Nutrition is one of the simplest yet most complicated health topics to cover, because at the core of all good nutritional advice is really just to eat whole, nutritious foods that do great things for your body. Yet the complication lies on what this means or who’s right. So rather than arguing over what is the best diet to follow or which foods are the most effective foods whichever purpose, I’ll be sharing with you the principles of “good eating” and my personal philosophy so that you too can find something that works for you. The breakdown of this article will be:
- Why Nutrition is So Controversial
- The Importance of Being Properly Nourished
- The Implications and Ill Effects of Malnourishment
- Nutritionally Optimized
Why has nutrition become so complicated?
Because of the abundance in variety. The abundance in variety of food, the abundance in variety of diets, and the abundance in variety of information.
In today’s day and age, we live in a society where we have access to foods of all kinds. Literally, foods of all kinds. Foods you’d once have to travel across far lands and seas to get, foods that were carefully designed and constructed so that it can last generations to come /for your grandkids, and foods that were genetically engineered so that it could withstand the harsh conditions of life and look and taste too good to be real (because it is).
When we have this much abundance in variety, it’s as if we’re living at a buffet. At the corner of every street is the option to get looks good, smells good, and tastes good. But just because something appeals to our senses doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll good for us. We all know this already, but we are beginning to know it more because of the surging epidemic in disease and illness that is directly linked to eating inorganic food matter or foods that weren’t meant to be digested by the human body.
Luckily, with all problems comes solutions. The only implication is when there’s money to made, and there’s a lot of money to be made in medical field, which is why it is booming industry. We have a bunch of emerging “scientists” and “researchers” (funded by Big Brother Corporations) that are coming up with new formulas that show promising solutions to our biggest problems. Your health condition is only one pill away… Okay fine, maybe just one more (or Yeah right). Obviously, more pills are not solving our problems, and it’s so sad to see people that people aren’t seeing this and continuing to take them. People don’t need more pills, they need better to make better choices. It’s really that simple.
So now that we understand that poor eating habits is one the largest contributing factors to poor health and that pharmaceutical drugs aren’t doing anything to help us, the next logical step is probably to finally consider that maybe if we change what we’re eating, we’ll get better. And this is the point in the story where nutritionists show up and yell, “We told you so!!! *Shaking Fists*”Any good nutritionist knows the importance of nutrition and how certain foods can heal and repair the body. They know that eating right will solve most, if not all, of the our current health problems–even in the case of severe ones.
The only issue now is there isn’t just one nutritionist. There are numerous of diets we can follow, all coming from credible sources of authority, but all preaching different information of what is or isn’t okay to eat. It can get highly frustrating when you read or hear one thing that completely contradicts the other. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Could there only be one? Could it be both? What about neither? AHHHHHH!!! I don’t know.
I know, and that’s why I’m here today. I’ll be sharing with you the truth that will set you free once and for all.
The Importance of Being Well Nourished
Nutrition is what will enable you to take your health to the next level; it is the key to unlocking high levels of energy, vitality, and vibrancy.
There is a saying that goes, “You are what you eat,” because what you put into your body (or fail to) is what in turn makes up the essence of it. The validity of this statement can definitely be argued, because we don’t literally become what we eat. However, what we can defer from it is that what’s inside of our body has a direct relationship to what’s been put into it. Better said, the quality of our body is dependent upon the quality of the food we eat. A great example of where we can see this difference is in foods that were grown organically vs. conventionally. The one that’s grown in a better environment, has access to good soil, water, and overall better conditions will always be superior in flavor and nutrients.
To further this point, there was an article written on Atlas Obscura discussing how meat from scared/stressed animals taste worse:
The scientific basis for the phenomenon is well-established, and it’s frequently been discussed as a reason to make slaughterhouse practices more humane. The key ingredient here is lactic acid: in an unstressed animal, after death, muscle glycogen is converted into lactic acid, which helps keep meat tender, pink, and flavorful. Adrenaline released by stress before slaughter uses up glycogen, which means there’s not enough lactic acid produced postmortem. This affects different kind of meat in different ways, but in general it’ll be tough, tasteless, and high in pH, and will go bad quicker than unstressed meat. (Lactic acid helps slow the growth of spoilage bacteria.
