Healthy Eating Near Me - Online Nutrition Course
How your food is grown and processed, and where it comes from, are the biggest factors in determining what makes a food a "healthy food."
Some important questions to ask yourself when determining the quality of your foods are:
Is it organic?
Does that even matter?
Is it heavily broken down before it's added as an ingredient?
Was it grown and harvested in a way that is sustainable to the environment, and that does not put extra toxins into your body?
What other ingredients are in the food?
Healthy Eating Online Nutrition Course
Have you ever been at the grocery store, and tossed foods into your cart because they 'sound' healthy?
Or have you ever restricted your diet to avoid a certain food or nutrient, because you heard somewhere that it's bad for you?
(uh, hello, are you in my HEAD?!)
If you think I've been stalking you, it's because I've been there, too!
I've tried all the diets, I've bought foods because they sound healthy, I've played the guessing game, over and over... and I wasted a lot of time and money doing it…
...until I began to learn more about what really matters in regard to health.
Let's face it - healthy eating is confusing!
We all want to be healthier.
We get caught up in the myths:
healthy equals skinny
healthy equals strength & cardio training 5 days a week
healthy equals salads every meal
healthy equals foods that don't taste good
healthy equals having the energy to do ALL the things, ALL the time
But the truth is, we've been fooled.
The Dirty Truth About Healthy Eating
We've been fooled by the Dr. Phils and the marketing experts at Kraft, into thinking our foods have to say "gluten-free," "vegan," “all natural,” or "heart healthy" in order to be good for our bodies.
We are confused and ultimately misinformed by people we trust to have the answers.
And the reality is, we don't have the time (or even know where to begin) to do the research ourselves, so we just have to trust!
Well, lucky for you, friend, I have done the research.
I am a nutrition expert, and I'm here to help you dig your way out of that confusion.
I'm here to help you know how to decide for yourself what is best for your health, and your family's health.
3 PILLARS OF HEALTHY FOOD CHOICES:
bio-individuality
quality of ingredients
"good, better, best" mindset
BIO-INDIVIDUALITY: I see you scratching your head, don't worry. Bio-individuality is short for "biological individuality," meaning, what biological factors in your own body determine how well you can digest foods, absorb their nutrients, and eliminate waste. For example, we can't truthfully say "gluten is bad" for everyone, without knowing how their body processes gluten.
QUALITY OF INGREDIENTS: How your food is grown and processed, and where it comes from, are the biggest factors in determining what makes a food a "healthy food."
Some important questions to ask yourself when determining the quality of your foods, are:
Is it organic?
Does that even matter?
Is it heavily broken down before it's added as an ingredient?
Was it grown and harvested in a way that is sustainable to the environment, and that does not put extra toxins into your body?
What other ingredients are in the food?
GOOD, BETTER, BEST: This is a technique I teach my clients and live by in my own life. It is unfortunate (who am I kidding, it's actually maddening!) that quality, healthy foods are not accessible to every one, in every geographical location, and in every income bracket.
It is upsetting to me that we call foods that are heavily processed and filled with toxins, "conventional," consequently labeling quality foods as novelty items (and pricing them accordingly).
But the reality is, you have to do what is best for you, and especially if you have a family to consider.
When choosing foods, you need to consider:
availability
cost
moral considerations
community support
food allergies
picky eaters
religious considerations
(if there are any I missed, please add them to the comments!)
So, when it comes down to it, I can tell you what is "best," but you have to decide if it's what is sustainable for you. That's why I teach and advocate for the "good, better, best" mindset.
Okay, so how do I actually know how to choose healthy foods?
Label-Reading 101
Since I cannot assess your Bio-Individual needs through a blog post (wouldn't that be cool?! Or maybe creepy... never mind...), let's look at food Quality.
In the past, humans have not led such on-the-go lifestyles. We used to grow or forage our own food, eat seasonally, make our own flours, can our own vegetables & fruits, etc..
I do not need to tell you, we are no longer living that life.
What that has caused is the need for foods to become more shelf-stable. As food sensitivities increased due to stressed eating and poor gut health (and misinformation about what is "healthy" and not healthy), so have additives and fillers increased in our foods, to mimic textures of the real thing. Let's not forget the MONEY! Food manufacturers use techniques to increase profits, like using highly toxic (but deemed "safe") forms of fats and sugars to make their foods, rather than non-toxic forms.
It's easy to point to the reality that eating organic, fresh, whole foods is what's best for us (and it is). BUT... that's not what our lifestyles typically support.
This is why we need to learn to look at food labels to determine if what we're eating is healthy or not.
I'm not referring to "front-of-box" labeling - you've already been fooled by that, which is why you're here!
And I'm not talking about the "Nutrition Facts." Counting calories is not a form of healthy eating, and I do not advocate for it in most cases.
I'm talking about the ingredients list.
TIPS TO HELP YOU CHOOSE HEALTHY FOODS:
look for foods in their most whole form - avoid terms like "concentrate," "modified," or "hydrolyzed." These terms typically indicate the ingredient has been heavily processed, which often entails toxic methods.
avoid toxic oils & fats - the myth that eating "low fat" is healthiest, has been long debunked, but what we have to look for now, are fats that are heavily processed and toxic to our bodies. Remember, toxins prefer fat, so the quality of fats you take in is very important. Looks for oils and fats that are the "extra virgin," "expeller pressed," or "unrefined." Avoid (always): Canola, vegetable, rapeseed, safflower, and sunflower oils.
certified organic - This is a gray area. The term "organic" on a food label, is only as good as the entity that certified it as "organic." In other words, the standards of organic are different for each organic certifier. According to the USDA, organic means it contains no GMOs, & no synthetic pesticides were used.
A food can be labeled organic without actually having been regulated by anyone, and the opposite is true as well (a food may not be labeled organic, even though it follows organic standards).
Your best bet - get to know your farmers.
whole grain - Eating grains in their whole form is crucial to ensuring we get important nutrients, and reducing our inflammatory response. In the US, the term "whole grain" means that the product has to consist of at least 50% whole grains. But it's important to look at what the remaining 50% consists of. If you're eating "whole grain" bread, that also contains sugars, rice flour, and potato starch... you see where I'm going with this...
preservatives, emulsifiers, and chemicals - There are a lot of foods and products that are labeled as being "pet safe," or "kid safe," but it does not necessarily mean they are things we should be putting into (or on) our bodies.
The list of what to avoid is far too extensive for this little article, but in short, it's best to avoid:
ingredients with more than 4 syllables
ingredients with all CAPS
ingredients ending in a-t-e
ingredients you cant pronounce, or have never heard of
ingredients associated with a number
ingredients preceded by "enriched"
Pin this one to your boards to help cement it in…
Feeling a bit better about your future shopping trips?
I love talking about this stuff because it consistently comes up in conversations, that we are all so confused about what it takes to be healthy.
It's exactly why I developed the Kitchen Detox Workshop.
The Kitchen Detox Workshop is worth its weight in gold, friend. We scratched the surface in this article, but the workshop dives deeper into those factors, plus a few others. It also gives you hands-on tools to help you inventory your own kitchen, and stock your kitchen with only quality, wholesome foods.
Put differently, the Kitchen Detox Workshop helps you to make healthy food choices, every single time you eat.
Ditch the guilt of eating "bad" foods.
Stop playing the guessing game at the supermarket.
Stop wasting money on fruitless health hacks.
Make healthy choices that really matter.
Tap the button below to learn more about the online
Kitchen Detox Workshop.
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