What to eat?

What to eat?

An overused title I know, but a regular questions I find myself musing with on an almost daily basis. I try my best (and I mean that) to make the best possible choices and not let my addiction (I hanker for nothing else in my life other than chocolate) to cocoa influence my late night cravings (I only want to stray from healthy when I get home and for some reason crave sugar desperately at around 10pm-12am). During the day I eat well, I don't crave sugar or snacks, soda or pizza, I eat natural simple fruits, vegetables, lean meats, nuts, seeds and some but not too often brown bread or tortillas (what else can you put mayo-free tuna on that doesn't taste like package filler?).

The daily articles I have been reading of late seem to be getting it all wrong. Not the information which they are passing on and providing research and evidence for, this is all great stuff with hours of both medical and practical research and evidence supporting it. Instead, its the way in which they go about presenting it all to the masses. Now I know the sensationalism works for Jerry Springer and the likes, but the kind of articles that discuss in-depth, the daily macros of nutrients required by the average athlete, RDA levels of potassium, the energy to calorie deficit hypothesis, carbohydrate intake to myocardial infarction correlation, the list goes on, are surely being read by members of the public who are almost definitely past the need for fads and excuses and would like this fantastic research you have compiled without the sensationalism of an episode of LOST attached to it.

So, I have begun reading a book or two that I hope will give me some more information and clarity about the best things to eat for the best possible healthy lifestyle, how to replace the things I know are unneeded parts of my diet and a few other things that us normal drama saturated folks would like to add to our knowledge.

The books are "Good calories, bad calories" by Gary Taubes and "The Paleo diet for athletes" by Loren Cordain. I am only just beyond the prefaces so far and scraping the surface of the depth of knowledge of the authors. Yet already I can clarify for you a few things that I already knew and probably so did you. (I would also recommend that if you are attracted to this kind of read, then the books so far seem to be very unbiased, informative and not over saturated with textbook/research paper lingo. Instead well-constructed portions of scientific usable tools.)

A few tips

Eating the right thing is unfortunately a tasking thing in todays society so here are a few tips/models that you can use the next time you visit the super market to make your weekly "I need to buy healthy this time" fix and that will get you to the right end point of effective nutrition (whilst also most likely avoiding a few of the obvious health issues that go hand in hand with poor nutrition).

1. Shop around the perimeter of the supermarket. This is where all the fruit, veg and meat, fish and poultry counters are. Avoid the isles. You won't find anything worth eating down them.

2. If it has a food label on it...IT'S NOT FOOD! If the packaging has to explain to you what the box contains then you shouldn't be eating it. Any ingredients ending in or including the words "high-fructose-syrup" are not part of your diet anymore.

3. If it has a "best consumed by" label on it again DON'T EAT IT. There aren’t any of these labels on the chicken, on the vegetables, on the beans, on the bananas etc. If it's not perishable i.e. it could survive a nuclear strike along with the Twinkie’s and roaches it isn't food.

4. If you can't harvest it from your garden (or if you had a farm or a lake and taken it from your animals i.e. meats, fish etc.) it isn't worth eating from a nutritional standpoint.

A few good tips I have picked up over the years of searching for better health.

That is all for now. I wanted to post a few shorter bits with some lighter information as my last 2 posts have been on the heavy side (no pun intended).

I hope this helps the next time you find yourself surrounded by glowing packets of biscuits and crisps in Wal-Mart, ASDA or Lotte.

Have a good weekend.