Making choices about what to eat is becoming increasingly complex. Our streets are generously sprinkled with a choice of supermarkets, fast-food chains, gourmet restaurants, food markets and take-aways so that at any given time, on any given day we can taste a Sichuan specialty, take our tongues on a trip to Italy or indulge in a classic British Cornish pasty. If, on the other hand, we choose to fill up at the supermarket, we are faced with a baffling array of choices, all claiming to be tastier, healthier and more economical than their shelf counterparts.
It is no surprise then that we have lost touch with what is truly nourishing for our bodies and how to eat in a way that honours our body and mind.
What does Well4ever have to say on this controversial issue?
Guy Lederman, acupuncturist, herbalist and primary practitioner, lays out the following three guidelines as a starting point for healthy eating. This article will explore each idea in a little more depth. Enjoy!
- Eat real food,
- Substitute carbohydrates with fat,
- Be mindful.
The first point, eat real food, is as simple as it sounds. It means eat ‘naked’ food that does not come with a list of ingredients necessary to describe itself. In other words, food that looks like it does in children’s picture books. Apples, coconuts, spinach, nuts, seeds, kale, melons, carrots, tomatoes, cauliflower, eggs, cheese, unadulterated poultry, meat, fish and so on. When you prepare and eat this kind of food you know what you are eating and can be sure of avoiding harmful additives rife in prepared food, even in something as innocent-looking as a freshly baked wholemeal loaf of supermarket bread. It is worth noting that extra caution is required when purchasing animals produces – try to buy the organic, free-range varieties to avoid consuming additives like growth hormones and antibiotics. We will have a look at some typical ingredients you are likely to come across when eating ‘complicated’ food and why they should be avoided.
If you glance at the ingredients’ label on the back of any food item in a standard supermarket, you have a two thirds chance of discovering corn on the list. Adulterated corn appears in most of our value-added food items, often in the form of high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). This is a highly refined version of corn that is as sweet as sugar, but much cheaper to produce. While table sugar and HFCS do not differ considerably in their chemical make up, our bodies use a different metabolic process to absorb them. The former is more glucose heavy and the latter fructose heavy. This is important because glucose, once processed by the intestines, enters the bloodstream directly, providing energy to the organs. Fructose, on the other hand, is metabolised in large part by the liver (as opposed to all of the body’s cells). As a result, consuming large amounts of fructose risks raising the amount of fat stored in the liver which can subsequently cause serious health problems including fatty liver disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.
Another notorious additive most commonly found in sugar free foods and drinks is aspartame, also listed as E951. The research on the health effects of aspartame is extensive yet not entirely conclusive. Nonetheless, there is certainly cause of alarm. Aspartame is comprised of aspartic acid, phenylalanine and methanol, none of which are harmful to the body in small amounts. However, consuming them as aspartame, present in many beverages and so-called diet products, is harmful to the body.
Three-quarters of adverse reactions to food additives reported the American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are regarding aspartame, (HFCS ranks third place). Aspartame’s components pose several threats to the human body. Phenylalanine affects the brain by reducing serotonin levels and thus possibly promoting depression. While methanol is present in fruit and vegetables, it remains attached to pectin, allowing it to safely pass through the body unabsorbed. In contrast, with aspartame, our bodies are unable to eliminate methanol as waste, nor can they break it down. Instead, our organism converts methanol to formaldehyde, which then builds up in the cells and is associated with brain damage and cancer. Interestingly, aspartame was discovered in 1977 and the inventor immediately sought the FDA’s approval for its use as a sweetener; however it is only in 1983 that it was approved, following a change in FDA leadership, steered by newly elected Ronald Regan.
Other studies, such as a 2001 paper released by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition finds aspartame beverage consumption to be associated with an increased risk of type-two diabetes among women. In addition to potentially posing a number of severe health risks, aspartame falls short on its promise to help with weight loss and may cause weight gain. It is up to 600 times sweeter than sugar, but calorie free, sending deeply mixed messages to the brain. When the body consumes aspartame, it is being promised a significant amount of calories which it never receives. This leaves the person craving more and often consuming more than they otherwise would.
Sugar may sound great now compared to the likes of aspartame and HFCS, but recent research and a look at our ancestors’ food habits, indicates that our bodies perform best using fat for fuel, not carbohydrates. In Guy’s words, “fat doesn’t make you fat, sugar makes you fat”. And yes, sugar includes apples, pineapples, bread, pasta and so forth as well as the whole grain varieties. Of all carbohydrates, the most popular alongside rice and maize, is wheat, which is the most efficiently converted into blood sugar. This fact alone explains the energy hikes and troughs wheat consumers are all too well acquainted with. Can you remember when you last felt irritable and grumpy due to hunger, even though you had just eaten a bowl of cereal two hours previously?
Once our organs and muscles have used up the energy they need, the pancreas releases insulin, a hormone that instructs the body to convert spare glucose into fat for later use. The trouble is, our body very rarely needs the large amounts of sugar we provide it with and eating carbohydrates can, ironically, make us more hungry. Briefly, this is because eating glucose does not release the appetite suppressing hormones that eating fatty foods do. Unfortunately, our penchant for sweet-tasting food and drinks is a hangover from our past as hunter-gatherers, when gorging on berries and apples was a rare treat that provided needed sustenance in the context of the season.
