[Exploring Life] Understanding what constitutes healthy eating has become mired in confusion and conflicting information. What should we eat? Eat food, not too much, mostly plants. (Pollan, 2008). Pollen states that our basic assumptions about what food is have been corrupted and manipulated by nutritional science, government agencies, and food corporations. The result is a bewildering amount of confused, misleading, and incorrect information about the relationship between the food we eat and the mental and physical health and wellness we experience in life. In this sense, the concept of food must be repaired, clarified, and renewed. Changing our concept of food requires personal change as well as the systemic improvement of our systems of food production and environmental protection.
Four Basic Principles of Healthy Eating
If an individual eats food that denigrates the normal functions of the body, then that person promotes their own sickness and exposure to disease. If companies produce and distribute food that impair the natural functions of the body, then they too intentionally promote sickness and disease in the world. Food originates in the environment. If the environment, through human activity, becomes toxic then it is only obvious that our food supply will communicate those toxins throughout our body. If a political agenda, scientific “discovery” or corporate profitability take precedence over the care of our health via food, then we suffer a clear lack of ethical behavior that has potentially fatal implications.
Four Basic Principles For Healthy Eating
The four basic principles for choosing healthy food outlined by Dr. Mark Hyman [1] are:
- Eat whole, real, fresh, organic, unprocessed food;
- Eat fruit and vegetables rich in phytonutrients;
- Eat foods rich in fiber;
- Eat foods containing omega-3 fats.
These four basic principles of healthy eating, according to Hyman, constitute 90% of what is required to maintain health and to heal the body of illness (Hyman 2009).
Four Basic Criteria for Choosing Food
To integrate these principles into our daily life we need to know how to choose food that is in fact healthy for us. Hyman recommends selecting healthy food according to four basic criteria:
- Real – Choose food that is as close to its natural state as possible;
- Clean – Choose grass-fed, antibiotic-hormone-pesticide free animal products;
- Organic – Choose food that is free to toxins. I would add to this food that is only non-GMO;
- Local – Choose foods that are locally produced, since they are the highest in nutritional value.
Our food supply is infested with additives and chemicals. Though the problem is pervasive and seemingly unavoidable, the only reasonable course of action is to pursue the ideal of completely eliminating all additives and chemicals in our diet. [2]
Buying Real Food
In applying these four principles I have found that shopping for groceries, once a rather routine and unthoughtful process, has transformed into a process of constant inquiry and investigation. I soon learned was that approximately 90% of the grocery store became irrelevant.
If it has a label, don’t eat (or buy) it: This effectively eliminates any product in a can, box, or package. The word “food” is not related to these products, and as Michael Pollen suggests, we should think of these products as “food-like substances.” Any product required to list any additive designed to alter the appearance, the taste, the smell, substitute something, or to preserve it is not food. If a critical mass of consumers were to embrace this ideal, food producers would would be forced to improve or go out of business.
Pursue the ideal of no toxic load: Unless a food source is certified organic it probably contains some kind of toxic load. A toxic load includes the presence of pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, mercury (in large predatory fish), caffeine or alcohol in an animal or vegetable food source. These toxins are a primary cause of disease, both mental and physical.
The restaurant dilemma: In a restaurant, we really don’t know what we are eating. Unless the restaurant indicates that it uses only fresh, local, organic, chemical and additive free food sources, we are likely eating food-like substances that contain a toxic load. Though the substances may taste “good” they are, in all probability, unhealthy and toxic. There is little question that the success of a restaurant in the future will incorporate healthy eating as a basic assumption preparing the food they serve to the public. This will require dramatic improvements in the quality of food suppliers and producers. At this point, there is little evidence that restaurants have evolved in this direction and, in this sense, remain primitive. Businesses that serve food to the public must become part of the solution, not a perpetuation of the problem.
Slow food: One of the most damaging components of our food system is the fast food industry. The very notion that food should be “fast” originates in the depths of ignorance and the obsession with material profit. Fast food is not, in fact, “food” in any meaningful sense of the word. The acceptance of the fast food industry reveals a loss of priorities, both social and health, in life. Fast food is nothing more than a form of cultural virulence. Slow food is a return to social and physical health.
Food and body awareness: Our normal and natural state is to eat a wide variety of food, especially plants. Traditional dietary advice groups foods into various categories and recommends a “daily intake” according to the latest notions found in nutritional science. However, we simply do not understand the vast range of interaction that takes place when we eat. Rather than focusing on “getting enough” of each category, we should simply focus on variety of food that includes legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, vegetables and fruit. More importantly, we need to learn to “listen” to the messages within our own body, which are a far more powerful indicator of what we need (and what we don’t need).
Summary
The principles of eating are both simple and in some respects obvious. Much of what is happening in the domain of nutritional science is simplification, or a return to basic principles. Further, nutritional science seems to be in an “elimination” mode, that is to say, providing recommendations to remove a wide variety of food and food-like substances from our diets. To accomplish this, we must first redefine what we mean by the word “food.” Once this happens, we are then able to perceive the world of food through a new and healthier perspective.
Notes
1. For more information on Dr. Mark Hyman and The UltraMind Solution visit his website.
2. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest contains a wealth of information and regular updates regarding food additives and chemicals.
