Ready-made foods full of fat sugar and high in salt. Brightly packaged processed food fast food takeaways, full of calories, they taste soft and good but are full of ingredients that your grandmother would never have heard of. It is also called the “meat sweet diet”. But what really causes disease is the giant portions as we become victims of Western style marketing of supersizing. Think of the size of the traditional Arabic style coffee cup and then think of the size of coffee you may be offered in an American coffee house chain — it is practically a bucket! No one needs this much coffee. Then look at the size of the cookies and muffins — huge! We have been exposed to larger and larger portions until we have a situation where we can no longer recognize a sensible sized portion.
Super cool advertising encourages buying more and eating more laboratory engineered food. Even small children are targeted as they have pester-power. The more food there is on our plate the more we think we have the right to eat it. Most of us have been brought up to believe it is wrong to waste food as there are people starving in the world.
This new way of eating began in America and is seen as the modern super-cool thing to do. You can eat 24/7 and snacking is seen as trendy, as well as drinking caffeine laden fizzy drinks. The Western style diet has swept across Europe and is now in developing countries leaving a sea of fat-people in its wake. Hospital beds are now full of people with Western diseases caused by overeating that were previously unknown in third world countries. Heart disease diabetes, obesity, bowel cancer are common, with heart disease due to clogged arteries a common cause of death.
The solution is to look toward the traditional wisdom and eat what our wise grandmothers cooked. There is a cultural wisdom that is being lost as we lose our traditional, handed down cooking skills and rely on the food manufacturers to make our food for us. The real problem here is that the ingredients in manufactured food is not anything that our grandmothers would have recognized as food.
Mother Nature is never random and the earth produces what our bodies need to feed them. Each season brings different foods that our bodies need for that season. Locally found food is good for local people. Throughout the world different populations thrive on different diets. The Inuits eat lots of seal blubber to keep them warm; the Masai warriors thrive on meat, drink milk, and cattle blood.
It is important to be able to cook simple traditional meals with the family and pass on traditional and cultural recipes and the wisdom which is handed down from generation to generation about what makes a nutritious healthy meal.
We are exposed to a lot of scientific information as to what nutrients we should have to live long and be healthy but all this science generally boils down to eating a varied balanced diet something your granny already knew. If you would like a copy of my healthy eating plan send an e-mail to [email protected]. And for up to date news and information sign up to receive my monthly HealthLines newsletter by mailing to [email protected].
I am a little large. How do I know if I’m overweight or obese?
Send me and e-mail with your height and weight and I will work out your body mass index (BMI). BMI is a measure of body fat based on height and weight. People with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 are considered overweight. People with a BMI of 30 or more are considered obese. It is important to eat a balanced varied diet food and take some exercise every day.
