{"id":432,"date":"2012-11-29T15:58:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-29T23:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adamjacksonphoto.com\/life_and_health\/?p=163"},"modified":"2021-12-15T09:26:45","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T17:26:45","slug":"8-laws-of-health-series-nutrition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/healing\/8-laws-of-health-series-nutrition\/15432.html","title":{"rendered":"8 Laws of Health Series | Nutrition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s begin with a puzzling thought: A recent article<\/a> by a financial analyst suggests that it is now cheaper to eat at a fast food restaurant than to cook at home.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about you but my first thought that crossed my mind was: How is this possible? Has our food system really come down to this?<\/p>\n

Shortly after the article was published, the New York Times published an op-ed<\/a> that compared a typical McDonald\u2019s meal for four people against a meal of pinto beans and rice for four people.\u00a0 Not only was the nutrition of the beans and rice (which included onion, pepper and seasoning) much better than the McDonald\u2019s meal, but it was also 67% cheaper.<\/p>\n

Recently, I heard someone say that we should be eating more like our great grandparents.\u00a0 Think about it\u2014it makes a lot of sense.\u00a0 Eating the way our great grandparents did would significantly reduce the cost of food for the average person, not to mention curtail our astonishingly high intake of preservatives and hormones.<\/p>\n

Take my great grandmother for example.\u00a0 Nearly all of the meals she created were made using her old wood stove.\u00a0 She canned hundreds of quarts of fruits and vegetables, usually plucked from her own garden.\u00a0 Not only that, she and my great grandfather could probably count on their hands the number of times that they dined at restaurants each year.\u00a0 She and my great grandfather would eat a huge breakfast, a large lunch and a fairly small meal in the late afternoon.\u00a0 They ate things that they could grow and had a huge garden, a variety of berries, and a large orchard.<\/p>\n

Obviously, eating this way would require more time to prepare the foods.\u00a0 Over the last several decades, we\u2019ve been trained to want a \u201cfaster\u201d and \u201ceasier\u201d mode of doing everything.\u00a0 We have timesaving gadgets and options so plentiful that the idea of cooking a filling, healthy meal rather than driving to obtain one in a paper bag might seem old-fashioned and impractical.<\/p>\n

The goal for those of us trying to maintain or improve our health is to prepare most of our foods from ingredients that are healthy.\u00a0 Ideally, many are products that we grew in our own gardens, or from a farmers market, or, at the very least, aren\u2019t packed full of chemicals and disease.<\/p>\n

We like to tell people to shop at the edges of the store because that\u2019s where a lot of the good stuff lives.\u00a0 Things like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and grains are often found around the edge.\u00a0 Ironically, the things in boxes often live in the center of the store.\u00a0 These are often highly processed and their origins, as well as their nutritional value, can be ill-defined.<\/p>\n

In our fast-paced society, we need to develop strategies that reduce prep time.\u00a0 Cooking can be a social thing, but usually people just need to get it done and move on.\u00a0 By eating more of our foods raw, we can obviously reduce prep time while getting the highest nutrition possible from that product.<\/p>\n

Other strategies can be developed that make prep time about the same as going to a fast food restaurant. For example, you can cook a large meal and store the second half of it in your freezer for another day.\u00a0 Cooking meals ahead of time and freezing them is an excellent way to provide you with an easy meal on a busy day.\u00a0 Some foods, which are used in many different dishes, can be prepared at the beginning of the week and stored in the refrigerator.\u00a0 This will save you the step of chopping, cutting, or peeling later on.<\/p>\n

Ultimately time, not money, seems to be the biggest excuse.\u00a0 People state that they simply do not have time to eat right.\u00a0 They are too busy to shop for food and fix it for themselves.\u00a0 If you are part of this group, consider this:\u00a0 Calculations have shown that for every minute of exercise, you gain two minutes in longevity.\u00a0 Doubtless, the same positive adjustment will be found when you choose to cook and eat healthy food instead of a hyper-processed food product tossed into the deep fat fryer by a nameless someone.\u00a0 The average American, regardless of income level, watches no less than 90 minutes of television per day.\u00a0 Take 45 of those TV-watching minutes and dedicate them to cooking yourself a beautiful dinner.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be able to do it with time to spare, I assure you.\u00a0 The time is there; we simply need to prioritize.<\/p>\n

Here are some simple rules for eating healthy and living longer:<\/p>\n

Eat a large breakfast.<\/p>\n

Eat 75% of your calories in the first two meals (breakfast and lunch).<\/p>\n

Have only a light meal in the evening with foods such as soup, cereal, or a small sandwich\u2014 mainly foods that are easy to digest.<\/p>\n

Remember to consume plenty of water.<\/p>\n

Consume 10 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.<\/p>\n

Eat a level handful of nuts each day.<\/p>\n

20% of all calories now come from snack foods\u2014eliminate snacks.<\/p>\n

Choose whole grains\u2014whole wheat bread, whole grain cereals, and brown rice<\/p>\n

Avoid sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice.<\/p>\n

Eat more legumes.<\/p>\n

Learn to read food labels.<\/p>\n

The subject of nutrition can be confusing and appear daunting, especially with the conflicting opinions people throw around on the Internet and TV.\u00a0 This program is designed to be simple and easy to follow, given your dedication to bettering your life. In our desire to live longer and feel better about ourselves, remember that good nutrition is one of the best ways to get there, and you can get there.<\/p>\n

<-Previous Law of Health<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0Next Law of Health-><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some simple, practical advice to help you eat better and live longer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":625,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,2,13],"tags":[2773,2774],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[2152,872,791,749,782,802,804,646,1592,699,867],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-video","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-habits","category-lifestyle","category-healing","tag-health-laws","tag-video","post_format-post-format-video"],"acf":[],"views":2882,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21756,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/21756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}