Food! Just the word starts many people thinking about food, salivating for the next morsel.
And no wonder. We have reviewed our survival needs for breathing, water, sleep and movement. Our bodies can survive for up to a year or more without food. But not forever. And the quality of the food matters – it can work for us or against us.
What happens when we eat?
Our cells can only become what we feed them. And the beneficial bacteria of our biome (our gut bugs or probiotics) can only thrive if we feed them what they need (prebiotics). As we take a bite of say, a carrot, we begin the process of digestion. Digestion is an incredible transformation of what was a carrot to a multitude of subcomponents that communicate with your cells. Food contains messages that it gives to your body about what the world is like outside. Is it rich in vitamins or lacking? The cells use the messengers to build new cells, repair tissue, develop muscle, provide energy, reduce inflammation and neutralize free radicals.
Food versus “food”
Michael Pollan is the author of a wonderful book “Food Rules” in which he gives us 3 rules:
- Eat food
- Mostly plants
- and not too much.
Simple. But profound. Let’s look at each one.
Eat Food:
Here we define food versus “food”. Think of a piece of fruit, say, an apple. We know it’s an apple by using our senses:
it’s color (sight), aroma (smell), the firmness (touch), and the sweetness (taste). We even know it’s crunch (sound).
But can I create something similar?
I can easily create the shape and color to fool the senses. We have fake fruit even in craft projects and wreaths. I can create the aroma; after all we have room sprays and candles that smell like an apple. I can create the same firmness. Even the same taste – think of the candies that taste like an apple.
So I can fool the eyes, the nose, the fingers, and the tongue. But is it an apple? No. It’s lacking the nutrition.
And that’s is what “food” is. Products that are food-like but are not real food. Even if they started out as real food, they have been processed in such a way that many of the essential nutrients are lost, and what remains is just a imitation shell of the food.
It fills our bellies, but that’s it. Food should heal us, be good for our bodies. Food is either helping us or hurting us. Choose carefully.
Mostly plants.
Why plants? Our teeth indicate that we are omnivores. Our ancestors ate what they could catch, but scientists have discovered that our ancestors ate a diet that included lots of plants. Plants carry the messages to the cells, delivering key essential nutrients to keep the cells building and repairing. More importantly, the plants are the prebiotics – the food of our gut bacteria. Our gut bacteria live off of the fiber in plants. The “good” bacteria will reproduce and multiply based on the foods presented to them. Foods that help them thrive and stay healthy. When the foods they need are not given to them, the good bacteria die off and other bacteria can take over. There are many strains of bacteria that are now linked to chronic disease. We consume far less fiber than our ancestors as well.
Not too much.
I was raised to clean my plate. The reward was often dessert. The reason for cleaning the plate is that there were starving children in the world, and we should not waste food by leaving it. Even if you could not think about one more bite, you had to override your common sense and eat it.
Later in life, a friend from Holland who survived World War II corrected this misconception. She said ” you can waste food or you can waist food: it’s your choice but either way you are not helping the starving children.”
The Japanese have a saying “hara hachi bu” which means to eat until you are 80% full. They credit their longevity with this practice. As I have counseled individuals over the years, I realized most of us have no idea what 80% full is. A foreign concept. We eat until there is no more food.
Think of fullness on a scale from 1 to 10. We know when we are over-stuffed (10). I call it the “Thanksgiving” feeling. We know when we are hungry (3). As we begin to eat, we know we are no longer hungry, but also not full yet. But somehow we keep eating until we are at a 9 or 10. Or miserable.
The reason is our brain hasn’t gotten the signal yet from the stomach. It takes about 20 minutes for the stomach to begin to feel the pressure of the food inside, and send the signal to the brain to stop. How fast do you eat?
The average fast food meal is consumed in 12 minutes. That’s why you leave there feeling so full.
Try practicing hara hachi bu. Save your food, you can have it later. But try to figure out when you are 80% full.
So there you have it. Eat food. Mostly plants. And not too much.