Monday 11 January 2016

Raw Foods

Raw Foods

Some of MY controversial opinions

To me natural is good. As soon as it gets altered from its natural state, it is not that good.

To use sugar or not

It is best to skip sugar all together. It is really bad for your health. In fact it is bad for every part of your body including teeth, heart, liver, etc. It primes your body for Diabetes and also promotes cholesterol.
Some argue that brown sugar is healthier than white. How does one arrive to that fact if sugar in any color does not have any nutritional value? 
Sugar can give you a quick energy boost and soon after leave you fatigued.

If you ever had to cut sugar out of your diet, it is amazing to find how many products does contain sugar. I found it hard leaving sugar behind. :-( People can say what they want, but for me it was not easy and I have the notion it might just be the general feeling.

Not to worry though - there are some alternatives. But a little later about that.

What about using sweeteners?
My answer would be NO. If I have to choose between putting sweetener versus sugar into my coffee, I would opt sugar.

Why?
Sweeteners is so far from natural and contain other chemicals I would not want to put in my body.

Natural is better

 As I mentioned before - the more natural something is the better. Here are some more controversial opinions of mine:
   
Using my rule of thumb above, I would rather have full cream milk than low fat. 

Why?
It is the more natural choice. Some fats are healthy and especially those fatty acids in dairy. Eating low fat dairy products is healthier is an assumption based on what logic dictates and is not backed up by facts. The truth is that whole milk will make you feel full for longer while low-fat products could leave you famished and craving food. Whole milk can also help limit the body in the amount of fat it stores and promotes absorption of nutrients. 
This does absolutely not mean you can binge on diary products. 

When it come to eggs, should you only eat the white?
The natural choice, of course, is the whole egg. Just to be clear: Saturated fat does not cause coronary heart disease, stroke or coronary vascular disease.
If you did not eat the egg yolk, you would be missing out on a lot of good nutrition. Vitamin A, B and Choline  which is good for the brain and necessary for a healthy pregnancy.

What causes heart disease?
Over consumption of processed carbohydrates and vegetable oils. So keep things natural.

So what would the natural choice be when purchasing meat?
Rather have a beef steak than having processed meat like corned beef, sausage, ham, etc.Ostrich is good, fish (especially Salmon), chicken. Again: Your body needs a balanced diet and some good fats to be healthy. Red meat in my opinion is natural, good, nutritious food.

My second rule of thumb is: Everything in moderation. Have a small piece of red meat with some veggies. You do not need to eat a 500g steak in order to enjoy it. About the size of the palm of your hand is enough.

Therefore it is easy to see when something reads: 'Taste like real cheese' or contains 5% cheese, I see red flags. If it only taste like cheese, I guess it can't be real cheese. If it only contains 5% of something, then what is the other 95%. Probably not food.
So colorants and artificial flavoring is not natural. 
I mentioned cheese, because I saw the other day that you can actually buy cheese that is not cheese!?! It only taste like real cheese!

Just a quick disclaimer: I am not a doctor in any way. So consult with your GP before taking drastic diet changes.

Next I will continue the topic 'Raw Foods' as I meant to talk more about it, but got carried away. :-) For future topics I will also talk about replacements for sugar as I will slowly work my way to Diabetes. Exercise is also in the mix and I will mention an exercise benefit that might be surprising. But before I get ahead of myself...

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