Nutrition is worth getting excited about! Especially when you make it DELICIOUS!
Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming that everyone knows “nutrition basics”, and of course how could they?! So this post is all about sharing some basic nutrition principles, and useful facts.
First rule of Nutrition is: Eat food!
This is the best way to nourish your body. Unfortunately, this is also where a lot of us come unstuck. In our modern world, it is not always obvious what is food and what is not. It is easy to confuse “edible” with “food”. In fact a lot of what we consume on a day to day basis is edible but is low nutrient and highly processed “Fraken-food”. Tasty, sure because “taste point” (a carefully tested highly palatable combination of sugar, salt and fat) is designed to sell products, but not necessarily nutritious or what I would put in the “food” category.
Second basic Nutrition Principle: Food should be Nourishing or it isn’t “food”.
Eat to Nourish.
This basic principle leads on from the first…
What counts as “food”? By food I mean real food. Real food is full of nutrition. Nutrients are what we really on to survive, they include carbohydrates, fats, proteins (macronutrients), and vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, phyto-nutrients (micronutrients). We also require ingredients like water and fibre and enzymes found in food.
Real food contains an abundance of nutrients in a form the body is usually able to recognise and digest, and are nourishing. (Some of us have allergies or sensitivities to real foods, and more on that later.)
Carbohydrates provide fuel for the body. In fact our brain, nerve cells, red blood cells, muscle cells and most cells rely on glucose for energy. Glucose is the simplest form of carbohydrate. (When we give ourselves whole foods, like fruit, vegetables, whole grains (especially ancient grains like quinoa), beans and pulses our body is able to break these down and get access to glucose.)
Carbohydrates are good, but if we eat highly refined carbohydrates, it is easy to overload the body with glucose and then it can have the opposite effect… it causes stress in our body. (Glycaemic Load (coined by Patrick Holford) is the most useful way I have found of understanding how carbohydrates affect the body. In general, eat low glycaemic load when it comes to carbs (which means slow-releasing carbs, or the carbohydrate is broken down slowly and the glucose is released more slowly. More about carbs specifically in other articles.) Our body can make fuel from fats and proteins, but actually this is not its preferred way and there are always bi-products that are not great for the body and short and long term health implications have been associated with diets that are consistently very low in carbohydrates.
Protein function: Protein can be thought of functionally as the building blocks, proteins make up our muscles. They are also many of the functional “workers”: enzymes (break down food), carriers (for e.g. lipoproteins that transport fat), catalysts and communicators (for example neurotransmitters are built from amino acids). We don’t “store” excess protein, not like fat and carbs, so it isn’t a preferential fuel source, and we need to eat enough so that we are able to preserve our muscles fro growth.
Protein dietary requirements: Protein is necessary, or more specifically essential amino acids are necessary daily, but as a general rule people seem to overestimate the amount of actual protein they need or “should eat” on a daily basis. It is relatively easy in a modern western diet to get your protein needs met, if you eat any of the following: meat, fish, seafood, chicken, dairy, eggs, beans, lentils, pulses, quinoa, millet, nuts, seeds or a combination of those.
Good oils are essential because they contain essential fatty acids. Essential meaning we can’t make them, so we need to get them from our diet. A large part of our brain and nervous system is made up of and relies on fats for conductivity (myelin sheaths) to function. Fat also pads and protects and cushions and insulates. Fat can also be stored as a fuel source or secondary reserve.
Fats are misunderstood and so for a long time got a bad wrap. While dietary fat is necessary and beneficial. Not all fats are created equal. Moderate amounts of natural fats in all forms seem to be ok, but if we eat with tampered or processed fat or an excess or natural fats, we do seem to stress the body. There are fats that seem to “cause havoc” in the body… usually though this is only when they have been processed, cooked, stressed or interfered with in some way shape or form. Examples of “fat tampering” include: homogenizing milk, hydrogenating vegetable oil to make butter, extreme heating of oils as in the case of “deep frying”, or heat treating like in the processing of oils (often referred to as “cooking oil” or “vegetable oil”.)
So, is there an “ideal diet”? I remember a client asking me, “So, Lisa, what’s important in nutrition, tell me everything I need to know.” And then after just a moments pause he added. “In three to six sentences!” To be honest I was a little taken aback. If only it was that simple, to sum up an incredibly intricate, complicated and highly individualised subject, in a few sentences.” Then I remembered this quote.
“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.” Michael Pollan
There is a lot of truth in Michael Pollan’s simple summary.
Eat food rather than “edible non food”. I liked the wisdom in promoting a diet where we consume “Mostly Plants”. An abundance of research shows that vegans are generally healthier and live longer. In fact if you look at the research of the top 50 causes of death, aside from falling, if you add the “vegan” factor you reduce your risk of dying prematurely from one of these “killers”. This is not to say I am promoting veganism, but I do promote eating an abundance of plants. Vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, legumes, pulses, seeds are really important to consume on a daily basis, they are nutrient dense, high in antioxidants, fibre, good oils, enzymes and all sorts of synergistic goodies.
