At any social gathering, as soon as people learn that I am a nutritional therapist, the questions begin. Oh, what do YOU eat? How do you feel about salt? Is it okay to eat eggs every day now? Isn’t some amount of processed food good for you? Do I have to give up coffee completely? What about wine? I read that red wine is healthy, right?
I always enjoy the questions and the resulting discussions. After all, I love food and will talk about the topic until the grass-fed cows come home. But regardless of the question, I always try to leave them with one critically important bit of information. If you follow one food rule, let it be this… strive to eat whole foods found in nature or as minimally processed as possible.
As you can imagine, I get all of the typical responses and arguments. I can’t afford it. It’s too complicated. Takes too much planning. My kids won’t eat it. And I always say, just start somewhere and see where it leads you. You can’t eliminate box cereal (highly processed) for breakfast. Okay, but you can switch from low-fat milk (highly processed) to whole fat milk (less processed) to raw milk (natural). Or switch from margarine (highly processed) to butter (natural) on multigrain or spelt toast instead of white bread. Or buy natural peanut butter without all of the added sugar.
Start somewhere, take small steps, and small steps will make a big difference over time. The bottom line is this… the more processing the food undergoes the greater chance there is that chemicals or some other man-made food-like substance has been added which deems said “food” to not really be food at all. And your goal should be to eat real food. Shouldn’t it?
What small step will you take toward eating more real food?
For more on the principles of eating real food click here for a free download.
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