Lifestyle Choices

What you eat matters, because first rate nutrition is probably the single most important factor in gaining health and keeping it. The foods you eat form the foundation of every cell in your body and when they are the right foods, they contribute to sound tissues, organs, muscles and skin. Your foundation is firm; your energy level is high, your body strong, your mind clear and your emotions stable. But when the foundation is shaky as a result of living on wrong foods — those that cannot supply all the important factors your body needs for both cell building and day-to-day living — then you are more susceptible to illness of every kind.

Recent scientific studies of the relationship between nutrition and health in most of the countries of the world have turned up important evidence indicating that certain diseases which have become widespread in the western world such as obesity dental problems, peptic ulcers, coronary heart disease, diverticulosis and diabetes have many of their roots in the type of foods we eat and the way they are processed andprepared. This has brought about a new surge of interest in the powers of nutrition and thrown the whole subject of what we should eat and how we can get the best health value out of foods into a new light.

Years ago, long lists of ‘minimum daily requirements‘ were drawn up and it was implied that one’s diet should be carefully planned around them. We knew just exactly how much of a particular vitamin was necessary every day in order to prevent the symptoms of certain serious illnesses and that was enough. It was never stated how much one needed to be as fit and healthy as possible, but only how little one could take and still not become blatantly ill. Such minimum requirements were useful but limiting, a slightly mechanistic way of thinking that implied that so long as you got so many calories, such and such milligrams of each vitamin, and so many grams of protein each day, it didn’t matter how.

Imagine a scrumptious pink ice cream, filled with chemically made vitamins, and ‘fortified’ with protein — you’d have the ‘perfect food’. Then why bother with foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, meat, and poultry, whole grain and cereals, which take far longer to prepare than opening a carton of ice cream and were more of a nuisance to buy and store? The idea sounded good except that when adults and children lived on a diet made up mostly from ‘foods‘ fortified with vitamins and protein, it didn’t work. Teeth decayed, kids got fat, and governments voiced concern about the low levels of fitness in the youth in some of the richest countries in the world.

It’s obvious that these highly processed, fortified foods, delicious as they might be, are not the answer to basic nutritional needs, no matter how much they supposedly provide in the way of required vitamins, calories, proteins, carbohydrates and fats.

Today, there is a new attitude about the foods we eat and how best to use them to preserve health. Where yesterday’s scientists thought all we needed was a certain amount of vitamin C plus all the other nutrients, today’s biochemists, doctors and nutritionists believe we need not only the minimum daily requirements of nutrients, but also specific kinds of foods, in a proper balance, processed, prepared and served to preserve their highest potential for health. Because other as-yet unidentified substances in food may contribute to keeping one fit, good nutrition depends on a far greater range of factors than we first thought. Far from being sure of everything, the present breed of nutritionists are all too ready to admit that there is still much we do not know about how food affects health.

The new nutritionists are vigorously exploring two questions which are absolutely vital to today’s world. First, how can nutrition be employed to help protect against certain damaging effects of environmental pollution such as from chemicals in the water we drink and the air we breathe? Second, how can we use nutrition to promote positive health rather than merely lack of disease/Perhaps this is the most practical result. We know now that everyone has a potential for health and fitness that is usually far greater than they realize, and good eating habits are one of the most important keys for unlocking it. Two things are needed. First, information. Second, action. The following section supplies the information; the action is up to you.

FOODS TO CHOOSE FROM

Wholegrain bread

Wholewheat pasta (spaghetti, macaroni, green lasagne)

Brown rice (long or short grain)

100 % wholegrain flour (wheat, rye, corn, soya)

Old-fashioned porridge (from whole cracked wheat or oats)

Wholegrain cereals without sugar

Fresh vegetables (leafy green, tubers and bulbs)

Frozen vegetables

Fresh fruits and unsweetened juices Frozen fruits (without sugar)

Meat

Fish

Poultry

Eggs

Cheese

Milk

Yogurt

Butter or margarine

Vegetable oils

Herbs and spices

FOODS TO AVOID

Note: (If you must eat many of these very often, make sure you get added bran)

White bread, rolls and pastries

White pasta (spaghetti, macaroni, etc) White rice

White flour

Most crackers

Sugar coated cereals

Cereals not made from whole grain

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