The Tao of Healthy Eating by Bob Flaws
March 13th 2007 21:15
The simplest introduction I know to healthy eating is by Bob Flaws and is called The Tao of Healthy Eating. This blog is a book review.
It starts with some fundamentals. Firstly that our stomach operates at body temperature. If you reduce this too much by eating very cold food then the stomach has to make up for this, by using energy that would otherwise be used digesting.
He points out the big problems with the usual western diet – ie. too much fat and sugar.
My way of remembering this is to picture a tub of icecream with a great big cross on it – it’s too cold, too fatty and too sugary. This is a symbol for our diet – not saying don’t eat ice cream (a little bit on occasion is delightful).
So what is a healthy diet? The easiest is grain based (wheat, corn, rice and so on). This can provide nutrition with a relatively low number of calories. This is supplemented with meat, which is especially useful if dieting - because it gives a feeling of satisfaction. However this is as a supplement not the main item. Then there is fruit and veg. It is hard to eat too much of these from a weight point of view.
It is possible to eliminate grains but this is tricky. You may end up eating a lot of salads when you go out.
It is useful to eat a wide variety of fruit and veg; eating one thing and getting bored can lead to overeating.
Finally it is better to eat fresh – this avoids the preservatives and additives which aren’t much use nutritionally, even if they are harmless to our health.
These are simple things, that we can start doing now, and will have us feeling healthier quite quickly.
It starts with some fundamentals. Firstly that our stomach operates at body temperature. If you reduce this too much by eating very cold food then the stomach has to make up for this, by using energy that would otherwise be used digesting.
He points out the big problems with the usual western diet – ie. too much fat and sugar.
My way of remembering this is to picture a tub of icecream with a great big cross on it – it’s too cold, too fatty and too sugary. This is a symbol for our diet – not saying don’t eat ice cream (a little bit on occasion is delightful).
So what is a healthy diet? The easiest is grain based (wheat, corn, rice and so on). This can provide nutrition with a relatively low number of calories. This is supplemented with meat, which is especially useful if dieting - because it gives a feeling of satisfaction. However this is as a supplement not the main item. Then there is fruit and veg. It is hard to eat too much of these from a weight point of view.
It is possible to eliminate grains but this is tricky. You may end up eating a lot of salads when you go out.
It is useful to eat a wide variety of fruit and veg; eating one thing and getting bored can lead to overeating.
Finally it is better to eat fresh – this avoids the preservatives and additives which aren’t much use nutritionally, even if they are harmless to our health.
These are simple things, that we can start doing now, and will have us feeling healthier quite quickly.
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