The buzzword of the popular, conventional nutritionists of today is 'variety'. Only by consuming a wide variety of foods, they argue, can we acheive a healthy diet. But how does that translate into practical terms? How does that help us compose a healthy shopping list?
To approach this subject logically, lets picture the average supermarket. There's a section of fresh fruit and vegies which appears as we enter the building. Next is meat, breads, the dairy fridge, then countless aisles of packaged foods. So If we were to eat a variety of foods that were based on the ratios presented in the typical supermarket, our diet would look something like this:
25% fresh fruit and veg
20% meats
15% dairy
40% processed packaged foods including bread
There are several problems with these ratios, but even so I think it would be wishful thinking to assume that the majority of people consume 25% of their food as fresh fruit and veg. I base that judgement on the number of people suffering from lifestyle diseases and obesity.
When I look at this breakdown I immediately lump together the dairy with the processed category. Most dairy is highly processed. Next time you buy some commercial yoghurt (as opposed to natural whole yoghurt like jalna or mundella) check out how much sugar and unpronouncable chemicals or E numbers it contains. Milk is a highly processed food, as is most cheese (again, I mean no slight on those wonderful cheeses produced in the traditional way from biodynamic milk). Margarine simply cannot be called food.
These processed foods, that is anything containing unpronouncable chemical ingredients, E numbers, refined sugars and flours, trans fats and processed salts, are a severe drain on our bodies. They provide us with no nutrition at all, but actually leach what it already there. The body uses its existing stores to deal with a processed food as it passes through our system. This could otherwise be defined as antinutrients, aka poison.
The logical truth is that if we eat more foods that burn up our nutrient stores than foods that replenish them, we wind up with multiple nutritional deficiencies. And the body will tell you something is wrong by functioning sub-optimally. You will have fatigue, headaches, muscle soreness, cramps and spasms, get frequent infections, be overweight, have poor concentration, lack motivation, feel grumpy, depressed, anxious, have period pain, difficult pregnancy and labour, and all those other little or not so little issues, until finally it becomes something a doctor can diagnose and give a drug for.
Would you rather prevent that chain of events and be healthy and vital? Spring out of bed every morning feeling strong and on form?
Then here are some shopping quidelines that will help you to acheive this. For more info you can read such useful tomes as In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan and Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, and this little gem of an article: http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Bruce-Ames-Vitamin-insufficiency-boosting-age-related-diseases/?c=mvNDRfNEiPdv%2FXtIFPDezg%3D%3D&utm_source=Newsletter_Subject&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BSubject
Here is my method of approaching the shopping.
Our organic fruit and veg comes to the door every Monday. These foods feature in every meal we have all week.
At the supermarket I buy a little roo meat, Jalna/Mundella natural biodynamic yoghurt, organic butter, quality organic cheese, organic eggs, rice, quinoa, tinned tomatoes, Carmans muesli, gluten free flour and lasagne sheets, dried herbs and spices, and coconut milk.
From the markets I buy sea salt or river salt, raw and unprocessed honey, organic tofu, organic meat and carcases for stock, organic dried lentils and chickpeas, nuts and seeds and organic herbal teas.
I therefore ignore any food containing the "lethal recipe" of chemical pollutants and ingrediants, refined flours and sugars, damaged fats and processed salt. If these ingredients were to be outlawed tomorrow, imagine how much smaller our supermarkets would be! Just like they were 60 or 70 years ago, before the advent of food industry, and before the rise of lifestyle disease, obesity, ADHD and chronic poor health. Our ancestors ate a true varied diet, as do many traditional cultures in other, non western countries. And they were healthy for it. We can learn much from these groups, such as to treat meat as a rare delicacy, to consume meat that isn't factory farmed but was raised naturally. That all meals should be based on clean, fresh fruit and veg. Most of all, that if it doesn't exist in nature, it doen't belong in our bodies.
The kind of varied diet you subscribe to should be based on foods that make you feel good. If you think you are currently consuming a reasonable, varied diet, yet you aren't in perfect health, perhaps it's worth shifting your beliefs around food.
