It's Not Health Food
Most people would agree that getting in a fender bender in the parking lot is preferable to flipping your car three times on the highway. Not getting in a car wreck in the first place, however, is still your best option.
There is a substantial difference between that which is better and that which is good. This concept applies to most any aspect of life, including nutrition.
A bowl of cereal, when compared to a deep-fried Twinkie, is a decent breakfast. A little packet of artificially-flavored strawberry oatmeal is a fairly healthy source of carbohydrates if your alternative is a sack of flour soaked in Gatorade. None of these things, however, are really good choices.
Many people, when attempting to improve their lifestyle and make healthy food choices, are duped by clever marketing into making choices that are “better” for their health without really being good for it.
When it comes to food that is truly nutritious, there is a general rule: The less processing the better. If you could conceivably walk outside somewhere and dig up, harvest, pick or kill a food item, odds are that it’s pretty good for you. The more closely a meal resembles a plant or animal, the better.
You can look at an apple and know that it came from a tree and grew in an orchard somewhere. Now, picture the list of ingredients on an apple pop tart and try to guess exactly where those came from.
The catch here is that unprocessed food is seldom advertised or packaged aggressively as health food. It doesn’t have to be.
A client of mine has been attempting to re-work his lifestyle and lose weight. This resulted in a trip to the grocery store for “healthy food.” What he came back with was a bunch of shiny pre-packaged processed foods marketed as health foods that, in reality, function more or less as a recipe for bodyfat accumulation and eventual diabetes.
One of the offending items was a large bottle of drinkable strawberry yogurt.
“Yogurt is good for you, right? And it’s got strawberries!”
The bottle contained almost a quarter pound of sugar with a small amount of strawberry juice.
One of the primary dietary factors behind obesity is consumption of liquid calories, and excess sugar in general.
With the exception of milk, the body generally doesn’t recognize liquid calories. They don’t contribute to a feeling of fullness, so no matter how many calories you drink, you’ll still feel hungry. This is a great way to over-consume sugar and eventually induce insulin resistant muscle cells along with increasingly well-fed, expanding fat cells.
Processed juices, even 100% fruit juices, are nutritionally empty compared to whole fruit. The processing concentrates the sugars far beyond what one would consume with raw fruit, eliminates a good deal of the micronutrient content and almost all of the fiber.
What this comes down to is that fruit juice, while better than something even more heavily processed like soda, is still not really good for you. Fruit is.
I was having a conversation about this with Mike Weber, an A.R.T. therapist once day. He once had a patient who was dangerously overweight and obviously needed nutritional counseling. Dr. Weber asked him about his fruit and vegetable intake and he replied that he had been drinking V8 Splash every day, so he was “getting his veggies in.”
The first ingredient in V8 Splash is high fructose corn syrup. It’s little more than cleverly disguised liquid candy labeled with a bunch of pretty pictures of the things that you should be eating instead. Something like that would not improve an obese individual’s health. It would accelerate its deterioration.
Any grocery store is fraught with these little pitfalls, and hidden liquid calories are only the beginning. Foods that one may unsuspectingly think are healthy could easily be the very things sabotaging your diet.
Comments for This Entry
You're wearing me down, Craig! Every time I read one of your articles, I start to care just a little bit more about this fitness and health stuff. Being a naturally skinny person who forgets to eat all the time doesn't lend well to the wanting to look good motivation. No amount of pullups or vegetables will rearrange this face! Sooner or later though, I might just turn the corner. Ran a whole mile this morning before I stopped to vomit!
I've been under the impression that the easiest way to be sure to get healthy food at the grocery store is to not enter the aisles. If it can sit on a shelf, with the exception of base cooking ingredients (with fewer than 3 or 4 actual ingredients on the label), it probably shouldn't go in your body. Any thoughts on this concept?
Posted on 09:07AM on July 18, 2011 [permalink]
That's a pretty easy and accurate rule to follow. Typically the perishable stuff is all on the perimeter of the store and the processed diabetes fuel is concentrated in the middle aisles.
There are still plenty of weird pitfalls in the produce section, like imitation "guacamole flavored" spread that looks like the real thing but is made of corn syrup and soybean oil, but for the most part you'll do well do just do a lap on the outside, get your meat and veggies and get out.
Posted on 09:33AM on July 18, 2011 [permalink]
"The less processing the better". That pretty much somes up how we should eat. Now for the unfortunate part and especially folks that have families, a few kids, work two jobs, etc....you can see how busy and unbalanced ones life can get.
For the single, athletic guy or gal, with no children, no wife or husband, no debts to worry about, no soccer games to rush to, no huge deadlines to work late for, then get your meats, fruits, veggies, nuts, water, etc....is very simple, but if your like me and many other older guys, it becomes a juggling act in life and the time to prepare food for the family, spending quality time, etc...
So here is the big word of advice I give every guy or gal that is a client.......BALANCE.
Some days or weeks, you and the family are eating pretty clean 80-90 percent great, but sometimes it's late and we as humans, get lazy...not an excuse, but the reality of having a family, two jobs, games to go to, workouts, working late, etc....and we make sacrifices or cheat on our caloric intake.
I beieve, that as long as we can make healthy choices 80-90 percent of the time and remember to have a cheat meal here and there to make our families happy, life can be much more enjoyable and not anal retentive.
I have seen the extreme hippie wheat grass organic loving family and the fast food munching lazy family and have come to realize that too much of either one can make a husband, wife, kids, family, friends, etc....go bonkers dealing with you.
It's like the bible thumping guy who is your brother throwing religion down your throat, you love him, but just wished he would take a chill pill sometimes in his theological delivery of God's message.
I believe Craig, no matter what, balance is the key to success with living a great life. It's OK to choose or buy some ice cream once in a blue moon or go out with your pals and have your drinks, but just don't drink in excess or just don't eat a whole gallon of ice cream....it's about moderation, food choices that are good 80-90 percent of the time and having an ocassional cheat meal with family and friends....then back on point with working out and eating right.
Posted on 08:20PM on July 25, 2011 [permalink]
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