Why Some Foods Are Not Healthy. #148

We are learning more about healthy foods as we go along.  Most readers know we have continually moved through foods we can eat that will fit our individual needs, and preferences as we go forward in becoming healthy.  It is sort of something that evolves as you go along.   Hopefully for you as for us when you pick up more healthy food habits more of what you use to eat will no longer be part of your diet.

Another difficult to determine is what foods are unhealthy for me to eat and why? From this point on what I tell you is me speaking for myself.  I am not telling you or asking you to change any foods because I say you should not eat it.   Some of my most favorite foods I dropped from my diet because I did enough personal research to decide it was not good for my health.  What I did not expect was as I researched and studied more about some foods I found so many that were not only not good for my cardiovascular health, but many medical studies indicated certain additives used could cause cancer or other health issues simply by overloading your metabolism with too much of a natural substance.  This is an important issue as you will read in my next post where we will read exact details of why some specific foods are not good for you.

I do have my own specific beliefs and opinions about why certain foods and food groups are not healthy to eat.  They are based of normal intelligence, reading and studying foods, and finally life long experiences.  I truly believe there are food groups that we, mankind, was not intended to consume and our bodies process.  I say this to you not in a spiritual sense but in the sense of how our intricate physical metabolisms are meant to process and provide life supporting benefits to our bodies.  Think about that....do you think your metabolism and bodies healthy function was meant to consume large amounts of man made sugars, man made fats and in general have amounts of chemicals processed into the foods we eat?
Next post specific;  unhealthy food facts.

Determining Healthy Foods For You #147

Maple syrup is one of natures healthy sweeteners.  It is an amber liquid with a sweet taste made from the sap of the maple tree.  It is higher in mineral content and lower in calories than honey.  You will benefit from the manganese in maple syrup  increasing your antioxidant defenses.   How healthy is maple syrup to you can be based on  how you perceive it's benefits.  It would be difficult for me to list very many antioxidants, minerals, or vitamins you would get from eating maple syrup.   Lets look at it this way.  Remember about determining what are healthy foods?   Another way to eat healthier is to eliminate the unhealthy foods.   That is where maple syrup is beneficial.   It is a natural sweetener with natural levels.   You can stop eating pastries, donuts, sugar coated cereal, or snack cakes for breakfast.  Put pure maple syrup on your oatmeal or pancakes rather than man made processed food corn syrup sweeteners.  Add honey or maple syrup to a snack of sunflower seeds, almonds, and walnuts rather than eating candy bars.  Yes it is a long process to changing to a more healthy foods lifestyle.  Much like exercise it is one step at a time.  Applying what works best for you.  Eliminating the not good for you foods first, then finding healthy foods to replace those.

That is a process a lot of us have gone through.  Finding healthy food replacements for foods we have given up.  It is not easy and it is not a fast process.  You will have to spend time educating yourself on foods.   It is a lot easier to find new healthy food choices than it is to give up your past food habits.  Once you do, you will gradually  lose weight simply because you are eliminating fat producing foods.  Your health over a long period will benefit as you eliminate foods that contain a multitude of unhealthy ingredients.  Vegetable and fruits are the healthy food choices that most of us did not include in our daily diet.   Sure we would sometimes occasionally eat an apple or maybe a banana, but fruit was not a basic part of our daily diet.  I do not know of anything in an edible fruit that is intended as a food our metabolism is not designed to process or is not considered good our health.   What did I just say you may ask?  I said eat a lot of fruit.   It is healthy for you, is filling, satisfying and readily available to be part of your normal daily diet.

The other natural choices are vegetables.   I will quickly admit to you that is an area I need to work a lot harder in doing more for my health.  I do not eat a lot of vegetables, especially cooked vegetables on a regular basis.   Salads are my main source of the nutrients and mineral benefits I get from vegetables.

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.