Eat this, eat that, don’t eat this…we are bombarded daily with declarations on how to eat to live long, to be healthy, to avoid cancer, to prevent dementia, to control blood sugar, to control blood pressure, to be slim, and on and on. There are countless books available on diets for just about everything. There are incessant social media posts on diets and food. No wonder so many people are confused about what to eat.
To help you navigate this quagmire, I have put together 5 tips that promote health. These guidelines are based on the concept that food is medicine. It has the power to provide our cells with all the tools they need to function well, repair, and heal. We only need to remove the bad things to allow the good things to do their jobs. These tips are not hard and fast rules, but more like a place to begin and guide rails to manage eating.
“And thirdly, the Code is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules.”
Captain Barbosa, Pirates of the Caribbean
First and foremost, remember that we are all unique with unique microbiomes and not all eating plans will suit us all. What works for a friend or relative or a social media influencer, may not work for you. You will need to find what works for you at this time of your life. You also might be going through a particular health challenge at the moment and may want to tailor your eating plan to your challenge.
These guidelines place you in the starting blocks and provide the lane boundaries so you can run your own race. They provide general advice for eating in a way that supports and nourishes the body and especially the gut microbiome.
My Guidelines: 5 Tips for Healthy Eating
- Increase the Plant Foods in your Life
- Eliminate Ultra-Processed Food
- Eat Whole Foods
- Eat Healthy Fats
- Go Organic
Guidelines for Healthy Eating
- Increase the Plant Foods in Your Life
A plant-based diet is better for most. More and more people are seeing the benefits of a plant based diet. Plant-based doesn’t have to mean vegan or even vegetarian; it just means making plant foods primary in your diet. I would wager that most Americans have grown up in a meat centered culture in which they have meat at nearly every meal. Meat is the main event and vegetables are considered sides if they are offered at all. Often even vegetarian meals have a meat substitute as the central focus of the meal. Because of this, changing to a plant-centric mindset may require a paradigm shift. This doesn’t have to happen overnight; it can be a gradual process in which you incorporate more and more vegetables, legumes, beans, and fruits into your diet. If this is new to you, slowly make the shift by gradually adding more plant-based meals to your diet. Meatless Mondays are an excellent way of incorporating one day of week of plant based foods. You can also just add in an extra serving or two (or three or four) of plant foods to each meal. As you increase the vegetables and plant foods in your meals, gradually decrease the meat component. With all of the online content, there are plenty of vegetarian and vegan recipes just one or two clicks away. Try out my vegan quinoa bowls and other plant based recipes on this blog. For ideas on increasing the vegetables in your child’s diet, check out this post.
Nowadays, there are many plant-based options in grocery stores, health food stores, and in restaurants. Take full advantage of them. Experiment. Discern what works for you. But also, read the labels. Not all foods identified as plant-based are healthy. Watch out for plant-based foods that have been processed. Like any other highly processed foods, they may contain added sugars, emulsifiers, pesticides, and other ingredients that do not promote health. Make sure you are not swapping one evil for another.
- Eliminate Ultra-Processed Food
There is some debate on what exactly constitutes ultra-processed food (UPFs), but that might be splitting hairs. UPFs are food-like products that have been highly processed and typically include a long list of chemicals on their labels. They do not meet the definition of food –
The Oxford Dictionary definition of food is “any nutritious substance that people or animals eat or drink or that plants absorb in order to maintain life and growth.”
During processing many health detracting compounds, including artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners, and sugars are added. This cocktail of chemicals is implicated in a broad spectrum of the chronic diseases that plague our modern civilization. UPFs are a significant factor in obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. They also disrupt the gut microbiome and are associated with autoimmune diseases and chronic health conditions. Get them out of your life. Check out this post for more information about UPFs.
Although artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, and all of those other food additives have become ubiquitous in our food supply and they seem so innocuous, they are made in laboratories and are not food. They don’t belong in your body or your children’s bodies. These chemicals cause extra work for your digestive system and especially your liver. The liver is a precious and powerful organ that you do not want to mess with. Equally important, compounds in UPFs negatively impact the gut microbiome and promote the growth of pathogenic species. It turns out the pathogenic species are associated with all of those chronic diseases mentioned above.
Even though you may not see the negative effects of consuming UPFs immediately, somewhere down the road, you will. This is a case in which you cannot count on the government to protect you from harm. These chemicals may not kill you tomorrow, but research is beginning to uncover that these compounds pose risks to human health. Recently artificial food colors have been banned, but this ban will take time to fully implement, so many foods with artificial color additives are still widely available. They have been shown to have detrimental neurological effects in children. Don’t feed them to your kids, but also, don’t eat them yourself.
Many of the artificial food additives have been approved by the FDA through the generally recognized as safe (GRAS) loophole. The GRAS designation initially included compounds that had been used for a long period of time with no observable effects such as salt and yeast. However now this list has expanded to approximately 10,000 compounds and many of these have insufficient human health and safety testing. And to top it off, the FDA is not doing this testing, the testing is done by the food manufacturer – an apparent conflict of interest. What’s more, the additives are tested individually, but they are rarely used individually, so no one knows the compounded effects of multiple food additives.
The research on the impact of these compounds on the gut microbiome is piling up. A healthy gut microbiome is the foundation of good health and reduces or eliminates the occurrence of chronic illness. Avoiding UPFs and any foods with artificial ingredients is good for your gut and what’s good for your gut is good for you.
