Choosing the Right Foods

For many people, eating healthy can pose a challenge.  To start, why do sugary and fatty foods have to taste and smell so good?   Unfortunately, this is by design.  We have to understand where we came from.  For centuries human beings had to struggle to find food and survive.  Only within the last 100 years has food become so plentiful.  For this reason, our bodies have adapted to seek or “sniff” out foods that are high in energy, to ensure our bodies receive enough calories to keep moving.  Thanks to the brilliance of marketing, agriculture, and science we have managed to “perfect” these energy dense food, only in an unnatural state. 

These modified foods have been designed to trick our senses into believing that these foods work will help us to survive; through the number one food choice factor, taste.  Most people chose their foods based on whether or not they think they taste good.  This factor is followed closely by convenience.  These first two factors alone can lead to bad choices, when considering whether or not to swing by the local fast food joint or to go home and carefully weighing out and prepare a balanced and healthy meal. Other factors include: culture, psychological, physiological, physical and social (Sizer, et al, 2014). 

It is one thing to have the knowledge of what healthy eating is and how to choose the right foods it is another altogether to implement it.  Surprisingly, this knowledge is actually far easier to obtain than many people realize. Often times the trouble comes from false hope and “get thin quick” fad diets.  Sadly Americans often look for shortcuts in life and when it comes to their health they tend to get their dieting advice from fashion magazines rather than practiced proved nutritional science. So here is the good news, there is a diet that works.  In fact, the most up-to-date literature on a proper diet, backed up by the latest nutrition science comes at the low, low price of…free.  Crazy as it may sound the American government has identified that our diet is a fact for concern and has spent tax dollars on identifying a solution that they have released to the public.  The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010 can be found right here (Achterberg, et al, 2010).  Eating nutrient dense whole foods, ensuring that our meals are balanced with plenty of whole grains, fruits and vegetables; while lowering our intake of foods with added sugar and foods high in trans and saturated fat will do more for our waistlines in the long run, than any fad diet you might pull out of a fashion magazine.  

In many parts of the world eating is no longer just a means of replacing our bodies depleting nutrients, but can be a full blown social affair.  Family settings can take place around dinner tables, many dates take place a restaurants and many of us enjoy outings with friends or coworkers on our lunch breaks.  Once you start down a path of a healthful diet, eating out at a restaurant might prove to be difficult, especially if the restaurant venue wasn't your choice.  For some good tips on healthy eating click here.  While social factors play a role in eating, many of us have to break through bad habits before we can even begin to eat healthy. Additional major factors that guide us toward our diets are the foods we were raised with, culturally, religiously or whatever mom's "home-cooked" meal might have been.   If you were born in America, this meal might have often taken place underneath some golden arches.  Some tips I have developed is to make healthier substitutions, rather than avoid foods altogether.  I have found that I prefer baked sweet potato fries to regular deep fried potatoes.  I actually prefer non-fat milk to whole milk.  I also don't mind substituting out refined breads with delicious whole grain bread.  Then of course there are those sugary soft drinks and mocha-chino-double-fudge-caramel-frappe-latte-whatevers that we all love to drink.  Substituting this style of "coffee" for  a coffee with non-fat milk doesn't have the same reward.  So when it comes to sugary treats, to include desserts, I tend to live my life by an 80/20 rule.  80% of the time I exercise like an athlete and eat like a nutritionist, while 20% of the time I eat and workout like your average American. With this philosophy in mind, I have managed to keep myself fit and healthy for going on 3 years now.  With a little knowledge and application, most anyone can too.

References

Achterberg, C. PhD, Appel, L. MD, Clemens, R. PhD, Fukagawa, N. MD, Nelson, M. PhD,

Nickols-Richardson, S. PhD,  Pearson, T. MD, Pérez- Escamilla, R. PhD; Pi-Sunyer, X. MD, MPH; Rimm, E. ScD; Slavin, J. PhD, Williams, C. MD, Van Horn, L. PhD. (2010). U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010. 7th Edition, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, December 2010. Retrieved from www.dietaryguidelines.gov

Sizer, F.,Whitney, E. (2014).  Nutrition: Concepts and Controversies (13th ed.).  Mason, OH: Cengage Learning.