Loading ...
Why should we eat real foods? What are “real” foods anyways? Why should we even eat at all!? The true purpose of eating is quite simply to bring nutrients into the body to generate and sustain your life. If you were to stop eating you would simply “stop working” thus ceasing to exist in this fine world.
While taking the above information into consideration and applying some logic to it, pretty much anyone would come to the conclusion that eating is a very good thing for you to do! Some would come to the conclusion that eating anything in general is fine because after eating any “food” you are no longer hungry after doing so. If you satisfy your food craving then that should be enough right? Not always.
Some others however (like myself) would recognize that different “foods” have different nutritional values to them, while some “foods” do not have any nutritional value to them. I am quoting the word “foods” because according to government regulation, “food” is anything that can be consumed. Basically, you could label dog feces as “food” if you could make it tolerable to the human digestive system. Maybe that will be the next big thing that we should all jump on! The truth is the average consumer consumes a diet primarily of processed junk foods with no nutritional value in them.
All processed foods have one thing wrong with them, they are processed. Foods are processed to make them cheaper, look more appealing, or to make them more feasible during processing and storage. One major problem when foods are processed is that nutrients are lost during the process. Whenever you see the words “fortified with” on your products, they are usually adding synthetic versions of nutrients back to the product so that it at least has something within it. Back in the earlier parts of the 1900′s some products started becoming fortified because people started developing diseases due to lack of proper nutrition. This trend has continued today and has unfortunately kept people in the lower spectrums of health.
If you want to get to the extreme end of the processed food spectrum, you turn to one of the things like candy that is on the market today. Candy started off back in the day with real sugar and real extracts to flavor and color that real sugar. Although sugar has never been good for you, real sugar has vitmains and minerals slong with it so that your body can slowly handle it without the associated rush. If you have never watched a documentary or caught a show on how candy was traditionally made (and still is being made in some ma and pa shops) then try to find some when you get a chance. It is really cool to see where candy originated, and to only wish that it was still the same today! Luckily there are some decent treats out there which I may eventually talk about later in another post, but unfortunately most candy in todays world is outrageously toxic.
So why eat real foods? Nutrition is all the reason! Nutrition is how you stay healthy. Nutrition is how you keep from getting sick. I chose the image that you see above because it has a real nice ring to it. Do you see anything processed in that picture? What you do see are some real natural colorful foods in their original states. These foods are packed with life sustaining nutrients that are necessary for health. They have not been heated, strained, pressured or irradiated in any way. What you do not see in the picture are things like TV dinners, hamburger helper, reeses peanut butter cups, ho-ho’s, king dongs, hot dogs, sugary juices, lunchables, or any other number of thousands of processed foods that people consume today.
People need to get back to perparing meals and eating real foods. One thing my wife and I have been doing recently in the last couple of years has been to switch over to Organic and Pasture Fed foods. These not only gets you away from everyday processed foods, but it gets you away from toxicities in everyday foods. This change was very easy to work with and we did it over the course of a couple of years. We did not have much trouble in doing this, but we ate fairly ok before the switch. We didn’t have to fight with wanting something that we used to have, because we mostly ate normal foods that just werent a very good quality. This was a great choice, and everyone that wonders… it does cost more money. If you have extra money then you are all set, but if you don’t then you have to give something up, which personally I think people need to learn to do anyways. It is not hard to justify the cost if you get rid of something like your DVR/HD/Premium Plus cable system. It is not hard to justify the cost if you stop smoking or drinking. It is not hard to justify the cost if you stop driving a sports car to work and back every day. This can be the worst part for people, because they simply do not want to stop eating stuff that is convenient to obtain and that has gotten comfortable. Also in theory eating better will lower your doctor visits, so it is a small investment when it means less doctor visit and medical bills, which both reduces costs.
We currently do not eat any process foods, even so when we are out of the house. We have no candy unless it is made with real ingredients, and we eat no pre-packaged meals. We recently bought a juicer and a grain grinder, and have been freshly grinding our flour and making juices to further our lifestyle of living healthy. We are looking forward to making our own bread as our next step in the mix, I am sure that I will have a future post about it.
All in all, if you want to be healthier then one great way is to start eating real foods. I am not even talking about Organic real foods at this point although Organic is another major step. If you simply switch from a diet consisting mainly of processed foods over to a diet consisting of real foods then you will be taking your first steps to a healthier life.
The image is from http://well.blogs.nytimes.com