Since the theme of this year’s National Nutrition Month is Savor the Flavor, I felt it was worth the time to explain how I think that ties in with one key aspect of my Food Philosophy: making smart food choices.
[highlight]Think about the foods you are putting into your body and try to make sure they are actually “food”, not overly processed, chemical containing “fake” foods[/highlight]
There are so many products out there that market themselves as “healthy”, “fat free”, “wholesome”, etc. but when you look at the ingredient label, you’ll find they contain many additives, preservatives, and ingredients that aren’t even really food.
People get so hung up on trying to eliminate fat and sugar or cutting calories that instead they put processed “healthier” products into their body. [blockquote size=”full|half|third|fourth|two-thirds|three-fourths” align=”left|center|right”]I believe that instead of focusing on eliminating certain things from our diets, we should focus on choosing real food and enjoying our choices[/blockquote]
Instead of choosing a low fat, chocolate protein bar as a snack (which is full of preservatives and artificial ingredients), why not just enjoy a piece of dark chocolate and a piece of fresh fruit. Sure, the chocolate has sugar and milk but at least those are real food items we can actually recognize. I’d rather put a small amount of milk and sugar into my body than preservatives and artificial flavors.
A personal example of this happened to me last weekend. I woke up (after being sick for a few days) craving pancakes. I opened the freezer and saw we had a box of frozen pancakes (perfect for teething toddlers!), so I was just going to throw a few in the microwave and quickly eat them. Instead, I took a moment to think about how easy it would be for me to actual make pancakes. Five minutes and a little flour, butter, milk, and eggs later and I had a stack of delicious pancakes. I set them on a plate, sat down at the table and enjoyed the heck out of those pancakes. Sure, pancakes aren’t the healthiest food choice, but I really wanted them and decided to enjoy them and the real ingredients I used to make them. I don’t have pancakes very often, but these were just what I was craving and afterwards, I didn’t regret my decision, I just went on with my life.
A healthy lifestyle means making the best food choices for yourself but the other half involves enjoying those choices that you make. Being an informed consumer by reading food labels and trying to fuel your body with real foods and ingredients is much healthier than limiting yourself by consuming “fake” foods and not getting to experience the joy of eating well.
