Friday, September 12, 2014

Eating Whole Foods

    As I was trying to decide what to write about I realized that a blog would be an ideal place to combine information and put it in a presentable format (kind of what blogs are for I suppose). I decided to a post or posts on each type of diet that I've been investigating. This will be a good way to get it all accumulated instead of bouncing around my head and show me my knowledge gaps. To start us off with a bang I'm going with whole/real food.
     I know I didn't mention whole/real food in my list of diets but I think it is a good place to start because lots of the other diets mention whole food. It is also more straight forward and a bit easier to see fitting into my day to day life than some of the other diets.
   Whole food believes in eating food as it would be in nature. Sounds pretty simple right? If you can't find it in nature the way it is in your food don't eat it. There seems to be some different opinions on how strict you need to be with this. Some people don't mind a little processing like grinding or fermenting while other people would rather do that at home. The general thoughts are that things found the way they are in nature is better than things that are processed, we should be able to identify the ingredients of our food and we shouldn't be increasing the nutritional content of food with parts extracted from other foods. What does this look like?

What does this look like?
You can eat:
  • Fruit
  • Vegetables
  • Meats
  • Dairy (ie. milk, unsweetened yogurt, cheese)
  • Nuts, seeds
  • Whole wheat products 
  • Beans/legumes 
  • Tea, coffee, wine, beer
    • If you take sugar in your coffee or tea make sure you find an appropriate alternative
Whenever possible buy things that are organic or free range.


You can't eat:
  • Fast food
  • Refined grains (ie. white bread, white flour)
  • Refined sugars (ie. corn syrup, cane juice, splenda)
  • Deep fried foods
  • Nothing with unreadable words on the ingredients label and/or more than five ingredients 

Tips for how to do this in real life.
  • Buy from local bakeries. This can help find whole grain products and make sure that the ingredients are real. 
  • Increase consumption of things you know are whole foods like vegetables
  • Cook more meals at home
  • Go to farmers markets
  • Purge your pantry of processed food. Not having it available makes it easier to avoid. 

All in all whole food seems pretty simple. Eat things that are less processed and contain more real food. 

Here are the links to some of the resources I used to write this.
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