Finally, remember to feed yourself respectfully. Your body is an amazing creation!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Butter Vs Margarine and the truth about fats
Who’s seen that add about how we’re all killing our children by pouring tones of butter through their arteries every year? The one where that cardiologist chastises us for negligent parenting? Isn’t it a great add? Don’t you feel ashamed and want to immediately haul all the butter into the bin and fly out to buy some Meadowlea?
Well be not afraid. Here is the truth about butter.
Butter has been made by man in certain parts of the world for eons. I’m a big advocate of the theory that our bodies adapt to a diet over millennia, which means we should eat what our ancestors ate if we want to be healthy. For caucasians and some other groups, this means a little organic butter is not such a huge issue. But it’s true that it contains saturated fats, so how can it be good?
There is no evidence that has ever suggested that naturally occurring fats cause heart disease. There’s plenty of evidence, however, that man made fats, like the hydrogenated oils which become margarines and Crisco oils, are the real culprits. And in fact the heart attack, common as it is now, was a medical rarity until 90 odd years ago, which coincides with the advent of human interference with fats. Which means that humans ate their butter for all those eons without ever having a single heart attack (and no, it wasn’t because they died younger, that average stat actually hasn’t changed much if you adjust for lower infant mortality and antibiotics).
So here’s the lowdown on fats. Getting our fats right is absolutely integral to good health. Fats should make up 15-20% of a healthy diet. There are many different types of fats, but the ones that belong in the human diet fall into 2 main groups.
Saturated fat
This comes mainly from animals, but there are some plant sources such as coconut oil and peanut oil. These fats are more stable to heat. This means that when you cook with them they don’t lose their integrity and become an oxidized or “bad” fat. So in practical terms, if you’re making asian food, use the oil they’d use traditionally, which is often peanut oil or sometimes coconut oil. If you’re making European or Indian food, butter or ghee is ideal. I would strongly recommend that you use organic butter. This is cleaner, free from chemicals, and higher in omega oils because the cows ate grass and did exercise, instead of subsisting on corn feed and standing all day in a pen, as is the lot of a factory farmed animal.
Saturated fats should make up about 5 percent of our diet. Yes, we eat way more than that in the west due to the cheapness of factory farmed meat, but animal fat is not inherently evil.
Omega oils
These are the essential fatty acid group, and you would have heard much about omega 3, how important it is for heart health and so on. Food industry think they can throw some omegas into bread and dupe us that it’s suddenly a health food. It’s important to know the natural sources of omegas, so we won’t be tricked into thinking bread is a good source. Omega oils come from plants. When we eat plants,including vegies and nuts and seeds, we eat omega oils. They are also extracted from nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and so on. Fish are high in omega 3 oil because of the plankton they eat. The important thing to know about omega oils is that they destabalise easily, i.e. they become bad fats when they’re exposed to heat and light. This means if you buy an oil in a clear glass (or worse, plastic) bottle, it has been hydrogentated (meaning superheated and treated with chemicals) in order to extend its shelf life. This is now a bad fat. Anyone who produces quality cold pressed oil will sell it to you in a dark glass bottle. If you do buy these lovely, quality oils, then you cook with them, you’ll unfortunately make a bad fat of it right there in your kitchen. I get around the issue of Mediterranean cuisine by using butter for the cooking part, then drizzling organic olive oil on the plate as I serve. Omega oils should make up about 10 - 15% of your diet.
Margerines all fall into the category of omega oils that have been hydrogenated and turned into bad fats. Then they’re treated with emulsifiers, chemicals which give the margarine a smooth texture, dyed a pleasant yellow colour and marketed to us by slandering the opposition. Sound like what we should be giving our kids? Sound like something that deserves a heart foundation tick?
How about this for an alternative solution; if you have a doubt about both butter and margarine, skip both and use avocado as a spread. No one can argue against a good ole’ avo.
