Rules to Eat, Cook, and Live By
Here are 12 rules to help simplify healthful eating.
You can tackle them all at once or implement one at a time. Make your home a sanctuary of good eating.
1. The Life in Foods Gives Us Life
Fresh foods have the greatest enzyme activity. Enzymes are to the body what spark plugs are to the engine of a car. If we eat foods with little enzyme activity, they don’t “spark” our body to work correctly. Eating foods that have natural vibrancy gives vibrant energy to our own bodies. So if it won’t rot or spoil, don’t eat it!
2. Plan Ahead and Carry Food with You
Planning ahead and carrying your own food are great tools for healthful eating. Planning helps you create balanced meals and saves shopping time. Carrying snacks for yourself and your kids helps keep your moods and blood sugar levels even. It also saves you money and time, and you can ensure that the snacks are healthful.
3. Eat Small, Frequent Meals
Snacking is a great strategy for boosting and sustaining energy. Snacking keeps blood sugar levels even and facilitates digestion. Make snacking, especially in the midafternoon, a regular part of your life. You’ll ind that your energy level will stay more constant throughout the day and your mood will be more consistently pleasurable!
4. Eat When You Are Hungry and Stop When You Are Satisfied
Emotional overeating is one of the reasons for obesity in this country. We regularly turn to food when we want love and support. Don’t eat if you aren’t hungry, but also don’t wait until you are overhungry because that’s when we lose control and eat the sweetest, fastest foods in sight.
5. Relax While Eating
Many times we don’t even stop what we’re doing long enough to sit down when we eat. Remember that eating is a time for rejuvenation of body and spirit and a time to connect with yourself and with those you are eating with. Family meals are important. Turn the television off and have a family dinner almost every night.
6. Eat Local Foods in Season
Local produce is the freshest and has the highest level of nutrients. Put farm stands, community support agriculture (CSA) markets, and farmer’s markets into your food-shopping routine. The food quality, freshness, and enzymes are most abundant in local foods eaten in season. Eating foods in season also reduces the amount of pesticide and herbicide we consume.
* (Foods in Season are foods that are grown in particular season.)
7. Choose Organically Grown Foods Whenever Possible
Organic foods generally have higher nutrient levels because farmers who use organic methods add more nutrients to the soil, knowing that healthy plants can better fend off pests and that the nutrients end up in the crops.
8. Eat as Many Fruits and Vegetables as Possible
The available research on the positive beneits of eating fruits and vegetables is overwhelming. They are chock-full of vitamins, minerals, iber, and phytochemicals (plant-produced substances) that protect us from heart disease, cancer, degenerative diseases, and other common health problems. We know this, yet only about 23 percent of us eat at least ive servings of fruits and vegetables daily. And what’s known is that more is even better. Shoot for 8 to 10 and make most of them vegetables!
9. Eat High-Quality Protein and High-EPA/DHA Seafood, Organically and Sustainably Produced
If you choose to eat animal protein, such as poultry, beef, lamb, pork bison, goat, dairy products, eggs, and/or seafood, try to make sure that it is of the best quality possible.
10. Eat More High-Fiber Foods
The richest food sources of iber are also the four food groups that make up the bulk of a healthful eating plan: whole grains, legumes (all beans except string beans), vegetables, and fruits. Eating whole-grain products is an excellent way to increase your iber intake.
11. Drink Lots of Clean Water
Our bodies are 70 percent water. If we don’t adequately hydrate our cells, they cannot function properly.
Here are 12 rules to help simplify healthful eating.
You can tackle them all at once or implement one at a time. Make your home a sanctuary of good eating.
1. The Life in Foods Gives Us Life
Fresh foods have the greatest enzyme activity. Enzymes are to the body what spark plugs are to the engine of a car. If we eat foods with little enzyme activity, they don’t “spark” our body to work correctly. Eating foods that have natural vibrancy gives vibrant energy to our own bodies. So if it won’t rot or spoil, don’t eat it!
