Your health may not be everything but if you lose it everything becomes nothing.
There is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we eat. Among the many factors that shape lives, nutrition plays a critical role. If we can maintain excellent eating habits, something extraordinary in health can be achieved. While most of us are aware that food choices are important to health, very few people realize that food can actually promote health. We do not subtract: we keep adding. What we do occasionally does not affect us but what we do consistently definitely affects our health. That is why smarter food choices will reduce the risk of chronic diseases and many types of cancers.
Change can be both challenging and difficult for all of us. Therefore, one should shift to eating nutrient-rich foods slowly and steadily and we would find a healthier and better future. Each time you sit down to a meal, you are making life and death decisions. Does that sound scary? Actually at first glance it truly is, but today we are entering in to the world of nutritional immunology – a subject that has fascinated me. When you are making decisions to improve your food and your very next meal that will affect how you spend the rest of your life; whether a newborn, a teenager or adolescent, whether you’re a man or a woman, a college student or a person nearing retirement age, a stay-at-home parent or a corporate executive, food affects you every day. With our fast-paced lifestyle, there is rarely a time when we don’t need to be at our mental and physical best.
And no doubt you spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it. What you need is a real food life.
WHAT IS REAL FOOD?
Simply put, a real food life is where you enjoy food and make conscious decisions about the best foods to put into your body so that it works at an optimum level. It means not being obsessed by food and not feeling guilty when you eat something you crave. It shouldn’t be confused with having a ‘perfect’ good life. Indeed, I believe that the reason so many of us have a mixed relationship with food is because we’ve bought into the myth of a ‘perfect’ diet. We think that if we can just eat ‘perfectly’ – never splurging or giving in to cravings – all of our problems will disappear. But no one is perfect – not me, not you. Having a real food life means eating when you are actually hungry, not because you are tired, stressed or angry. It means being in control; even an ‘indulgence’ will be a conscious choice because you know where the treat fits into the rest of your food plan.
Real food simply means plenty of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds dry fruits, pulses, sprouts, cold pressed oils, whole grains, low fat dairy products, fish and white meats, combined with plenty of water. It is better if these foods are organic, as today we are eating a daily cocktail of chemicals, pesticides and growth hormones, which are known to be the cause of obesity, degenerative diseases and psychological problems, as well as many cancers.
There is absolutely no nutrient, no protein, no vitamin, no mineral that we know of that cannot be obtained from plant-based foods. Foods that are real can actually change the course of bio-chemistry. We can prevent and stop damage at the cellular level that can develop to disease.
The delightful side effect to this effort is that you feel better, you have more energy, and can embrace life with better optimism. Nutrition is the one thing that is everything. Food shapes our bodies as well as our lifestyle. If you want to realize greater health gains, invest your time and effort in real food and enjoy amazing health.
Proper nutrition is an art. Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food and the future will look a lot brighter for us!
Written By: Ms. Naini Saitalvad, Nutritionist & Obesity Consultant for www.helpyourbody.in
