Food!

Well you must be wondering where did this topic come from?! My motivation to learn and share the importance of what we put in our bodies started more than 20 years ago when my dad was first diagnosed with diabetes. That was the life changing moment for me when I realized how little we know and pay attention to this simple activity. Since then, learning and understanding how food and the types of foods  affects every single cell of our bodies has been a passion. So much to share, so little time:-)

Much has changed since our grandmas and our moms made food. If they see the food most of us are surrounded with today, they’d faint! Why are we subjecting our bodies to stuff that our ancestors would have a hard time recognizing? Is it convenience or just ignorance? Or is it that eating healthy requires work and modern lifestyle leaves us all tired? Why our kids are eating snacks upon snacks when their energy output is so low? What were treats when we were growing up have now become a daily staple, sugary drinks, sugary and processed and carbohydrates loaded food. Sugar is so much more addictive than cocaine(a fact) and yet we consume it and give it to our kids without a second thought. Children are not immune to becoming unhealthy and that’s a fact. 

Hippocrates said a long time ago, “let food be your medicine or medicine will be your food.” And how true is that. We all have seen the effects of a bad diet in our own lives. Chronic diseases are affecting people at a much younger age and we see children with low life expectancy than their parents and grand parents. That is unnatural and wrong on so many levels. But seems like it’s becoming more and more that parents are grieving their kids rather than the other way around.

Human body is so amazing and can take so much abuse before it gives up. Everything we do, every action is being calculated by our body for its survival. But there comes a point when it’s just had enough and it gives up. To get to that level you really have to work hard to abuse your body. And it all can be reversed with simple understanding of the food we eat. We just need to take stock of what we consume daily and make the food work for us not against us.

Convenience is a trap. The energy bars, the easy snack, the healthy shakes and drinks, if you ever read the label you’ll find they are anything but that. They are all illusions to make you feel you’re doing something good for your body. The food industry employs psychologists to decipher and manipulate our taste buds and our cravings. And then the scientists come up with the perfect combination of salt and sugar and chemicals to make it addictive. They basically design foods to attract us and trap us! So be very skeptical of all the health claims that are posted on these foods.

How do you beat them? Here are some things I think should help:

• All the meatless options are way worse for you than a good quality meat itself. Read the list of ingredients used to make it taste and look like meat. You’ll be amazed!
• Soy interferes with estrogen so be very careful when eating a lot of it or giving it to young girls. 
• Salads do not work as well if you douse them with sugary dressing. Put organic olive oil instead since salads need healthy fat for better digestion and absorption of nutrients. 
• Add organic seeds to your food, a powerhouse of nutrition. Best if you grind them. Add them to your dough and make soft roti’s. 
• Soak rice for half an hour and rinse well to get rid of arsenic. Yes, a poison!
• Read the ingredients on Cheetos or Doritos pack and you’ll be blown away by the number of ingredients in there. If you try making it at home, you can probably do it with 3-4 ingredients! 
• And throw out your non-stick cookware. That one convenience is so toxic for you. Switch to a cast iron pan that’s well seasoned. 
• Check out your farmers market in season, the best food is that covers the least distance.
• Add PFF to every meal, protein, fat and fiber. Keeps your blood sugar on an even keel. 
• And learn the glycemic index of foods. This is not true only for diabetics but it should be common knowledge to avoid stressing out your body at every meal. A simple bagel will shoot your blood sugar to another universe!

If you look at the traditional foods, there is so much wisdom. I remember being told that certain foods need to be paired with certain other foods. Like if you eat garlic, you add ghee (clarified butter) to cut down on the heat generated by garlic in your stomach. Cook iron rich foods in iron pans, and always add vitamin-C to these foods. Vit-C helps in absorption of iron - avoid calcium in the same meal as it inhibits the same. Fermented foods are wonderful for your gut microbiome, which I remember was a staple in my home. There’s a season for eating some foods because our bodies need those particular vitamins and nutrients during those times. Winter is the time to eat nuts and more healthy fats, summer is for hydrating, so salads and fruits. But with fruits, be careful with the quantity as it’s just another form of sugar that your body loves. So are most smoothies! Apologies to my smoothie loving friends🙏

Diabetes, in most cases, is a disease of affluence. We can afford more, so we eat more.  If you ever go back and see your grandparents lifestyle, you’d be surprised how little they ate. There was no mindless munching or eating just because you’re bored. Affordability was also an issue and so was availability. Every meal required a lot of effort so there were just two or three meals a day. Nothing to unwrap and just eat. Food was a family affair where you’d sit down and enjoy food. That would bring your stress levels down and give you time to realize when you were full. Try doing that while driving and eating:-) 

We all know the Mediterranean diet but most of us find it hard to follow because it requires work. But we all want the benefits from that diet! What to do? Eat as natural as you can and as unprocessed as it can be. My advice to my kids is to eat things that you can recognize on the labels. If there are things you can’t even pronounce, leave it alone. Why does an oatmeal need fifteen ingredients?! And believe me reading labels becomes a passion when you realize how these food companies are tricking us all the time. If you ever see an Indian woman standing in the middle of the aisle just reading labels in Walmart, that’d be me😊 

If you grow some veggies of your own you’ll taste the difference in a tomato bought from a store and what a real tomato tastes like. Switch to organic fruits and veggies especially potatoes and onions and cruciferous veggies and berries that are heavily sprayed with pesticides. Pay more attention to where our produce is grown and how it is grown. These are all time consuming things but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier and easier. Every meal should be your time to pamper yourself by winding down a little. When you are stress free while eating, cortisol levels go down and you feel good. And take time to enjoy life while eating good food, believe me, everything else can wait:-)

Many of you may already know all this but it’s always good to hear it again:-) Long story short, let’s put a little more effort in what we eat and what we do to food to make the world healthier and sustainable. It truly pains me to see my friends and family getting sick simply because of their eating habits and lack of understanding how the food affects them. If I know something that’d help, I’d definitely speak up. And that was the motivation to write this. Hope it’ll help in some ways. 

Best reason to do all this is so our kids learn and understand that food is very important part of their life and that their future economic and physical well being depends on their habits today. We owe this to our kids and to our future selves. 

The money we would have to spend on medical expenses, use it for travel and seeing the world. If that’s not an incentive to focus on our food, I do not know what is😇