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We all take the word of doctors and the government when it comes to our diets. Seriously, who is better to trust? The answer is simple: nutritionists. They may be hard to find, and they may same expensive at first, but the benefits of talking to someone who actually understands the science of food is amazing.
Here are a dozen pearls of wisdom from my personal nutritionist.
1) Food cannot be made in a lab. Substances that look, smell, and even taste a lot like food can be made in a laboratory, but the more processed a food is - the more lab-time it has before it goes into your mouth - the less nutritious it becomes. This is true even if the lab time is spend "fortifying" and "enhancing" your food, because they "fortify" with synthetic vitamins, which just don't work like natural vitamins do.
2) The Food Pyramid is upside-down. Mostly. The part about avoiding sweets and sugary foods, that's true. But the real food pyramid needs to be based solidly in meats and veggies, then fruit and dairy, with grains - whole grains - at the top, as a totally optional food. There also needs to be a special place for oils and butter - a vital source of essential fatty acids, which many Americans are horribly lacking.
3) If you can't buy it, don't eat it. That means if your candy bar has an ingredient that you can't find in the shelves, in it's own package, ready to take home and add to your home cooking - it's toxic. The food companies add toxins in amounts small enough that the FDA believes there is no long-term effect, but the fact is, no one knows how much hydrodypropylmethelcellulose you get in a day - and there's no safety net in place to make sure you don't get too much by getting a tiny amount from several dozen sources.
4) Eating fat doesn't make you fat. Think about it. If you eat fat (and you don't eat carbs at the same time), your body has to burn fat in order to survive (cause there's no carbs to burn). So eating fat doesn't make you store fat away - it makes you burn it. Unless, that is, you eat carbs at the same time. Then your body can burn the carbs for energy, and happily slap the fat onto your posterior.
5) Eating carbs makes you fat. Even if you don't eat fat and carbs - even if you just eat carbs, but you eat a lot of them - your body will burn what it can, pack away a little bit for emergency stress-response food, and then turn the rest into fat and slap it onto your posterior.
6) There are six things you have to get out of your food to survive. Those things are essential fatty acids, essential amino acids (proteins), water, calories, vitamins, and minerals. Notice that there are no carbohydrates anywhere on that list. That's important.
7) Vitamins and minerals don't work without other substances. They're called co-factors, and without the right co-factors, your body can't use vitamins and minerals correctly. In nature, vitamins and minerals almost always come 'pre-packaged' with the correct co-factors. That's the problem with synthetic vitamins - they don't.
8) Cooking food destroys some vitamins and essential acids. I'm not saying "go eat raw chicken", but keep in mind that the less cooked your food is, the more nutrition you get out of it. Raw beef, fresh veggies, etc, are all better for you than their cooked counterparts - and cooked food is better for you the less it's cooked. That means that pasteurized milk, almonds, juices, etc. lose a lot of their value.
9) Some foods have estrogen in them that can really screw up your body. Soybeans and flax seed are the big ones - every 100 grams of soy protein you consume is the equivalent of eating a birth control pill! Don't eat soy unless it's fermented first, like in real Chinese-style tofu and tamari soy sauce.
10) Local food is healthier. Strawberries from Chile, apples from Argentina - there are very few rules about these foods that our government can actually enforce; and that means that you have no idea what happened to those foods before they got to your market. You're way better off eating local food, in the season that it was grown in. Less chemical preservatives, less transportation costs...better all around.
11) Irradiating food kills vitamins, too. That means both irradiated beef and ANY MICROWAVED FOOD is significantly less valuable to your body than normal food. The only thing it's safe to microwave is water.
12) Eating right prevents a lot of diseases. Not just the ones you know about, like scurvy and beriberi - the big ones, like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and more. All of these diseases are your body's responses to long-term stresses, the most major of which is a bad diet.
I am no nutritionist - but my nutritionist is no writer. We got together to spread the word. Read more about how to live healthy through understanding your food. Don't you deserve to know the facts about nutrition for yourself?