To add onto this, animals that were raised in poor environments, you could say, are chronically stressed, so it’s not just what happens right before their death. It’s everything that built up to it. If an animal was given antibiotics, treated poorly, and fed poorly, the likelihood of it producing quality meat is slim. But of course, there’s always the other side and conflicting views. In another piece of content that quoted Eli Gjerlaug-Enger, an animal husbandry researcher at the cooperative for Norwegian pork producers, she says:
Stress alters protein composition, vitamin content and minerals. But in all the research material I’ve come across, I’ve seen no connection between stress levels and less healthy meat.
We’re not going to point out the contradictions in the statement she just made, but let’s draw on our own judgment to make the best decision. Would you rather eat a person who has a good diet, is athletic, and takes care of themselves or someone who is a Type II Diabetic, has gout and other infections forming?
Generations to Come
Some people acknowledge that their lifestyle choices may not be the best and are okay with it. They are willing to face the adverse effects that come with the gluttony, but what if I told you that you weren’t just responsible for yourself, but for your future generations?
There’s a book called Pottenger’s Cats: A Study in Nutrition written by Francis Pottenger that will help illustrate what I’m trying to say. Based on the title alone you can probably guess it has something to do with the author’s cats and nutrition. To paraphrase what happened, he did several experiments where he separated groups of cats and fed them different types of food. Basically it was raw vs. cooked. He found that the ones who ate the cooked food eventually developed certain health issues and behavioral discrepancies. For example, by the third generation the cats were having reproductive issues and skeletal deformities that even affected the future generations to come. The ones that were fed the raw food did not have this issue.
Now of course, there will be arguments on how we can not draw conclusions based off a study on cats or how humans are very different from them. And even the author himself acknowledged there were some limitations to his work, but if we’re honest with ourselves we can see that the results parallel what humans are experiencing. Again, this is up to you to use your best judgment and to see for yourself, but we have to question why there has been a uproar of certain health-related diseases like obesity, diabetes, autism, alzheimer’s, schizophrenia etc. Maybe someone can do a longitudinal study on feeding different groups of humans GMO’s, food that is unnatural to us like processed and fast food. Oh wait, there was something similar to that – Super Size Me* anyone?
*Super Size Me was a documentary done on Morgan Spurlock who ate McDonads 30 day straight.
To reinforce the information I’ve shared so far, there’s a dentist by the name of Weston A. Price who was very interested in the relationship between nutrition and dental health. His desire to learn led him to travel to different parts of the world to investigate diets of native populations that weren’t influenced by modernized culture. The findings of his expedition was later published in his book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
To summarize, what he found was similar to that of Pottenger’s Cats. The indigenous cultures that ate foods which were present in their environment didn’t suffer from degenerative diseases and reproductive issues; they exhibited great physical health most notably dental health. The ones who were introduced to and regularly ate “westerner’s diet” showed signs of dental decay and cavities. Price believed that poor dental health was indicative of poor skeletal health as well.
Impaired Bodily Function
The final aspect to improper eating is impaired bodily functions. A lot of the food in western diets are processed and void of proper nutrients. Many of us are deficient in a certain nutrient. When we have too many deficiencies or are deficient for too long, cellular function is impaired. Our body requires certain vitamins and minerals for certain purposes, and when we aren’t getting enough of them, then the body can’t do its job properly. This opens us up and exposes us to certain illnesses and disease.
Nutritionally Optimized
The key to succeeding with nutrition is to figure out what works for you. I personally don’t believe in diets nor do I believe in dieting. I do believe however there are certain diets that do work better for certain people, but these diets do not and will not work for everyone. Reason being, there’s a concept called biochemical individuality that states we are all genetically and biologically unique. Because we all have a unique makeup, we also have certain nutritional requirements for that makeup. And if we’re not eating to fit our constitution, then best be sure we will encounter a lot of problems.
Therefore, if you’re trying to keep the weight off, dieting should NOT be your strategy. And especially not conventional dieting (heavy restriction and calorie cutting). Dieting is only good when you’re trying to achieve a specific goal. For example, you’ve been eating poorly and gained a few pounds on a trip and now you want to ‘diet‘ to detox, feel better, or cut down on some body fat.
Instead, your goal should be to figure out how to find foods that you enjoy, foods that naturally work well with your body type, and how you can make eating right a lifestyle. Once you discover this through experiementation, you will realize the natural baseline of your body is good health and a relatively low body fat percentage. At that point, it really becomes effortless.
If you want a program that tackles nutrition by teaching you the fundamentals behind it, such as how to eat for your specific body type, what your caloric goals are, and how you can make eating right a lifestyle, then check out my 28 day transformation program.