Are you eating for "life"?

I know, "are you eating for life"...that sounds very dramatic and draconian, but I truly believe we make the choice to 'eat for life', the alternative not needing to be called out...  Have you ever wondered "does this food choice have redeeming value to my body"?  

I have a food pyramid which I use for conversations with clients and at seminars.  It's not your typical food pyramid - eat this, don't eat that - but rather challenging the quality of food choices.  

The idea here is that most of America's diet (aka SAD*) consists of foods which have no nutritional or redeeming value in our bodies except for momentary gratification. Now as fun as that is, you are doing yourself no favors.  These DISEASE** foods consist of fast-food, fried food, soda, foods with hydrogenated oils (look for the word 'hydrogen' in any form), high number of sugars, artificial colors and many more.   These foods cause, exacerbate or promote bad health leading to disease.  

The middle section and the largest of our intake 'should' be MAINTAIN.  This consists of healthy foods which include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans and organic lean meat and dairy.  These foods will maintain your good health, keeping your body fueled for work, exercise and enjoying quality of life.

The top section is HEAL.  These are foods that you consciously seek for healing your body.  By healing I mean transforming your health with food.  Did you know that is possible?!  This category includes many super-foods such as green tea, kale and other leafy greens, blueberries, wild caught salmon, quinoa, +70% cocoa, gogi berries, and many more.  The key here is to eat organic or the best quality available.  Pesticides wreak havoc on our system and very little has been published on the long term impact.  I would venture to say we are seeing the impact of all those hidden chemicals in our foods (more on that in the next issue).  By the way, the list does not include any meat, dairy or sugar, sorry! 

So for today, I challenge you to start thinking like this, and I bet that you will find that you make much better choices, and perhaps only the occasional slip, which will be a conscious decision.

In good health,
Jackie

*Standard American Diet
**Disease in this case is any debilitating physical ailment including but not limited to obesity, high cholesterol, type II diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, IBS, etc.

Coming next:  Why organic?



I am a graduate of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition where I received a certification in Holistic Health Counseling