Consciously Choose What You Eat

Ever since I can remember, I have chosen what to eat based on what tasted good, what I felt like eating and what was the quickest way to satisfy my hunger. I never thought about food and water being the main components necessary for our bodies to work optimally or that food literally is the fuel that supports our life force in physical form. I didn’t think much about how the types of food we eat are important as well. I took it for granted that my body would function properly no matter what I ate. I recently realized that I was not alone in my thinking. In fact, as a society, we have been conditioned to choose food for the wrong reasons.

What  I am about to say is not a conspiracy theory or a lofty notion I have made up.  What I tell you now is a fact that the general population does not realize. What I have learned is that what we desire to eat has been formed by the big food companies who have used our reasons for choosing food to their advantage. By creating food that you can grab quickly, that has the perfect combination of sweet, fat, salt and texture, these companies have gotten the majority of the population dependent and craving their food. You can read all about these “food specialists” hired by these companies to put together these addictive products at the least cost to themselves. This produces foods with low nutritious value, filled with preservatives (to keep food for longer shelf life), high amounts of sodium, sugar and low quality fat. These are some of the reasons we have an epidemic of type 2 diabetes and heart disease which are developing in even young children.

This motivated me to change the way I was choosing what to eat. I have learned to make it important to support my health by consciously opting for the most nutrient dense foods and incorporating them into my diet on a daily basis. I have also learned that the best way to do this is by cooking food that I really enjoy eating. This was difficult for me at first because I used to think it would be so hard to change and how time consuming and tasteless it would be to have to cook all these “healthy” foods. As I began to experiment, I found out that cooking and eating nutritiously can be simple and taste delicious. By slowly adding more nutrient dense foods, I found I easily removed foods that weren’t working for me to support my health. I also know it is important to set yourself up to succeed. I have found ways to incorporate different methods that have helped me on my way to being healthy and happy.

All this has made my road to wellness very simple and satisfying. I have been able to let go of the food I used to crave and am able to make more conscious decisions about what I put in my mouth. In fact I have found that I can now trust what I feel like eating because it is my body’s way of communicating to me what it needs to in order to function optimally.

Examples of how I incorporate foods that are simple, delicious and nutritious:

• Blueberries w yogurt pre breakfast or snack
• Green tea for morning drink
• Scrambled eggs for breakfast w/avocado on whole grain toast
• Garlic cooked into meals
• Olive, avocado, or coconut oil for healthy fat use in daily meals
• Nuts and seeds as snacks
• Dark Chocolate dessert or snack
• Whole grains (quinoa,) in salad for lunch or dinner
• Ginger tumeric use in cooking, tonic or smoothie
• Coconut in smoothie or as a topping
• Sweet potato side dish for meal
• Mushrooms in smoothie as powder, or whole in salad or in meal
• Seaweed fresh in salad or dried as snack
• Salmon meal for dinner or lunch can be used in salad
• Spinach/Kale: adding greens daily in lunch as salad, side dish for dinner, as a bed under whole food meal or in breakfast omelet.

Some superfoods you can easily pile into a smoothie for a liquid meal (Look for more information on what these substances do to support your health in my future blog):

• Maca powder
• Cacao powder
• Matcha powder
• Ashwagandha
• Goji berries
• Blueberries
• Moringa
• Pine pollen
• He show wu
• Greens powder
• Protein powder w/collagen
• Mushroom powder
• MCT oil
• Coconut water, milk, oil
• Flax, hemp seeds