Step 2
Step 2: Real Nutrition
About 13 000 artificial substances are used in a current food industry. The majority of them is not good for us. It just improves the impression of taste and the look of a given product. We need to choose if we want to eat simple food, simple dishes made from organic products or if we want to eat fast food full of chemical compounds that are harmful for us.” - Dr. Danuta Myłek, M.D.
Extra hours at work, catching up with a friend or maybe getting up a little too late. What else makes you eat a fast-food meal instead of a properly hand-made dish? Such ready-made food usually only increases our sugar level. That’s all it really does. Children visit fast food restaurant basically on every school trip, as part of a plan. There are vending machines with various chocolate bars and cans of coke in every office building. We don’t care what we eat and we don’t care how we eat. We eat while doing stuff. We eat while talking on the phone or while sitting at our desks and doing things. We even eat while driving a car!
We don’t have to wait long to see the consequences of our actions. The first consequences to appear are problems with digestion: bloating, stomachache, nausea or bowel cramps. The common belief in western countries is that all of these can be successfully treated with pills, so we can continue being careless with what we eat. Weight gain will be another symptom for sure. We will suffer from mood swings, because our hormones are not in order. It will depend on how much time has passed since we ate the last chocolate bar or had other junk food. That’s a straight way to get closer to some illnesses, even cancer, diabetes and mental disorders. It sounds like a drug addict's life, right?
Junk food is full of addictive substances such as monosodium glutamate. Such food doesn’t give us any nutrients, but it makes us constantly hungry for more. We fall into a loop of eating whereas many of our cells starve to death. They starve for vitamins and microelements and what they get from us, are only calories.
Food determines consciousness.
Herbert George Wells
Healthy food is usually simple, unprocessed and costs less
Food can become our medicine. The key to success is knowledge. But where to look for this knowledge when more and more books talk only about various diets? Healthy food usually means simple, not packed food, or not processed food. It is also relatively cheap, buckwheat groats with olive oil, vegetable soup or potatoes with dill or parsley greens and sour milk to drink. Or maybe potatoes with a broccoli? It is a kind of a paradox, but to eat healthier, you don’t need to make a revolution in your kitchen. You don’t need to spend hours frying or baking. So, instead of getting supplements at a pharmacy, eat some vegetables, millets, nuts or seeds. Natural products are the best source of nutrients that are necessary for us to stay healthy. A lot of information about food that we might have learnt at school, is no longer valid. The newest pyramid of a healthy lifestyle (recommended by Harvard University) places physical activity in the bottom of the pyramid. The Harvard scientists agree that it is the fundament of a healthy lifestyle. Dairy is understood here as protein from cow milk and we should reduce it to the minimum. Another new recommendation says that we should eat much more plants. According to specialists, we should eat fish once a week with vegetables, vegetable oils and grains, seeds every day.
If we plan to be healthy, we should rarely eat meat – maximum once a week. We should remember though, that children need more protein as they are in the process of building their organisms. However, we should avoid conventional food, including meat full of antibiotics, hormons and artificial ingredients, added to prolong expiry date.
Copyrights: Zaneta Geltz
Where to look for energy?
The basic source of vitamins are vegetables, except for vitamin D, that we can find only in meat, animal-based products or we can get it from the Sun, for free. If you want to make sure that you buy good quality vegetables, look for the certificate from the EU (a green leaf sign) or other local organic certifications. Of course the best option would be to have our own piece of land. If not, it is a good idea to buy only seasonal vegetables from local, organic stores. Seasonal vegetables also cost less. If a given vegetable is not available in the winter, don’t buy it from some distant countries. Shipping means that it is covered with a thick layer of preservatives and the food you eat costs a lot of CO2 emissions.
What vegetables to serve on our tables?
- Cabbage– the source of calcium, potassium, iron and vitamin C. It is good for our bones instead of an overrated glass of milk. Cabbage has also been used as treatment for painful joints. Sauerkraut is also famous for its taste and nutrients.
- Onion, garlic, leek- they are excellent bacteriolytic ingredients. They also fight inflammation in our bodies. They are very good for us especially in autumn and winter to strengthen our immune system.
- Pumpkin – the inner part of a pumpkin is a great source of beta-carotene, folic acid, vitamin C and vitamins B. Pumpkin seeds are good to fight parasites. It is worth remembering that folic acid is making us younger! Pumpkins are also a source of zinc and important fatty acids. It is worth remembering that vitamins A, E and K are soluble in fats, thus it is good to sprinkle vegetables with olive oil or flaxseed oil.
What about fruit?
They are a source of a lot of vitamins, but also fructose - sugar that most of us don’t absorb and don’t digest well. This sugar is also feedstuff for blastomycetes of the bowels (when fermenting, you can suffer from bloating). When fructose is finally absorbed, it is turned into fat. There is even more fructose in junk food.
Fruit can be treated as a snack, one or two per day is fine. The recommendable fruit with a little dose of fructose is avocado. It is especially recommended in the combination with lemon juice and warm water. You can have it daily.
Grains
Groats should be a basic element of a healthy meal. Different types of groats are the source of minerals and fibre that regulates the work of our guts. Unfortunately, refined wheat is the most popular grain on our tables. It is modified and treated with all sorts of chemical compounds and it is full of bad gluten. Gluten found in wheat is a kind of lectin that destroys the walls of our guts (the cells called enterocytes). It also causes problems with digestion and with absorption of other nutrients. It can cause a lot of problems in our body. Instead of wheat, it is better to choose millet groats (it is made of gluten free millet) - it is delicious both in a sweet or salted version. Another groats which is good for us is warming buckwheat or amaranth. They are gluten free and they don’t cause violent changes in our sugar levels.
A diet based on refined wheat (gluten), UHT cow's milk (milk proteins) and white sugar (fructose) is the main cause of most of illnesses that contemporary patients suffer from.
Arguments you can‘t deny
Healthy food can be the easiest thing on Earth, but for someone who is used to eat instant soups and pizza, making a change in your diet can be a kind of a challenge. At first, there may be cravings for artificial flavours, especially the salty ones, but it is better to focus on the results and benefits of the coming methamorphosis.
Are they in love?
People who go along healthy meals have more energy and are usually in a good mood. Thanks to a proper amount of omega fatty acids, which are necessary for the brain to work well and proper amounts of complex carbohydrates (such as starch from groats or vegetables), we avoid sudden changes in our mood, which is the result of the changes in the sugar level in our body. Thus, don’t be surprised that after changing your diet, you will look as if you were in love again!
You don’t have to put on weight when you get old
The pair of jeans we used to wear when we were students don’t have to hide somewhere on the bottom of our wardrobe. Putting on weight is not a natural process of our life. People who compose their meals properly, sleep well and do physical exercises, don’t put on weight. When you quit eating sweets and fast food and when you start listening to your real hunger, not your appetite, you will definitely avoid putting on weight. So how is it going to be? Water instead of a coke?
Stay away from a clinic
Healthy dishes will save some money, time and stress linked to regular visits to a doctor’s clinic. A lot of people say that when they change what they eat, they get rid of chronic illnesses that were not properly diagnosed. Before you join a queue at the medical clinic, start changing the content of your fridge, plate and a glass. Fall in love with vegetables, olive oil and groats. You will surely find more interesting activities than lying on a hospital bed. Of course, there many more pros of healthy food, than this. It is an important element of our healthy lifestyle, but you need to keep a little distance here, too. If you are already on the good path, respect others who might be just beginning their journey. So instead of critisizing others, invite them for healthy soup and lead by a good example. Lead by example showing that it is worth the effort of others.
Every time you eat something, you either support illness or health.