Our American culture produces food at an astonishing speed. Still, unfortunately, we also throw away more food each year than most people in the world consume.
Americans also notoriously consume more calories than we need to function in a typical day. Unfortunately, what we consume is a low nutrient, highly processed foods in place of whole foods.
This overconsumption of factory created foods has led to the serious malnourishment of many Americans.
Even foods that are touted as “healthy," such as juices or pure fruit bars are being used as a replacement to whole foods & leaving us missing out on many of the valuable vitamins, minerals & fiber available to us when we eat the real food item.
We believe we are choosing something "healthy," but we are actually robbing our body of the nutrients it needs.
And the terrible trend of eating high carb, high-fat food items, which make us full but don’t actually nourish our bodies, has warped our taste buds so that we turn to those items first to ease our hunger.
We’ve manipulated our intake from choosing whole food for health sake to picking our food because of advertising, calorie count & cravings.
We give in to packaging that tells us things are "healthy" based on labels like gluten-free, organic, or sugar-free. Instead of using our brains to evaluate the actual quality of the ingredients we put in our bodies, we are sucked into the world of food propaganda.
The fact that veggies, fruits & sustainably sourced proteins are better for you isn’t exactly newsworthy. In fact, we already really know this, but for some reason, we choose the packaged stuff first anyway.
So how can we get back on track with whole food nutrition & give up convenient packages?
Awareness is the key to moving back to a foundation of whole foods. Here are some ways to bring awareness to your life & get your nourishment back on track:
Commit to not eating packaged foods for a specific period of time ~ processed food can actually have a place in our diet. It can be useful, for instance, if we need snacks for traveling, are going on a long hike, or need something we can pack that needs to last. We are fortunate that there are processed options in our modern era that won’t wreck a foundation of whole food choices. Still, by committing to leave out the packaged foods for a specific time {consider 30 days as a start}, we are helping ourselves be aware of how easily & how often we pick processed over pure.
Focus on real hunger ~ think you’re hungry? Ask yourself, “will a chicken breast & some broccoli make me feel better?” If the answer is no, then you’re not really hungry. True hunger craves real food. Focusing on real hunger also brings awareness to what & how often you typically choose processed items over real food.
Log food in a journal to make sure you get enough whole foods ~ this has nothing at all to do with calories but instead is a pathway to awareness. You may think that you are getting plenty of fibrous fruits & veggies, protein & healthy fats when you’re actually not. It’s really easy to glorify our choices when we don’t have proof. If we have evidence from a journal, we will know exactly where we need to focus our attention on improving our health.
If you need help figuring out a foundation of nourishment from nutrient-dense foods, get in touch with me & let me help you through nutrition coaching.