Food is not just something that is eaten to provide life, food is much more than that. As Jill Dupleix said “Don't eat vegetables because they are good for you. Eat them for one reason alone. Because they are gorgeous.” This quote could easily be applied to food in general – Don't just eat food because it is good for you. Eat it because it is gorgeous.
Over the last 20+ years, food and the ritual of meal-times has lost both its value nutritionally and as a time to sit with family and friends to share and enjoy what you are eating together over good conversation, some humour and fun. The ritual of preparing fresh foods has been taken over by ready-made processed meals that are eaten in front of the television from, Deliveroo and the like and the convenience of buying a meal that is fast from somewhere like McDonalds, Subway, or Dominos Pizza. Hence the name fast food.
Why is our current-day food and eating habits not serving our health?
Farming techniques – farming techniques have evolved over time with the update in technology, larger fields and the possibility to export produce. However, with this came the process of spraying both herbicides and pesticides to control weeds and pests. Whether it is or is not doing that, I am not going to discuss. What it is doing is depleting the land of natural nutrients which feed the plants and provide the vitamins and minerals all living creatures rely on for good health, including human beings. In other words, fresh natural foods carry only a percentage of the nutritional goodness that they should have. Add the supermarket process of buying and storing foods in coolers for several days before they get put on the shelves and the foods you are eating become nutrient-dead. Let’s face it most of us for convenience shop once weekly and therefore also store our purchases until needed in the fridge. By the time we eat it so-called fresh food could be up to two weeks old!
What does this mean?
High-fibre, plant-based diets are in our ancestral lineage. “The human gastrointestinal tract, and cardiometabolic and immune systems evolved on high fibre plant-based diets (≥50 g total fibre/day), including the consumption of wild berries and other native fibre-rich edible plants by hunter-gathers, and later grains, fruits and vegetables from traditional farming, which provided fibre rich diets until the mass globalization of Western dietary patterns in the 20th and 21st centuries.” Dreher ML. Whole Fruits and Fruit Fiber,Emerging Health Effects. Nutrients. 2018;10(12):1833. Published 2018 Nov 28. doi:10.3390/nu10121833.
Looking at this quote, our ancestors ate off the land, this is exactly what we should be doing in the current day and this simple and natural process is one of the reasons Western cultures are seeing an escalation in chronic diseases.
Eating non seasonal foods all year round – With the advent of air, sea, rail and road transportation, we have the luxury of buying non seasonal foods and foods that do not grow in our own country, practically all year round. Does this do us any good? I would be the first to say, I enjoy an avocado for lunch, or pineapple for breakfast. These foods are blessed with goodness, but again how much is there when the food has been picked before it has had time to ripen naturally in the sun and instead ripened along the way so that we get a perfectly ripe avocado on our plate?
Eating out of season foods - There is a reason why root vegetables appear in autumn/winter and cucumber, tomatoes and berries in the spring and summer. Nature is showing us that consuming seasonal foods is not only more nutritious when grown under the sun as opposed to in a hot house, but that our bodies need different food types at different times of the year. When the weather is colder, damp and frosty with short days our bodies crave warming foods – hearty warming soups and stews. Similarly in the summer when the days are longer, weather warmer and sunny our bodies need lighter more cooling foods. Eating excessively out of season, can create gut dysbiosis and may cause ill-health.
Limiting the colours in our diet -
“Less than 10% of most Western populations consume adequate levels of whole fruits and dietary fibre with typical intake being about half of the recommended levels.” Dreher ML. Whole Fruits and Fruit Fibre Emerging Health Effects. Nutrients. 2018;10(12):1833. Published 2018 Nov 28. doi:10.3390/nu10121833.
Fruit and vegetables not only provide dietary fibre so important for gut health, but also a vast array of phytonutrients as well as antioxidants. This combination has the potential when combined with other lifestyle practices of keeping you and your family healthy and well.
Fruit and vegetables essentially appear in nature in five colour codes – red, orange, yellow, blue/purple and green. The only rainbow in processed and fast foods is in the form of artificial colourings, which perhaps tempt the taste buds, but an artificially coloured cake, dessert or soup, is both lacking in flavour and goodness. Over time artificial and man-made colourings, flavourings, preservatives and foods only cause the delicate balance of our body systems to start to complain and fail when they can no longer fight the daily bombardment of foods that should never have entered your body.
You often hear and see the phrase “Eat the rainbow”. The more colours you include into your daily diet in natural fruit and vegetables, the broader the health benefits. Nature provides such a beautiful array of colours to tempt our taste buds. The British government advocates “5-a day” fruit and fibre. This amount is a good start, but in reality we need to eat four times more than that every day. The more diverse your diet the healthier your gut microbiome will be. As 70% of the immune system is in the gut, the more resilient your body to fight off any seasonal colds and flu. We now also know that a healthy gut microbiome supports a healthy, agile brain as well as healthy ageing. What is there that is not to like?
How can you increase the variety of colours of fruit and vegetables in your diet?
1. Include variety from the following plant-food groups:
- Fruits and vegetables
- Spices and herbs
- Teas
- Nuts and seeds
- Wholegrains – buckwheat, brown rice, oats, spelt flakes, amaranth etc
- Beans and legumes
2. In your daily meals:
- Aim to eat a minimum of 5-a day
- Include several in each meal
- Include at least one from each colour group every day
- Add herbs and spices in stews, soups, porridge, muesli, salads and smoothies
- Add variety – we all have favourites, to your favourites add at least one new product each week
- Shop locally from farm shops and your local market to guarantee freshness as well as seasonality
3. Plan where you will be eating:
- In restaurants – request a salad or vegetables as substitute for chips, baked potato or white rice. Start the meal with a salad or vegetable soup rather than pate, deep fried cheese or some other starter that has no vegetables
- When working from the office, construction site or other location – take your lunch with you
- At home – keep frozen, bottled, dried or fresh foods available
- When travelling take some healthy snacks along to avoid the temptation of going for a fast-food meal.
Adopting some forethought, a little discipline when buying foods and some discipline to put these actions into practice will become easier over time as your body starts to crave healthy, colourful, natural foods. Not only this, eating a nutritionally rich, varied diet with people you love to be with will:
- Reduce the risk of chronic disease
- Increase your levels of energy
- Improve mood
- Optimise health and function
- Limit loneliness
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