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eat real food
Nutritionists and food scientists are finally realizing what my grandparents already knew. Instead of concentrating on one kind of food or nutritional element—carbs, fat, sugar, calories, etc.—eat a little of everything and you’ll be just fine. All things in moderation. Oh, and avoid pre-packaged foods.
A little meat won’t kill you, though it’s better approached as a side dish than as a main. And you’re much better off eating whole fresh foods than processed food products. That’s what I mean by the recommendation to eat “food.” Once, food was all you could eat, but today there are lots of other edible foodlike substances in the supermarket. These novel products of food science often come in packages festooned with health claims, which brings me to a related rule of thumb: if you’re concerned about your health, you should probably avoid food products that make health claims. Why? Because a health claim on a food product is a good indication that it’s not really food, and food is what you want to eat.
In other words, eat like Italians and the French.
This is how Melanie and I have been eating since we started dating and especially since we’ve been married. We concentrate on the vegetables over the meat (which I admit is more true in the growing seasons than in the winter) and don’t worry so much about the little things. I’m coming to realize that what’s most important is the combination of things so that you’re getting some of all your nutritional elements at each meal. Thus our greens are cooked with bacon and the meat is cooked in butter or oil. We don’t eat huge slabs of meat and we supplement with lots of greens and starches.
The realization that nutritionists seem to be coming around to is that the more we eat like those in the early 20th century would have been able to eat, the better. Fewer processed foods, more natural foods from the earth, smaller amounts of meat, and don’t worry so much about one particular “bad for you” thing like fat or carbs. Sounds good to me.
COMMENTS
Dom: I read in a magazine:
Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother won’t recognize as food!
I think these are words to live by.
Oh, guess what Jeanne wants to name the baby if it is a girl. Isabella Rose (that wouldn’t be Bella’s middle name, would it?)
Posted by
on 02/7/07 at 09:34 AMHer middle name is Marie, actually.
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