A Challenge of Eating Well

In this day and age of ultra-processed food, eating well to support our health and quality of life takes work. As much as we would like to rely on our healthcare and food industries for reliable information and products, their goals are different from ours. 

What we lose in convenience when choosing to eat well, we gain in empowered decision-making that allows us to own our Health.

Assessing the Situation

When I was a Boy Scout learning orienteering, that is navigating using a compass and maps, our first step was to be lost in the woods so we could find our way to our destination. I found that starting off lost is where many of our adventures in life begin. Best to come to terms with this feeling and learn to work the problem.

In this particular eating well adventure, many of us are trying to care for ourselves and loved ones by eating foods that are supportive of good health in a world that is most commonly supplied with ultra-processed foods. Fast foods that by virtue of our technological advances, have had much of their nutritive value removed. These “foods” have rearranged concentrations of substances that fail to nourish our bodies.

Without going too far into the weeds of why products like these would be brought to market (think: money), let’s figure a way past the problem and navigate towards our goal.

What Works

In ultra-processing our food into poorly digestible foodstuffs, companies start with raw materials that have not been processed. That is where our adventure begins.

Health is probably too broad of a term. We eat to fuel our metabolic needs for energy. In order for organs, muscles, and all the intricate chemistries of our body to function, we need fuel.

Whole foods are chemically composed in such a way that our bodies recognize and can digest efficiently. We get more bang for our buck out of whole food than we get from the processed versions.

Hot Apple

Say we eat an apple. 

First our teeth break the apple into smaller pieces. Enzymes in the mouth begin a chemical breakdown of the food that continues all of the way through. Nutrients like vitamins and minerals are extracted by these chemistries. 

Along for the ride is fiber that is used by the body later in the journey. All told, something is happening to that hypothetical apple along all steps in the journey.

Hearkening back to my past poor eating habits, let’s look at what happens when we consume a hot apple pie pastry from a popular fast food restaurant. 

We chew but many of the elements that are acted upon by enzymes are missing. Move to the next steps and the nutrients the body needs are not present. Digestion then produces little gain for the body.

And since most of the fiber is removed in the processing of the food before we eat it. Little is left to benefit those parts of digestion.

All we really ate was flavor and calories.

Some Eating Well Solutions

The dietary philosophy of eating well goes by many names. Many of us subscribe to following a particular diet. Here are a couple that fill that bill.

Qualitarians avoid processed foods and go organic whenever possible. Mostly this approach to eating is about thinking about the foods you consume in light of what benefits or detriments it poses for your body.

Meats are included using the same considerations of how the food is raised. Given the diversity of foods that this approach offers, applying it to a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle is easy and also healthy.

Eating Clean is something I have observed coming from the gym in recent years. While notable for not being radical in its approach to diet, it follows the same theme of unprocessed and natural as possible sources of a wide variety of foods.

Meats again are optional. This can be a refinement of your existing dietary choices, or a really good starting place if you are revising some old habits.

What Brings Us Here

When patients and friends approach me for advice about diet, they tend to start the conversation with the reason for changing habits. Weight gain, body image, medical test results, and sometimes even a medical crisis has captured their attention.

All good reasons to change diet, but not necessarily the starting point.

While we acknowledge our past and what it can teach us, it is the present in which we live. Look at diet as it positively supports function and eat well to be well.

Empowered by our decisions, we act proactively to support our physiology.

We are.

“Tomorrow’ is the thing that’s always coming but never arrives.

‘Today’ is the thing that’s already here and never leaves.

And because that’s the case, I would much prefer to invest in today than sit around waiting for an arrival that’s not arriving.”

― Craig D. Lounsbrough