Here's an interesting study
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Publications/Food-Beverage-Nutrition/FoodNavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Saturated-fats-not-linked-to-heart-disease-Meta-analysis/?c=mvNDRfNEiPdQ7CH%2BRsBzxQ%3D%3D&utm_source=Newsletter_Subject&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BSubject
Well be not afraid. Here is the truth about butter.
Butter has been made by man in certain parts of the world for eons. I’m a big advocate of the theory that our bodies adapt to a diet over millennia, which means we should eat what our ancestors ate if we want to be healthy. For caucasians and some other groups, this means a little organic butter is not such a huge issue. But it’s true that it contains saturated fats, so how can it be good?
There is no evidence that has ever suggested that naturally occurring fats cause heart disease. There’s plenty of evidence, however, that man made fats, like the hydrogenated oils which become margarines and Crisco oils, are the real culprits. And in fact the heart attack, common as it is now, was a medical rarity until 90 odd years ago, which coincides with the advent of human interference with fats. Which means that humans ate their butter for all those eons without ever having a single heart attack (and no, it wasn’t because they died younger, that average stat actually hasn’t changed much if you adjust for lower infant mortality and antibiotics).
So here’s the lowdown on fats. Getting our fats right is absolutely integral to good health. Fats should make up 15-20% of a healthy diet. There are many different types of fats, but the ones that belong in the human diet fall into 2 main groups.
Saturated fat
This comes mainly from animals, but there are some plant sources such as coconut oil and peanut oil. These fats are more stable to heat. This means that when you cook with them they don’t lose their integrity and become an oxidized or “bad” fat. So in practical terms, if you’re making asian food, use the oil they’d use traditionally, which is often peanut oil or sometimes coconut oil. If you’re making European or Indian food, butter or ghee is ideal. I would strongly recommend that you use organic butter. This is cleaner, free from chemicals, and higher in omega oils because the cows ate grass and did exercise, instead of subsisting on corn feed and standing all day in a pen, as is the lot of a factory farmed animal.
Saturated fats should make up about 5 percent of our diet. Yes, we eat way more than that in the west due to the cheapness of factory farmed meat, but animal fat is not inherently evil.
Omega oils
These are the essential fatty acid group, and you would have heard much about omega 3, how important it is for heart health and so on. Food industry think they can throw some omegas into bread and dupe us that it’s suddenly a health food. It’s important to know the natural sources of omegas, so we won’t be tricked into thinking bread is a good source. Omega oils come from plants. When we eat plants,including vegies and nuts and seeds, we eat omega oils. They are also extracted from nuts, seeds, avocados, olives and so on. Fish are high in omega 3 oil because of the plankton they eat. The important thing to know about omega oils is that they destabalise easily, i.e. they become bad fats when they’re exposed to heat and light. This means if you buy an oil in a clear glass (or worse, plastic) bottle, it has been hydrogentated (meaning superheated and treated with chemicals) in order to extend its shelf life. This is now a bad fat. Anyone who produces quality cold pressed oil will sell it to you in a dark glass bottle. If you do buy these lovely, quality oils, then you cook with them, you’ll unfortunately make a bad fat of it right there in your kitchen. I get around the issue of Mediterranean cuisine by using butter for the cooking part, then drizzling organic olive oil on the plate as I serve. Omega oils should make up about 10 - 15% of your diet.
Margerines all fall into the category of omega oils that have been hydrogenated and turned into bad fats. Then they’re treated with emulsifiers, chemicals which give the margarine a smooth texture, dyed a pleasant yellow colour and marketed to us by slandering the opposition. Sound like what we should be giving our kids? Sound like something that deserves a heart foundation tick?
How about this for an alternative solution; if you have a doubt about both butter and margarine, skip both and use avocado as a spread. No one can argue against a good ole’ avo.
Here's an interesting study
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Publications/Food-Beverage-Nutrition/FoodNavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Saturated-fats-not-linked-to-heart-disease-Meta-analysis/?c=mvNDRfNEiPdQ7CH%2BRsBzxQ%3D%3D&utm_source=Newsletter_Subject&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BSubject
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