Portion control is important if you want to lose or maintain weight, but what many people don’t realise is that “highly nutritious but low calorie” diets are also associated with longevity. When research was done into populations with many of the aged living to over 100, they found one of the factors to be low calorific diets. One population even had as part of their eating ritual to say a word (or couple of words) that translated meant: “We will stop at 80 percent”. Eating lightly most of the time is actually “health promoting” and certainly I would agree: “Not too much” is a wise mantra. One should have enough, but not too much, and I would add, there should be a focus on nutrient density rather than just calories. Which brings me to the next point.
Third Nutrition Basic: Excess is excess.
I have seen lots of people overeating and then comment, “It doesn’t matter, it’s healthy food.” This is always an interesting concept to me. It doesn’t matter to what exactly? When we remember the true purpose of food, which is to eat to nourish, to function in this world and better still achieve optimum health. Eating excess will be stored. Storage is a mechanism our bodies uses to keep us alive when food is in short supply. This mechanism existed in our bodies long before the existence of “junk food” and unhealthy food. Storing excess, burning fat, metabolising food are actually all processes that require effort and energy and sometimes even stress on the body. Not only can excess make you gain weight (even when it is healthy food), eating excess on a regular basis can actually add an increased work load to your body, using up important resources and directing energy towards digestion and metabolism, sometimes at the cost of cleansing, detoxifying, regenerating and repairing the body.
Fruit is great, but eating large serves of fruit in one sitting, can spike blood sugar. When blood sugar spikes, we release insulin, which gives our cells a signal to take up glucose. This excess glucose is ultimately converted to and stored as fat. Meat is marketed as being low in carbs and protein is popular in diet and weight building circles. However, our body doesn’t “store protein” so even excess protein will be converted into fat ultimately.
Fourth Nutrition Basic: Eat in alignment with your individual needs.
It is tempting to try and “one size fits all” nutrition. We love to talk about average and general guidelines because that simplifies things and makes it easier to “test and measure”. However typically depending on your genetic makeup and whether you are male or female, an adult, a child or a senior, and whether you are active or inactive, stressed or not, and anywhere in between your nutrition needs are going to be subtly different. So by all means use general guiding principles to give you context, but also get to know your needs and be eating in a way that honours your nutrition needs.
On that, part of needs is not only knowing what is good for you, but also being aware of what you shouldn’t be eating. If a food (even a “healthy” one) makes you feel sick or unwell in any way when you eat it, then consider avoiding it. If you are allergic, intolerant or sensitive to certain foods, then it may be in your best interests to avoid those foods. If that is the case you may need to know what you can be eating in their place so that you continue to meet your nutrition needs while avoiding foods that make you ill. Make sense?
Fifth Nutrition Basic: Crowd out toxins.
It is surprising to me how much people underestimate just how harmful and disruptive toxins, preservatives, chemicals, flavors, additives, hormones, antibiotics, transfats, free radicals, AGE’s, highly processed meats, fats and sugars and so many other anti-nutrients can be in the body.
These can bind to our nutrients, make us sick, disrupt hormones, lead to water retention, overload vital organs, contribute to weight gain, block arteries, disable important pathways.
Crowd out toxins by choosing what you eat carefully. Eat more food you (or family or partner) make from scratch. Get in the habit of reading ingredients lables, do you recognise all the ingredients. If there are numbers or words you do not recognise as foods, then think twice before eating it or see if you can find an alternative product.
Buy and eat organic were possible, especially when it comes to meat. Be weary of processed meat like ham, and sausages, they are often high in preservatives, salts and chemical additives.
It’s not enough to just do a detox one or twice a year. We need to be mindful of our daily habits if we want to function well, get the most out of our bodies (and from our food) and stay healthy.
A final note on toxins is be mindful of medications and over the counter drugs and recreational drugs. These all carry a chemical load that can accumulate and be harmful to the body over time. Let food be your medicine. Eat well and eat to nourish and you will find you need to rely on these chemicals less often.
Sixth Nutrition Basic: Keep hydrated
Our body is mostly water. This fluid is used to pump nutrients and oxygen around our body and to move toxins out of our body. Being dehydrated makes us sluggish, lethargic and perform under par.
Drink hydrating fluids regularly. Caffeine and sugary foods can act as diuretics so actually can be counterproductive and lead to dehydration.
Best hydration options are to drink water, (filtered or spring is best), and drink herbal teas (natural without additives and flavours) like Rooibos, Peppermint tea, Jasmine tea, lemon water.
Seventh Nutrition Basic: Eat mindfully!
We all have a rather personal and intimate relationship with food. It is different for everyone, understandably, and important.
Unfortunately the nature and purpose of food has become distorted, exploited, and confused over the years. There is a classic line in the kid’s movie “Over the Hedge” where the racoon explains: “Where we eat to live, Humans live to eat!”
We eat for all sorts of different reasons… and most of the reasons we eat, unfortunately are not because of a primal urge to “nourish our bodies.”
I talk more about the different eating triggers in this short course here:
Understanding Eating Triggers and Our Many Different Hungers
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