This harmful sugar habit actively endangers our health, through our own body’s feedback mechanism. Dr. Perlmutter’s bestselling book, Grain Brain, sheds light on the shortcomings of carbohydrates as an energy source; some key facts are summarised here. After consuming a carbohydrate, our blood glucose levels rise, triggering the release of insulin and the consequent depositing of fat, especially in the visceral organs. As the fat deposits increase, our body develops a resistance to insulin’s signalling power, thus forcing the pancreas to work harder. Eventually, the pancreas responds to the body’s high and constant demand for insulin by going on strike; it stops producing enough insulin. The result is deficient insulin levels and high blood sugar, otherwise known as diabetes. In addition, research from the World Health Organisation has raised concerns that people with obesity and/or diabetes are at greater risk of cancer.
If you remain unconvinced, consider that substituting carbohydrates with fat can also slow down the body’s aging process. This is because high blood glucose results in an accumulation of AGEs – or advanced glycation end products – in the body and AGEs are one factor responsible for the decay of tissues.
A healthy alternative to the conventional food pyramid promoting large amount of carbohydrates has been put forward by Dr. William Davis, author of Wheat Belly and looks like this.
The above has only covered sugars found in carbohydrates, but what about refined sugar? The principle is essentially the same as that which explains the dangers of HFCS, discussed above. It’s true that fruit and some vegetables contain fructose, but the fiber in these counteract the harmful effects of fructose. Dr. Lustig, author of Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth about Sugar, Obesity and Disease, and endocrinologist and paediatrician has been campaigning for years against the harmful effects of sugar in processed foods, explaining that it is an independent primary-risk factor, i.e. related weight gain is not causing the problems. He is careful to say he is ‘anti-processed foods’, not ‘anti-sugar’ to highlight the many ways in which sugar can slip our radar in processed foods by disguising themselves under names like dextrin, maltose and sorghum, to name a few only. Dr Lustig goes so far as to say that fructose is akin to poison and forces our liver to work much harder than if we stuck to glucose-based sources of sugar (such as potatoes or pasta). We saw earlier how consuming fructose can cause an insulin resistance in the body, (the pancreas is simply unable to respond to the high demand for it over long periods of time), which is now believed to be a central problem is obesity as well as being at the root of some heart disease and potentially cancers.
Last but not least, eat mindfully. It’s a cliche, but it must be said that we often eat food ‘in the background’, while our minds are really elsewhere, be it unwinding to a show on television, working on a paper or during a meeting at a work. How can we expect our bodies to properly assimilate the food we eat if our minds are barely aware it’s even there?
In India, there is a saying that digestion begins in the fingertips and implies the need to bring awareness and gratitude to the universal ritual of sitting down to a meal. If we don’t use our hands to eat, we can say digestion begins in the mouth. Readers familiar with Chinese medicine will be aware of the importance of chewing properly (approximately 30 times per mouthful), an act most definitely neglected when we are occupied with anything other than our meal. The simple act of thorough chewing helps the next digestive organs in the chain to do their job properly. Saliva, enzymes and digestive acids have more time to start acting and begin breaking down the food. After all, it is the chewing that switches on the other digestive actors. The burden on your stomach is reduced, which is important when you think about maintaining a strong digestive fire, and consequently your intestines and colon can also focus on performing their job properly, rather than compensating for the poor and half-finished work of the mouth! In addition, chewing slowly gives your body more time to communicate a sensation of fullness to the brain, meaning you feel fuller sooner and avoid overeating. Studies have revealed that when we eat while distracted we eat up to 70 per cent more than when we eat paying attention to our food.
We spend a huge amount of our energy on digestion. If you eat beyond satiety the energy required to digest all that food is diverted from other bodily needs, such as cell reparation, or brain power. When we are sleeping our bodies need all the energy available to help us recover from the day and prepare us for the next, which is why it is best to go to sleep at least three hours after finishing your evening meal. This way, your body can get to work where it needs to while you are sleeping, rather than working to digest a late-night dinner. Being mindful of what we eat helps us to listen to our body’s requirements and experiment with what feels good and healthy.
Being mindful of our environment also works as an excellent guide to what kind of foods will most nourish our body in the context of changing seasons. We have evolved with the planet and the earth provides the best food types for our body at any given time, which is why it is important to try to eat seasonally.
This last point is perhaps the most valuable of all nutritional guidelines because our bodies are all unique. Be your own scientist, experience replacing carbohydrates with fat, reducing sugar intake for one month, eating only foods that are in season and see how you feel. Learn to listen to and honour your body and meditate on your meal, whatever it consists of. See our mind and body page for some mindfulness tips!
“Food for Thought” by Marianna Riddle is licensed under CC BY 4.0
References:
- Thomas, Tessa. 2010. Daily Mail Online. Available