2. Plan Ahead and Carry Food with You
Planning ahead and carrying your own food are great tools for healthful eating. Planning helps you create balanced meals and saves shopping time. Carrying snacks for yourself and your kids helps keep your moods and blood sugar levels even. It also saves you money and time, and you can ensure that the snacks are healthful.
3. Eat Small, Frequent Meals
Snacking is a great strategy for boosting and sustaining energy. Snacking keeps blood sugar levels even and facilitates digestion. Make snacking, especially in the midafternoon, a regular part of your life. You’ll ind that your energy level will stay more constant throughout the day and your mood will be more consistently pleasurable!
4. Eat When You Are Hungry and Stop When You Are Satisfied
Emotional overeating is one of the reasons for obesity in this country. We regularly turn to food when we want love and support. Don’t eat if you aren’t hungry, but also don’t wait until you are overhungry because that’s when we lose control and eat the sweetest, fastest foods in sight.
5. Relax While Eating
Many times we don’t even stop what we’re doing long enough to sit down when we eat. Remember that eating is a time for rejuvenation of body and spirit and a time to connect with yourself and with those you are eating with. Family meals are important. Turn the television off and have a family dinner almost every night.
6. Eat Local Foods in Season
Local produce is the freshest and has the highest level of nutrients. Put farm stands, community support agriculture (CSA) markets, and farmer’s markets into your food-shopping routine. The food quality, freshness, and enzymes are most abundant in local foods eaten in season. Eating foods in season also reduces the amount of pesticide and herbicide we consume.
* (Foods in Season are foods that are grown in particular season.)
7. Choose Organically Grown Foods Whenever Possible
Organic foods generally have higher nutrient levels because farmers who use organic methods add more nutrients to the soil, knowing that healthy plants can better fend off pests and that the nutrients end up in the crops.
8. Eat as Many Fruits and Vegetables as Possible
The available research on the positive beneits of eating fruits and vegetables is overwhelming. They are chock-full of vitamins, minerals, iber, and phytochemicals (plant-produced substances) that protect us from heart disease, cancer, degenerative diseases, and other common health problems. We know this, yet only about 23 percent of us eat at least ive servings of fruits and vegetables daily. And what’s known is that more is even better. Shoot for 8 to 10 and make most of them vegetables!
9. Eat High-Quality Protein and High-EPA/DHA Seafood, Organically and Sustainably Produced
If you choose to eat animal protein, such as poultry, beef, lamb, pork bison, goat, dairy products, eggs, and/or seafood, try to make sure that it is of the best quality possible.
10. Eat More High-Fiber Foods
The richest food sources of iber are also the four food groups that make up the bulk of a healthful eating plan: whole grains, legumes (all beans except string beans), vegetables, and fruits. Eating whole-grain products is an excellent way to increase your iber intake.
11. Drink Lots of Clean Water
Our bodies are 70 percent water. If we don’t adequately hydrate our cells, they cannot function properly.
Moreover, the water we drink and consume in food is an essential carrier, bringing in nutrients and taking away wastes. Drinking plenty of clean, pure water every day is one of the most promising routes to digestive wellness.
12. Respect Your Own Biochemical Uniqueness
The foods that are best for any person are those that agree with that person’s body and unique biochemistry. You will probably need to experiment with your own diet and your family’s diet to ind out what works best for all of you speciically and over the long term. A proper diet ought to make us feel energetic and keep our immune system strong. Our bodies run best on real foods; a natural-foods diet is the ultimate direction in eating for all of us, no matter exactly how we shape it.
Source: Digestive Wellness, by Elizabeth Lipski, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012
12. Respect Your Own Biochemical Uniqueness
The foods that are best for any person are those that agree with that person’s body and unique biochemistry. You will probably need to experiment with your own diet and your family’s diet to ind out what works best for all of you speciically and over the long term. A proper diet ought to make us feel energetic and keep our immune system strong. Our bodies run best on real foods; a natural-foods diet is the ultimate direction in eating for all of us, no matter exactly how we shape it.
Source: Digestive Wellness, by Elizabeth Lipski, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012
Have you had some time to read the two suggestions? Would you like to meet on zoom and talk about them?