoid to prevent chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease. Other reports say that refined white flour acts very similar to sugar once it is absorbed into the body.
Even the basic Food Pyramid – remember this? Its emphasis on grains and drastically reduced fat intake is being questioned after so many years of use. Current thought is that it is too vague, with no indication of serving sizes, and places too much emphasis on carbohydrates.
It seems that eating healthy has become a complicated matter, with conflicting recommendations. Scientists seem to be searching for which nutrient is causing increased rates of chronic disease in North America. The fact that they seem to change their minds about what is good or bad for us every few years suggests that we need to look at the bigger picture rather than single nutrients in food.
Nutritional science is a relatively new field, in existence for about 200 years. Some have compared this “science” to the surgery in the 1600s… not yet very advanced! Well-meaning scientists’ attempts to identify individual nutrients that are causing the problems have led to a great deal of confusion for consumers. The reason behind all this research is that our Western diet has been linked to obesity, type-2 diabetes, about 80% of cardiovascular disease, and over one third of all cancers. The good news is that changing from a Western diet to a healthier one results in rapid improvements in health.
Many very different traditional diets exist that are not associated with chronic diseases. These include the high fat diet of the French, the high animal protein diet of the Masai tribes in Africa, and the high carbohydrate diet of Central American Indians. None of these traditional diets have been linked to the chronic diseases that we see associated with the typical Western diet, although they are very different from each other. Our Western diet is unique in containing large amounts of processed food and meat, lots of added fat and sugar, and lots of refined grains, but very little vegetables fruit and whole-grains.
So, after so much talk about what to avoid, what should we eat?
I think I’ve found a good answer in a little book I stumbled across called “Food Rules, An Eaters Manual” by Michael Pollan. He proposes 3 simple rules that make a lot of sense:
Eat food
Mostly plants
Not too much
Sounds easy, right? I certainly thought so. Let me explain the rules a little and you will see why they make sense to me…
1. Eat food
This means, eat real food, with ingredients that you would find in your Mom’s cupboard, food that has not been highly processed. Food processing is designed to make food last longer on store shelves, not to make it taste better or to be healthier for us. The amount of processing of food is a major difference between the harmful Western diet and healthier traditional diets.
2. Mostly plants
Vegetarians generally tend to be healthier than those who eat meat. It is suggested, however, that using meat as a flavoring or in small amounts can result in a diet that is just as healthy as a vegetarian one. Whether it is some component of meat or the fact that larger amounts leave less room on the plate for vegetables has not been determined, but simply reducing the amount of meat in your diet and eating more plant foods is a simple rule to follow to improve your diet.
3. Not too much
How much you eat and how you eat it may be as important as what you eat. When you are distracted while eating, you tend to eat more so eating in front of the TV or while driving or working means you will likely eat more. When you eat quickly, you also often eat more, since it takes about 20 minutes for your brain to register that you are full. You should eat only until no longer hungry, rather than eating until you are full or have finished everything on your plate (in spite of what your mother may have told you!). Eating more slowly will allow you to more readily detect when you are no longer hungry before you have actually overeaten.
Here are some other suggestions for healthy eating:
Shop mostly on the outer areas of the grocery store; avoid the centre aisles that are mostly processed packaged foods. Buy at a farmers’ market as often as you can – they sell locally grown, whole foods that don’t need to be preserved to reach their market. If you worry about food spoiling, freezing is often the best way to preserve food without losing the nutritional value.
Avoid “lite”, “low-fat” and “nonfat” foods – generally these tend to be more highly processed and often sugar is added to boost flavour that is lost when fat is removed.
Eat only food that will eventually rot – if bacteria and fungi don’t go for the food, we probably shouldn’t either!
An old Chinese proverb says “Eating what stands on 1 leg (plants, mushrooms) is better than eating what stands on 2 legs (fowl), which is better than eating what stands on 4 legs (cows, pigs, etc).” Of course, this ignores healthy legless fish, but it’s an easy rule to remember!
Eat your colours – a variety of colours indicates a variety of nutrients and it helps your meal look more appetizing too!
Eat food that is grown in healthy soil (this often means organic) or is fed healthy food (usually this means pasture raised rather than grain fed). Just like us, plants and animals need healthy food to be healthy themselves! More nutritious food generally has better flavour and is more satisfying…
Alcohol of any kind has health benefits. It is best taken in moderate amounts with food and on a daily basis rather than binge drinking. How alcohol improves health is not well understood but it is part of several healthy traditional diets, notably the French diet.
“The whiter the bread, the sooner you’ll be dead” is an old saying that has merit…white flour is not much different from sugar once it’s ingested. The substances that are removed from whole grains to make them white are the most nutritious part of the grain – it just makes sense to eat the whole grain.
Eat when you are hungry, not when bored, as a reward, or for entertainment. Be aware of why you are eating.
Use a smaller plate and smaller serving containers. We eat more when a larger portion is served, and we serve ourselves more when using a larger plate or serving from a larger container.
Make eating an enjoyable experience – share meals with others whenever possible, take your time and enjoy the taste of the food and the company you are sharing it with. Treat the preparation and eating of meals as a family or social ritual to be enjoyed, to elevate it from a biological necessity to the enjoyable part of life that food should be!
Lastly, what matters is what we do routinely – breaking the rules for special occasions can be good for our happiness and probably also for our health. So all we really need to do to be healthy, is to keep “Everything in moderation” along with the basic 3 rules: “eat food, mostly plants, and not too much”!
To learn more, read Michael Pollan’s short, well-researched book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual or his more detailed In Defense of Food: An Ester’s Manifesto.
