How Do I Determine Healthy Foods? #146

Eating healthy foods is the third basic heart health principle we will talk about.  To lose weight going on a weight loss diet almost always is not a solution to becoming healthy.   It is only a temporary weight loss process that does not let you reach your goal of permanent weight control and leading a healthy lifestyle.

You should consider what foods you are eating and how they affect your health rather than looking at food only in the realm of calories.  What does all of this mean?  It means you will have to do your own basic homework.   Only you know what unhealthy foods you eat and the heart healthy foods you don't eat.  You will have to consider what foods you eat do to your cholesterol.   Are they bad for cholesterol and create weight gain?  Do they prohibit weight loss?   We will help you in answering some of these questions, but just as exercise you will have to dedicate yourself to truly becoming heart healthy.   It is not easy but your goal is going to be to lose weight by converting to eating only healthy foods.   Not eating lesser amounts of, or only visiting the fried chicken palace once a week rather than 3 times.  Those foods will be in the past for you.

Those who follow this blog know the one common place where we end up when determining how healthy certain foods are.   And that result is to eat foods that nature intended for us to consume.  Not in a spiritual sense but how our bodies metabolism are meant to process the foods we eat.   Most times it is not the chemical make up of the food we consume, it is the amount.   An example is fructose.  In normal quantities it is needed and processed by our bodies, but an overload leads to health complications because our body's system is not designed to handle that.

What is fructose?  It is a simple sugar which your body can use as energy.  You would normally get fructose in healthful levels from consuming fruits and vegetables.  Typically a normal level of fructose would help your body properly process glucose.  Too much fructose can not be processed by your liver and rather than being converted to sugar as energy, it becomes fat and is stored in your blood stream.  Sounds innocent  enough doesn't it?   Slightly more than 100 years ago it was unheard of to consume too much fructose unless you were daily consuming incredible large amounts of fruits.  In today's modern world over 10 percent of many peoples diet comes from fructose.   Most packaged processed foods contains some form of fructose.  Most soft drinks contain fructose.  If you eat a lot of snack foods, fast foods, and soft drink beverages then you are taking in many more times than your bodies metabolism can handle.

High intake of fructose converted to fat in the bloodstream can lead to weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease. This is a complicated subject.  There is no simple answer as to eating healthy foods only.  Too much of our modern diet is not based on health.  But rather fast food and snack foods with manufactured additives that promote consumer purchasing through taste, pleasant product appearance, and long shelf life.  Many times this takes priority over providing the most healthful food product possible.  Good healthy snack foods have become more popular in recent years.

Consider natures sweeteners.  Honey, Molasses, Maple Syrup.

More next time.