Just What Does It Mean to Eat Healthily?

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Food fads come and go. It is hard to keep up with the various trends that keep popping up, especially in today’s age of the internet. You just need someone to suggest an idea and boom! suddenly this idea gains credence coz someone blogged/tweeted/facebooked it!

As with all fads there will be testimonials from people who have had success with each and every diet out there. And it is so easy for those seeking for a cure to jump from one diet to another in desperation.

Most of these alternative diets have concluded that the conventional food pyramid diet – eat mostly carbs made of whole grains and as little oils (vegetable based) as possible and avoid saturated oils like the plague is a scam. 🙂 That it is the cause of many modern day illness.

Instead, they swear by their raw foods diet or their vegan/vegetarian diet, others the Paleo or Primal Blueprint diet and yet others a WAP diet.

So just what does it mean to eat healthily then? Go raw? Vegan? Avoid fats? Eat fats? What?!

Sometimes I think we need a PhD in nutrition to figure this one out! 😀 But here are some contradictions that I have read so far – all in a summary. You will have to google to find out more.

Raw Food Diet

From what I have been reading, raw foodies claim their diet is superior because all the live enzymes they are consuming since these enzymes are not destroyed by heat from cooking. But there is the counter claim that our bodies are unable to process raw food properly so all that live enzymes are wasted.

Vegan/Vegetarian

The proponents swear that eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is better because plant foods are easier to digest – be they cooked or raw. The counterclaim is that plant foods are not a complete food. According to Dr Natasha of the GAPS book fame, this type of diet is good for detoxing (hence the Gerson therapy). However, it should not be used long term because the body will start to crave nutrition which plant foods are unable to deliver.

Paleo/Primal

Their premise is that humans were not meant to eat grains since we have not evolved to eat grains and thus our bodies are unable to process it properly. Sorry, but this premise does not hold water for me since I do not believe in evolution. We may not do well on grains but it is not because we have not evolved to eat them but because we have lost the art of preparing them!

Weston A. Price (WAP) Diet

This one seems to make the most sense to me. But it is a hard diet to follow. It isn’t very practical. You have to cook almost everything from scratch. No more convenience foods grabbed last minute from the supermarket. Then there is the cost. We may be able to lay hold of organic vegetables and fruits more easily and more affordable today than a few years ago but what about organic meats?

My conclusion:

• All these diets have their pros and cons. They can be used in the different stages of our lives, depending on our needs. None is 100% healthy for all people all the time.
• Cut out the processed, fake foods. There can’t be anything healthy about a Mars bar – have you read the ingredients??? And this includes sugar and fake sugars.
• Eat real, fresh, whole foods.
• Eat in moderation.
• Eat at home more often and cook your meals yourself. You have more control over what you are eating than when eating out.
• And most important of all – Pray over your food and commit everything to God 🙂

Yes our food supply is horribly tainted – starting from the food and water they feed to the animals and plants and the growth hormones they inject/feed to them. So there is no guarantee in the freshness and wholeness of foods even when we eat real foods. This is especially true in Singapore since we import nearly all of our foods. Even eating organic is no guarantee of anything!

Besides, what does the organic label really mean??? Do you know that organic eggs just means the chickens were fed organic soy or corn feed? Yes at least they are non-GMO corn and soy but it is not what chickens are meant to eat. Do organic beef mean the same thing? I would think so! What about grass fed beef? Well, there is no rule to say that the cows were only fed grass. Yes, in other words, we could be paying top dollar for organic foods that may or may not be truly organic.

But I digress 😀 there is definitely less stuff in a slab of fresh meat than in a packet of frozen dinner or fast food joint burger. So go for the fresh stuff.

And avoid anything in packets! Yes, they make things easier but again – have you read the ingredients list??? I often have to laugh when someone tells me that they eat very healthily and then mention that they use Cream of ____ Soup to make their meals. Cream of ____ Soup isn’t healthily by any long shot! It is full of flavour enhances (ie MSG) and fake stuff in there to make it taste like food.

I believe that our bodies are able to detoxify efficiently enough if we feed them some junk now and then. But if we continually put junk into them they will break down in time. They will have no time and no energy (since they are not being fed the correct foods) to detox and function at an optimal level. Hence the increase in allergies and diseases in our modern life.

But the most important of all is to pray over our food and trust God. As I was drafting this piece, I chanced upon a piece written by Katie of Kitchen Stewardship to Pray Constantly. I totally agree with her!

As I have written before, God can and will stand in the gap for us if we ask Him to. The problem is that we get so busy and preoccupied with researching and reading that we forget to ask Him what we should be doing for our family. I am so very guilty of this.

I like reading. I like researching. Praying not so. Waiting on God? Definitely not on the top of my To Do list! 🙁 My Type A, impatient personality shines through here!

And yet, that is the main key to everything in our lives. He created us, He allowed certain things to happen. Only He can guide and lead us to the best possible route.

Do any of you follow any of the alternative diets mentioned?

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