Michael Danielson will be a father for the first time in August of 2008. In the interest of his future child's health, he has been working closely with his nutritionist to learn how to feed the human body and brain. His work runs contrary to almost everything you will here from your doctor or the FDA.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Danielson
Here are a dozen pearls of wisdom from my personal nutritionist.
1) Food cannot be made in a lab. Substances that look, smell, and even taste a lot like food can be made in a laboratory, but the more processed a food is - the more lab-time it has before it goes into your mouth - the less nutritious it becomes. This is true even if the lab time is spend "fortifying" and "enhancing" your food, because they "fortify" with synthetic vitamins, which just don't work like natural vitamins do.
2) The Food Pyramid is upside-down. Mostly. The part about avoiding sweets and sugary foods, that's true. But the real food pyramid needs to be based solidly in meats and veggies, then fruit and dairy, with grains - whole grains - at the top, as a totally optional food. There also needs to be a special place for oils and butter - a vital source of essential fatty acids, which many Americans are horribly lacking.
3) If you can't buy it, don't eat it. That means if your candy bar has an ingredient that you can't find in the shelves, in it's own package, ready to take home and add to your home cooking - it's toxic. The food companies add toxins in amounts small enough that the FDA believes there is no long-term effect, but the fact is, no one knows how much hydrodypropylmethelcellulose you get in a day - and there's no safety net in place to make sure you don't get too much by getting a tiny amount from several dozen sources.
4) Eating fat doesn't make you fat. Think about it. If you eat fat (and you don't eat carbs at the same time), your body has to burn fat in order to survive (cause there's no carbs to burn). So eating fat doesn't make you store fat away - it makes you burn it. Unless, that is, you eat carbs at the same time. Then your body can burn the carbs for energy, and happily slap the fat onto your posterior.
5) Eating carbs makes you fat. Even if you don't eat fat and carbs - even if you just eat carbs, but you eat a lot of them - your body will burn what it can, pack away a little bit for emergency stress-response food, and then turn the rest into fat and slap it onto your posterior.
6) There are six things you have to get out of your food to survive. Those things are essential fatty acids, essential amino acids (proteins), water, calories, vitamins, and minerals. Notice that there are no carbohydrates anywhere on that list. That's important.
7) Vitamins and minerals don't work without other substances. They're called co-factors, and without the right co-factors, your body can't use vitamins and minerals correctly. In nature, vitamins and minerals almost always come 'pre-packaged' with the correct co-factors. That's the problem with synthetic vitamins - they don't.
8) Cooking food destroys some vitamins and essential acids. I'm not saying "go eat raw chicken", but keep in mind that the less cooked your food is, the more nutrition you get out of it. Raw beef, fresh veggies, etc, are all better for you than their cooked counterparts - and cooked food is better for you the less it's cooked. That means that pasteurized milk, almonds, juices, etc. lose a lot of their value.
9) Some foods have estrogen in them that can really screw up your body. Soybeans and flax seed are the big ones - every 100 grams of soy protein you consume is the equivalent of eating a birth control pill! Don't eat soy unless it's fermented first, like in real Chinese-style tofu and tamari soy sauce.
10) Local food is healthier. Strawberries from Chile, apples from Argentina - there are very few rules about these foods that our government can actually enforce; and that means that you have no idea what happened to those foods before they got to your market. You're way better off eating local food, in the season that it was grown in. Less chemical preservatives, less transportation costs...better all around.
11) Irradiating food kills vitamins, too. That means both irradiated beef and ANY MICROWAVED FOOD is significantly less valuable to your body than normal food. The only thing it's safe to microwave is water.
12) Eating right prevents a lot of diseases. Not just the ones you know about, like scurvy and beriberi - the big ones, like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's, and more. All of these diseases are your body's responses to long-term stresses, the most major of which is a bad diet.
I am no nutritionist - but my nutritionist is no writer. We got together to spread the word. Read more about how to live healthy through understanding your food. Don't you deserve to know the facts about nutrition for yourself?
Michael Danielson will be a father for the first time in August of 2008. In the interest of his future child's health, he has been working closely with his nutritionist to learn how to feed the human body and brain. His work runs contrary to almost everything you will here from your doctor or the FDA.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michael_Danielson
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