Overview
What exactly is food anyway? We all take our ideas of food for granted but in modern times our food supply has been heavily adulterated with preservatives, additives, and all sorts of extra chemicals we don’t need.
Disclaimer: I am not a dietician, this article is just my opinion, please seek professional help when making changes to your diet.
Food:
material consisting essentially of protein, carbohydrate, and fat used in the body of an organism to sustain growth, repair, and vital processes and to furnish energy.
Source: merriam-webster
Food has generally been modified to appeal to our taste buds, have long shelf life, and be cheaper to manufacture. Due to all the changes created by the food industry, we need a way to help navigate the swamp of modern food products, and find real food.
Identifying Food
A method of identifying food that I use is to ask myself the following questions. And depending on the answer I determine whether I should eat it or not.
Is this a plant or animal?
If I have a hard time figuring that out, then it’s probably not food, or at least is moving toward the not-food category. Examples of plants and animals include:Plants: Rice, Beans, Fruits, Veggies, etc.
Animals: Beef, Chicken, Fish, etc.
NOT Plant or Animal: Aspartame, refined sugar, high fructose corn syrup, white sliced sandwich bread with a 3 month shelf life.
How refined is this? Less is better.
Flour used to be part of a wheat plant, but it has been processed into a clean white powder. Flour is not true food, because you don’t find it out in the wild in plant form. It usually has to be enriched with minerals because they were lost with processing. So its one step away from true food. Sugar is another example that’s worse than flour for it’s negative impact on the body.
Health vs Convenience
There are many reasons we, as a society, don’t all eat perfectly fresh food and live healthy lives. For one, we can’t all be farmers and also live in a technically advanced society. That requires specialization, which then makes us dependent on the food industry for food. Companies are designed for creating profit which incentivizes the change to a more adulterated food supply.
Another reason for our food situation is that we need food that can last in our refrigerators and pantries, and be easy to eat. So we get boxed foods that just require heating and mixing, such as pre-made pasta with flavoring packets.
To properly eat healthy, requires buying more raw ingredients, and cooking them ourselves. This means washing, chopping, cooking, seasoning, and all the rest of the work that goes into good food. Eating healthy is hard work!
A Balanced Approach
Am I advocating for a pure diet of only fruits, veggies, and meat? No, that is impractical. Not everyone has the skill, time, energy, or money to live a lifestyle like that. Not to mention, sometimes junk food is just for fun!
Instead, a good approach is to create a base of ingredients and foods that act as our staple diet. Things like rice, beans, potatoes, chicken, beef, fish, etc, can form the basis of a good diet. From the basics we can add variety by adding convenience foods, like quick pasta, to a steak and adding a fresh sliced tomato to round it off.
A healthy dish should usually have one of each:
Protein: beans, fish, chicken, beef, lentils, etc.
Plant: spinach, lettuce, onion, cucumber, carrot, tomato, etc.
Carbs: rice, bread, potato, etc
Notice this list is not just Protein, Carbs, and Fat. By making one item, Plant, I am trying to point out the lack of important minerals and vitamins in a diet without plants. I have had too many meals that had carbs, proteins, and fat, but not any actual plants in them. Plants really provide an important source of special nutrients (micro-nutrients) that we need.
Best of luck and good eating!
Thanks for reading!