Lifestyle Choices

Natural foods taste great: red and green salads fresh from the garden, wholegrain bread and fruity jam, a chicken with real chicken taste — no wonder a return to natural foods is one of the most important trends we’ve witnessed in recent years.

Modern progress in preservation, production and processing has certainly added an enormous variety of trouble-free foods to our menus. But it is not all a miracle. Some methods are potentially dangerous to health. Gases are used to ripen and preserve fruits and vegetables. Chemical sprays are applied and fertilizers are spread with alarming casualness over our farm lands.

Such substances and chemical compounds may have long-term effects which no one yet understands. We now consume the equivalent of two to five pounds of these additives per person per year, about 10 to 40 tablets a day, taken year in year out. And consumption is going up every week as we buy more and more convenience foods.

Of course, it is important not to become so anti-manufactured food that we reject everything that has been processed in any way. Much of the processing, such as the milling of whole wheat to make flour is very useful. And many food additives have a worthwhile and serious purpose. They make sure that those of us who live a long way from agricultural areas will have unspoiled, fresh tasting food without risking illness or even death which could occur as a result of poor storage or rancidity. After all, life was not all golden in the ‘Golden Past’:

Tuberculosis from the milk of infected cows, trichinosis from pork. Green potatoes contain solanon, rhubarb leaves are poisonous, and even healthy spinach can be toxic! So we should keep a sense of proportion and encourage research that concentrates on improving present testing methods. Too many additives are tested only by themselves. Chemicals are known to interact with each other in a living organism. Safe even when taken in large doses on their own, some chemicals, when combined with other chemicals in food, might be very harmful indeed. This is one reason many people are interested in learning about a more natural way of life, growing their own food in healthy soil, and eating it in the primary state—raw or lightly cooked, using the skins of fruits and the green tops of vegetables as much as possible.

But unfortunately some campaigners for natural foods become fanatical about it. ‘Natural‘ gets confused with ‘health foods‘, and anything bought in a health food store must be healthier and better for you than products from your local supermarket. This is completely untrue. There are over-priced and even over-processed foods on the shelves of some health food stores, too, containing large quantities of sugar, and brown sugar is not much better than white. Others may be good for you but sell for outrageously high prices. Wholegrain flour, beans, etc may be much cheaper in a supermarket. There are also excellent suppliers of natural foods in bulk that can be purchased by mail at very reasonable prices.

In other words, shop carefully and read the labels, no matter where you are.

BASIC GUIDELINES

Since there are no restrictions on this diet, use it to your advantage to explore all the wonderful foods available. A week’s worth of menus based on the four basic food groups are provided to stimulate your creativity. But go on from there and enjoy yourself.

Choose much of what you eat from foods in their raw or natural state: vegetables for salads, fruits, grains like brown rice and whole wheat bread and lean cuts of meat and fresh fish. This way you will get the highest complement of all the essential nutriments.

Don’t be misled by claims of so-called ‘miracle foods‘ such as ‘enriched’ or ‘fortified’ foods that give everybody everything. There are no real miracles at the supermarket. Stick to basic principles and basic foods.

Prepare as many of your foods as possible from scratch, relying on fresh herbs and natural ingredients. Cooking can be great fun as many people are rediscovering after years of relying on pre-cooked, packaged instant products. Good cooking can be a highly creative activity that brings great rewards in good health and the bonus of unusual dishes and delicious meals that everyone enjoys.

Alcohol uses up B complex vitamins and other important nutrients which your cells need to protect them from damage and which your whole body needs for continuing health.

Keep hard liquor to a minimum. A glass of wine often relaxes tension and stimulates the palate, but too much has the opposite effect.

In addition, here are a few thoughts about basic nutrition and good eating :

• Familiarize yourself with some of the more exotic international cuisines such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian, or Mexican.
• Collect cookbooks and utensils. Try to make a special dinner one or two nights a month, or a special recipe once a week.
• Experiment with unusual meats such as chicken livers or many types of fish that are now more readily available.
• Learn to cook using as many fresh foods, particularly vegetables, as you can. They taste better than canned or packaged goods and are often cheaper.
• Decrease the amount of fat and sugar in your diet. Cut off all visible fat from meat and use less butter. Replace sweet desserts with fruits. All fat and most sugar required for the normal diet is there naturally without being added to dishes.

Don’t worry too much about the details. Try to develop good habits for choosing and cooking foods and then forget about it. Don’t talk constantly about what you should or should not eat. Of course, it’s important, but it must not become an obsession. There is far more to a healthy, happy life than concentrating all one’s attention on food. Get out and live.

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