- Eat Whole Foods
The importance of eating whole foods cannot be stressed enough. We are just beginning to tap into the nutritional abundance whole foods provide. We have known about the presence of vitamins and minerals in food and their association with wellness since vitamin B1 (thiamine) and its ability to cure beriberi was discovered in 1889. However, only recently have researchers identified a range of compounds in plants that are bioactive, meaning they have biological effects in humans, effectively working as micronutrients. These compounds act as antioxidants, anti-inflammatory agents, antimicrobials, anti-cancer agents and more.
When food undergoes chemical and mechanical processing, many of these micronutrients found in whole foods are destroyed. So, although highly processed food starts off with whole foods with all those powerful micronutrients, the processed end product is often devoid of these bioactive rockstars. In addition, the vitamins, minerals, and bioactive phytochemicals found in whole foods seem to have synergistic effects; a classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. So eat foods as close to their natural state and as fresh as possible. Shop at farmers markets. Plants tend to gradually lose their nutrients as time goes by so eating them as close to harvest as possible will maximize their nutrient value. Eat a variety of colorful whole foods daily to harness the health benefits of all those amazing micronutrients.
- Eat Healthy Fats
We have been living with a misconception about fat for years. Ever since a 1950s study linking saturated fat with cardiovascular disease was taken as fact (even though it was flawed), Americans have been on a low fat craze. When the fat was removed from the food, sugar was ramped up to make up for the calories and the taste. Now we have a nation addicted to sugar and missing crucial fats in their diets. Fat is not our enemy. Fat is a necessary nutrient; essential fatty acids (EFAs) are needed by every system in your body. Omega 3 and omega 6 EFAs are critical for the brain, the heart, and the gut.
Fat also contributes to the flavor of food. When fat is missing from food, you may experience a desire for more flavor, and often, we reach for sugar to fill the gap. Sugar is not our friend and is associated with multiple chronic diseases. Read about the issues with sugar in my Sweet Diatribe about Sugar. Another important benefit of fat is that it improves satiety. Fat will make you feel full more quickly which helps reduce the amount you eat. Even though fat is calorie dense, providing 9 calories per gram, nearly double protein and carbohydrate’s 4 calories per gram, because of the flavor and satiety factors, it may still make you consume less calories overall.
To be sure, not all fat is created equal and I am talking about eating healthy fats. Try to get your fat from the food in which it is naturally present. Think avocados, nuts, seeds, olives, and ghee. When you get your fats from foods, you also get the benefits of all the nutrients and phytochemicals in the foods as discussed in Tip 3. Minimize the use of concentrated oils that have been extracted from foods, especially chemically extracted seed oils. If you want to use a cooking oil, cold pressed extra virgin olive oils is best because it offers a plethora of benefits from the high concentration of polyphenols, some of those healthy bioactive compounds. Coconut oil is also a good alternative with its concentration of medium chain triglycerides. Read more about the wonderful benefits of fat in my post Fat to be Fit.
- Go Organic
An excellent guideline is to eat as much organic food as you can afford. Organic foods provide multiple benefits. Firstly, you are saving your gut microbiome from the damage inflicted by pesticides. Pesticides are meant to kill organisms and studies indicate they have that effect on the microbes in our guts. In addition, organic foods are often more nutrient dense. Because they are not treated with artificial pesticides, they develop their own defense mechanisms by creating a range of chemicals. These chemicals have been found to be beneficial for humans, acting as antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and antimicrobials, thus helping us to be healthier. Eating organic plant foods not only provides us with vast arrays of nutrients, but also bioactive compounds that prevent free radical damage to DNA, decrease inflammation, and stimulate immune function.
Rampant pesticide use has contributed to the degradation of our soils and is implicated in the desertification of large portions of our world. Pesticides such as glyphosate (Roundup) were deemed as safe and used liberally by home gardeners and food crop farmers, but now are implicated in causing cancer. Even though this association has been made, glyphosate is still broadly used, not only in the growing season but also just before harvest as a desiccant which leaves high residuals in foods made from these crops. Because of this application, cereals such as Cheerios have been shown to have very high levels of this probable human carcinogen, and the primary consumer of Cheerios is children. Considering the concept that the dose makes the poison, that cannot be a good thing.
Organic food is often more expensive than its conventional counterpart and may seem like an expense you cannot justify. However, the long term cost of eating conventional food with the deleterious effects of pesticides over time likely outweighs the price difference. Plus, the more organic food people buy, the more organic food will become available and the lower the prices will be. As organic food is requested more, the demand for pesticide treated food will decrease and subsequently the use of pesticides will decrease resulting in a world that is much better off and soils that are nutrient dense instead of depleted. In the past 20 years, I have seen a dramatic rise in the availability of organic food and a relative price decrease. Another option is to buy local produce especially from farmers who adhere to organic practices. While they may not have the organic certification, which can be costly, their crops are primarily organic and very fresh.
Go organic. Your gut, the planet, and the future generations will love you for it.
You may want to try out a variety of eating plans to see what works best for you at this stage of your life, but regardless of what eating plan you choose, following these four guidelines will help get out the bad stuff and allow the good stuff in. Want to live a healthy life? Follow these tips!
If you have questions or comments or need clarification, please comment. I would love to hear back from you.
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