Good Food

Fortunately this last year has produced the results of several large studies that address this concern very directly. There are always lots of studies that focus on what damage one particular food component will create or what miraculous results can be hoped for with some new exotic herb or elixir. The last few years have also looked at the diets of various cultures and measured the health outcomes of all these many different diet styles. But this last year has had researchers combining the results of lots of these various different studies and trying to figure out what the common features are that improve health and extend life between all the previous studies.

The consensus is that: natural traditional foods prepared simply promote health and longevity. Alternative health teachers have been saying that for the last 70 years. The more processing a food undergoes, the less healthy it is. A recent study highlighted the damaging effects of processed plant-based foods. Fake meats and simulated dairy products are examples of foods that have been processed to the point that they look like something they are not, and they are toxic.

Our immune systems have been learning how to deal with natural foods for millions of years. But suddenly we have thousands of new chemicals in our food from processing, and our immune systems don’t know how to handle them. It might take thousands of years for our bodies to adapt, but evolution takes time. When a big environmental change happens, most of the species die off, and the few that have genetic mutations that help them adapt survive and reproduce. Those of us who don’t respond well to the changes in our food environment are the ones who are dying off. Those who have lucky genes that help them adapt will be the future.

I am not saying this to be a downer, but if we want to be healthy, we need to stick to foods that our bodies know how to work with. That means traditional foods that existed a thousand years ago, not stuff invented last week. Even this admonition can be tricky these days. Traditionally raised animal and vegetable foods are very different from what we buy most of the time at a grocery store. Most of you understand that breakfast cereal, candy, packaged dinners, protein bars, and so on are heavily processed foods full of foreign chemicals. But do you ever stop to think that how we raise animals for meat these days is totally foreign and changes the chemistry of those meats? Grazing animals like cows are meant to eat grass, not grain. Grain is for birds and rodents. Are you aware that most of the vegetables you buy at the store never existed 100 years ago? Fruits have been hybridized to be totally different nutritionally than what they were naturally. Most of our raw ingredient food supply has been processed a dozen ways and with thousands of chemicals before it ever makes it to a grocery store, much less a factory that then turns it into some new super convenient food.

What are we to do? Most of us cannot avoid some level of processing of our food. My brother lives on a 27-acre farm where he grows all his food. He has cows and sheep and chickens and a big pond full of fish. He has a massive garden and tons of different fruit trees, nut trees, and berry bushes. He lives on fresh organic food. And he has lots of freezers to store this food in until he and his family are ready to eat it. Most of us don’t have that. So we have to accept that we are starting at a disadvantage in our efforts to eat a healthy diet. We do what we can do. What does that look like?

Your best food choices are foods that you find in the store that only have one ingredient. As soon as you start adding ingredients, you have started processing that food. For example, an organic banana only has banana in it, hopefully. Choose organic foods whenever possible to avoid all the pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, preservatives, and whatnot. Choose foods that are raw and in their natural form. An example here is nuts. Most nuts are roasted and sprayed with oil and salt. Go for the raw nuts. Even better is when the nuts are still in their shells. Already you can see here that eating a diet of truly good foods is not convenient at all. It takes effort to soak your pinto beans overnight, then wash them a couple of times, then slow-cook them for hours before eating them. We have chosen processed foods for a reason: effort. Healthy food requires effort.

Here is another health tip: How you prepare food at home is a form of processing. Avoid cooking methods that make food toxic. The biggest concern is cooking with high heat, which forces chemical reactions that produce toxic byproducts. Grilling creates cancer-causing acrylamide in meats. Heat turns healthy oils into toxic rancid oxidized oils, so frying or deep-frying with liquid oil is a bad choice. Heat does little damage to saturated fats. The least damaging cooking methods are steaming, boiling, low-temperature baking, and sous vide cooking. Slow cooking in a crock pot is also pretty good.

is your goal then I would suggest you simplify your diet. Eat more like your ancestors ate. Fruit Loops and plant-based chicken nuggets are not human food. They are poison. Go for simple traditional foods.

Happy New Year,

David

Ellen

We are preparing for a week of family participation. My family members are gathering from all over to celebrate my mother’s 95th birthday. We will be housing my son Devon several days as well as my brother and sister in law one day. So Ellen and I have been busy cleaning up the house to get ready for company.