1.6
If you've been wondering when I'd get to some food-related thoughts on a power pantry, your wait is over. While we need to have a reason 'why' we want a wellness lifestyle, and having a wellness vision keeps us on track toward a healthier existence, at some point we need to ask 'how'. And how starts with this wise counsel: eat real food!
What do we mean by 'real food'? The truth is, we industrialized our food supply 100+ years ago, along with the revolution that changed how we work and produce goods. Before then our food was basically 'local' and 'organic', and much better for our health. Now we have engineered food-like products that are edible, technically, but aren't really food, and our bodies don't recognize them as nutritional.
Real food is simply 'whole food'. Think of the apple (with the skin) instead of apple juice; the filet of salmon instead of the fish stick. Brown rice instead of white rice; fresh salad greens with onions, instead of fried onion rings. Whole foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, are what our bodies crave. Our metabolism is waiting on us to give it healthy food, every meal, every day. When we make great choices, our bodies pay us back with good health; when we make poor choices... well, we are what we eat.
Consider a quote from the cofounder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey:
"Eating a whole-foods and plant-based diet and avoiding processed and refined foods can completely transform our lives. I've seen hundreds of people I work with lose more than 100 pounds, reverse type 2 diabetes, or recapture their health by making permanent dietary changes..."
A whole foods, plant-based diet leads us away from industrialized, engineered foods, back to foods that our bodies recognize as nutritional. In western medicine, we have a pharmaceutical and surgical response to disease. The reality is that prevention is the best intervention, and great disease prevention starts with eating real food. It's a wellness lifestyle, not a diet. The incredible ability of our bodies to naturally heal is revealed and accelerated when we choose a whole foods, plant-based diet.
I'm not talking about becoming a vegan or vegetarian. I'm still an omnivore, and eat a variety of available, healthy foods, with real foods making up most of my calorie intake. We'll talk more about that in upcoming posts...
The fundamental key to a power pantry? Wholeness... a completeness in our nutritional choices that lends itself, eventually, to completeness in our lives overall. And eating real food is a tremendous start.
I had a friend who used to describe good nutritional choices like this: "If it doesn't sprout or rot, don't eat it." That's a whole food, plant-based perspective... (Note that unprocessed, un-engineered foods--that is, real foods-- usually sprout or rot.) With that in mind, we decided to reproduce an 'experiment' we heard about.
We got a kids' meal from a popular fast food place, and want to see it if ever rots... previous internet experiments indicate it won't. We're putting ours up against a salad from the same restaurant (and some apple slices from the kids' meal - you'd think the apples might be okay and just dry out... and the salad will eventually rot... we'll see.) Here is our baseline photo, and we'll be updating the progress in future posts:
If you've been wondering when I'd get to some food-related thoughts on a power pantry, your wait is over. While we need to have a reason 'why' we want a wellness lifestyle, and having a wellness vision keeps us on track toward a healthier existence, at some point we need to ask 'how'. And how starts with this wise counsel: eat real food!
What do we mean by 'real food'? The truth is, we industrialized our food supply 100+ years ago, along with the revolution that changed how we work and produce goods. Before then our food was basically 'local' and 'organic', and much better for our health. Now we have engineered food-like products that are edible, technically, but aren't really food, and our bodies don't recognize them as nutritional.Real food is simply 'whole food'. Think of the apple (with the skin) instead of apple juice; the filet of salmon instead of the fish stick. Brown rice instead of white rice; fresh salad greens with onions, instead of fried onion rings. Whole foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables, are what our bodies crave. Our metabolism is waiting on us to give it healthy food, every meal, every day. When we make great choices, our bodies pay us back with good health; when we make poor choices... well, we are what we eat.Consider a quote from the cofounder and co-CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey:"Eating a whole-foods and plant-based diet and avoiding processed and refined foods can completely transform our lives. I've seen hundreds of people I work with lose more than 100 pounds, reverse type 2 diabetes, or recapture their health by making permanent dietary changes..."
A whole foods, plant-based diet leads us away from industrialized, engineered foods, back to foods that our bodies recognize as nutritional. In western medicine, we have a pharmaceutical and surgical response to disease. The reality is that prevention is the best intervention, and great disease prevention starts with eating real food. It's a wellness lifestyle, not a diet. The incredible ability of our bodies to naturally heal is revealed and accelerated when we choose a whole foods, plant-based diet.
I'm not talking about becoming a vegan or vegetarian. I'm still an omnivore, and eat a variety of available, healthy foods, with real foods making up most of my calorie intake. We'll talk more about that in upcoming posts...
The fundamental key to a power pantry? Wholeness... a completeness in our nutritional choices that lends itself, eventually, to completeness in our lives overall. And eating real food is a tremendous start.
By the Way
I had a friend who used to describe good nutritional choices like this: "If it doesn't sprout or rot, don't eat it." That's a whole food, plant-based perspective... (Note that unprocessed, un-engineered foods--that is, real foods-- usually sprout or rot.) With that in mind, we decided to reproduce an 'experiment' we heard about.
We got a kids' meal from a popular fast food place, and want to see it if ever rots... previous internet experiments indicate it won't. We're putting ours up against a salad from the same restaurant (and some apple slices from the kids' meal - you'd think the apples might be okay and just dry out... and the salad will eventually rot... we'll see.) Here is our baseline photo, and we'll be updating the progress in future posts:
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| Our burger experiment on Day 1 (3/20/14) |
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