Many people nowadays are following more traditional ways of eating, as they have noticed when they pay attention to their food intake, their health improves.
No big shocker — your car likely runs better on premium gasoline rather than if you were to throw in kerosene and expect top performance. Likewise, your body performs better and lasts longer with better fuel.
So, how to choose? The macrobiotic diet? The cave man diet? The vegetarian lifestyle? Which is right? I think a balanced, thoughtful approach is the best way. Clearly, the way food is manufactured (rather than produced) is an important consideration. Even the American Medical Association a couple of decades ago conceded that people need to supplement their diets with good quality nutritional supplements in order to stay healthy because the food supply just simply does not have all the essential nutrients that it should have.
This has come about because the topsoil is minerally depleted. The depletion has occurred because the fungicides, herbicides, pesticides, etc., which all kill what they are intended to kill, plus eliminate all the micro-organisms and small nematodes that traditionally chewed through the rocks and big clumps of dirt in the fields.
In the process, they converted inorganic rock minerals into organic minerals that could be absorbed by the growing plants and then passed on to us when we ate the plant.
Nowadays, because the topsoil no longer harbors the beneficial little bugs and microorganisms, the plants only get “nutrients” from artificial fertilizers, which do not provide the essential nutrients that we need.
So, first of all, maximize your nutrition by taking a very good quality multi-vitamin and multi-mineral. If you need help finding one call or email me and I’ll let you know what I’ve found and take.
Secondly, maximize the nutrients that you take in by going for foods that are well absorbed and assimilated. Just because you can chew something up and swallow it doesn’t mean it is food, nor does it mean that it is well digested, assimilated or useful to your body or promote good health.
One good example of this problem is protein types. Lighter proteins are easier to digest. For example, fish protein is easier to digest than red meat and plant-based protein is easier to digest than animal-based protein.
Again, getting back to basics, if you think about the food chain, eating more plant-based foods is going to leave you open to less contaminants. Animals live longer lives than, for instance, lettuce, so they have more time to accumulate impurities in their tissue because they eat various foods from various sources, many of which are GMO or sprayed or simply sub-optimal.
Furthermore, the lettuce didn’t consume another lettuce in order to live, whereas the animal may have consumed many “lettuces” in its lifetime and stored up in its tissues any contaminants that were poured on the lettuces by modern day farming procedures. Get my drift?
Best to go as close to the source and not eat too much food that was processed through other animals, as they do not have the same discretionary power as you and I do. Eat organic, grow your own, eat light, avoid manufactured junk foods and think about how you look after your car’s fuel or your lawn mower’s fuel.
You use the appropriate and best fuel for those machines because you want them to perform at their best, and for as long as possible. Would you want less for your own body?
As always, call me, write me, or say “hi” when you see me. You can “Train with Jane” anytime.
• Jane Riley, M.S., B.A., C.P.T., Certified Nutritional Adviser, can be reached at janerileyfitness@gmail.com, 212-1451 or www.janerileyfitness.com.
