Healthy Foods, Healthy Body
Has the world gone mad? I find it amazing that when people look at the ingredients and nutrition label of a packaged food they are more engrossed in the nutrition label rather then the actual food content. When I ask people what do they look for when they look at the label of the food they are buying they tell me they look for the saturated fat content, or the amount of salt or whether there is enough protein or what the fat and sugar content is and even the vitamins and minerals as is the case with milk and calcium. Very few are interested in the actual ingredients. Modern thinking finds that a food is OK as long as the nutrition label and the components of food are in the right amounts deemed by the scientific community and taught to the public by propoganda and advertising.
In other words if you’re on a protein diet, you look for high protein foods. If you are on a low fat diet you look for low fat foods. If osteoporosis is a concern then foods high in calcium such as milk are what people consider. If you are a diabetic you make sure there is no sugar in the food and if you have hypertension then salt content is important. Or if you’ve been told by your doctor that you should lower your cholesterol and don’t eat any foods high in cholesterol then you look for the cholesterol content.
To create a nutrition label is really easy. You go to nutriondata.com and you plug in the ingredients of your food, (for instance any recipe you are making), and a nutrition label is produced. It doesn’t ask if the food is organic or for what type of soil it was grown in or how rich in minerals the soil is, or if you boiled the food to death or if you used sea salt, or raw milk as opposed to modified milk. It merely generalises. So don’t ever for a minute think that a nutrition label is accurate… it is NOT.
But that is not the biggest problem. The problem is that we look at the nutritional facts and we forget to look at the ingredients.
Nutritionisim
No longer are we interested in what the food is, but rather what it has in it. When most people look at a food label, they are more interested in the amount of macro nutrients (carbohydrates, fats and proteins) rather then looking at what the actual ingredients are. People select foods on micro (vitamins and minerals) and macro nutrient status even if the food does not resemble real food. Protein bars, breakfast cereals, margarine, modified milk, diet foods and muesli bars are prime examples. These foods look good in the nutrient department, but when you look at the actual ingredients you find that there are a bunch of numbers, soy protein isolates, hydrogenated vegetable oils and other non-real food items.
This not only is the case with packaged foods but other foods as well. Tomatoes are now being eaten for their lycopenes rather than a food that tastes good and goes well with many other foods. Carrots are known for their b-carotene status. Avocado’s are avoided on a strict diet because of fat content but little do people know that when you put avocados in a salad it helps in the increased absorption of many of the minerals and vitamins in the salad. Even wine is being drunk for the antioxidants. Meat for Protein, milk for calcium, bread for carbohydrates and oils for fats. This ideology has been termed Nutritionism and has taken over our way of thinking about the food we eat. To quote a well used phrase; “If it’s something your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food, don’t eat it”.
Vitalism
I’ve always lived my life with a vitalistic health point of view, which is the power that made the body will heal the body as long as there is no interference and the right resources are given (good food, exercise, rest, clean air and sunlight). Health these days is practiced more in a mechanistic point of view, where the body is made up of the sum of all its parts and if a part goes wrong then get rid of it, believing the body will be better or treat the part that has gone wrong, rather then the whole person.
It seems now that this view point can be stretched towards food. Real food from nature is vitalistic, it is healthy and there is a symbiotic relationship between all the parts of the food that make it perfect, as long as it has not been interfered with and been given the right resources (water, nutrient soil and sunlight). If we look at food in a mechanistic way then food is made up of parts, carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals and if we can twist them to be what science deems to be right then we can make the food better, so science thinks! This is called as we have already discussed, Nutritionism.
Live a vitalistic, non nutritionism life. A life where you know that the power that made the body can heal the body and the power that made real nature based foods is the perfect food for your body.
Cyndi O’Meara
Cyndi O¼Meara lives in Australia on Queensland¼s Sunshine Coast with her husband and three children. Renowned for her successful and unconventional approach to health, Cyndi provides new truths on food, lifestyle and wholistic wellbeing.
A qualified Nutritionist with a Bachelors degree in Science and post graduate studies in the human anatomy, diagnosis and health management, she is consistently called upon to share her health insights and has contributed to a host of National magazines, publications and newspaper articles. In addition Cyndi has also been featured on numerous TV Programs such as Today Tonight, 9am with David and Kim, Brisbane Extra and Nourish of which she is host. Well regarded for her immense knowledge, entertaining and enthusiastic approach to well being, she is regularly interviewed on talkback Radio programs nationally as well as being the weekly Nutritional expert for the ABC. A fabulous role model for healthy living, Cyndi is not your typical nutritionist: she disagrees with boring tasteless low-fat, low-calorie diets; she knows chocolate can be good for you.
