Eating Healthy
Taking care of yourself is important if you want to produce at the top of your game. How to eat healthy can be summarized in 6 words.
I recently finished reading “In Defence of Food” by Michael Pollen which gave me a whole new perspective on eating. Michael starts the book with the advice of “Eat mostly plants, not too much”. I was shocked to get the conclusion to the “plot” at the very beginning of the book but was curious how he came to this simple conclusion.
Nutritionism
For a long time people have been trying to figure out what our bodies need in terms of nutrients to stay healthy, essentially reverse engineering food. We’ve found protein, vitamins, minerals, and other things in foods and started judging which nutrients are good and which are bad. The food industry has capitalized on this trend by focusing on creating cheaper food and fortifying it with nutrients to make up for the fact that the items they made lacked nutrients to begin with.
White bread is a good example as it is made from white flower which is just the starch part of wheat with all the nutrients removed. The germ, which contains omega-3, is left out because it eventually spoils and white flower without all the germ is very stable and very cheap. To try to make up for all the nutrients that are left out (the ones we know about), manufacturers try to add them back in. Of course they don’t add back the things that spoil like Omega-3.
Smarter than nature, we are not
The problem with nutritionism is that we don’t really know as much as we think we do. A great example is baby formula. When baby formula was invented, it was found to have large deficiencies in things babies needed. The babies did not do well on just formula. So the manufacturers simply updated the formula to add the things that were discovered to be missing and they keep doing this till this day.
You see this trend with engineered food. You may recall how manufacturers created trans fats in margarine which was discovered to be killing people as it never left the body. Benzine (a deadly poison) was discovered in orange soda because the calcium reacted with the carbon dioxide in the soda. We really don’t know the nutrients people actually need and how to get it to them. Even today, the most recommended diet for babies is mother’s breast milk and real food (mashed in the early days) when they are able to eat real food. While we don’t know how exactly how it works, we know it works better than engineered food.
We have learned that some nutrients require other nutrients in order to be absorbed by the body. In the case of calcium, its been found that Vitamin D is needed for the calcium to be absorbed. The more researchers look into these compounds the more dependencies they discover. Researchers don’t like dependencies because they complicate things with experiments. Ideally you want to be able to change one variable, and then see the results.
Nature to the rescue
Researchers have found that traditional food consumption of actual foods (fruit, vegetables, and even meat) are the best thing we can do to eat healthy. I.e. eat real food that we recognize. Avoid processed food that lacks nutrients, are added back, and then encased with preservatives, conditioners, and other chemicals. Some of the processed foods are intentionally engineered so they appeal to us and fool our senses so we will purchase them and consume more of them.
It’s been shown that people who adopt a “Western Diet” quickly develop “Western” diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and lots more. In one experiment a group of people from Australia went back to their traditional tribal diet. In a period of a few months all the Western diseases disappeared. There are other experiments with native americans and their diets with similar results. The thing about tribal diets is that they have been around for hundreds and in some cases thousands of years. The diets were naturally optimized by natural selection. Those who ate food around them that was conducive to their survival, survived, others did not. This was different depending on where you lived. For example, in some places, a high meat diet and very little plants (in the arctic for example) is the most effective diet for that region.
It’s what you are not eating that hurts you
Because we have easy/cheap access to processed foods that are typically based on low nutrient ingredients such as white flower, grains, corn, refined sugar, chemicals and fillers, we tend to eat a lot of it. As a result we actually are nutrient deficient because this food displaces fruits, vegetables, and other “real food”. While we are getting plenty of calories, the nutrition is way off and so we see lots of western diseases that previously were unheard of such as diabetes, anemia, weak bones, etc..
What you can do
The book recommends a few simple things you can do to eat healthier.
Shop at farmer markets
Local farmers rarely have added ingredients in their produce and they usually grow things in a diversified way which leverages the natural balance of plants and animals yielding more nutritious food than massive commercial farms that mainly rely on nitrogen fertilizer and 2-3 major crops. If you sign up for a CSA (community supported agriculture) it will get you into the habit of diversifying. A CSA will usually provide weekly selection of plants (and sometimes other foods) for your consumption.You will receive things you would normally not buy such as rainbow char, mustard greens, and kale. If you’ve never had them, kale chips are easy to make, healthy, and super yummy.
Shop the outskirts of the grocery store
Usually the produce and most natural products are on the outskirt of the grocery store with the processed food in the middle ayles. Don’t buy anything packaged with more than 5 ingredients, ingredients you don’t recognize, or a product that has health claims on it. If a food needs to advertise health benefits, it’s usually something bad for you.
Cook
When you are the one taking real food ingredients and mixing them together you will know what is in your food. I doubt you will add a sprinkle of Guar Gum, or MSG to your dinner.
Go Green
Make sure to eat green leaves as those typically have the most helpful nutrients.
Eat as if your life depends on it
Eating healthy takes longer when you actually cook your own food and costs more when you purchase better real food ingredients. History and nature has proven that you will be a lot healthier and more effective in the things you are trying to accomplish in your work and personal life. At the end of the day when you feel better you’ll be able to do better and enjoy the results.
