Health Food Beginner

[ChloeFrancoise]

^ And there's also the idea that eating fruit would actually cause weight gain and therefore should be avoided. Good luck to anyone who tries to keep me away from my favorite berries.

 

[Deleted member 36123]

^ Yes, the sugary fruit idea is so silly!! I don't know how people get convinced natural foods are bad for you!

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ And that weird fake chemical sweeteners are good for you

I've been reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and she talks about how so many people she encounters are grossed out to see root vegetables come out of the dirt Like carrots being scrubbed, polished, and shaved down by huge hunks of metal machinery is somehow warm & fuzzy ...

 

[dumbfairy]

From Monday I'm going to try and lower my salt levels because I'm pretty sure I intake (unwilling in some foods) far too much. I think it is recomended no more that 5-6g of salt right?

 

[Meg]

yes, in Britain anyway the 6g is the max. suggestion.

I think just eating real unprocessed, unrefined food is ultimately the best diet (I don't mean weight loss diet, but eating regime diet). I do think this is harder to do in North America, but that's changing as attitudes change and more options become available. I'm not crazy about making sure I get enough carbs/fats/whatever, but whatever I eat I want to contain real food and not cornsyrup and a bunch of preservatives which are worse for you and make the food taste worse.

I do understand how you can cut bread out completely of your diet without trying. To be honest, I hardly eat bread at all anymore except maybe once a month I'll buy a fresh loaf and make sandwiches. I don't have a toaster and it goes hard really quickly so I can't be bothered But I eat loads of pasta. I just try and make sure I'm getting enough fruits and veg and after that, I eat what I want, as long as it's "real" food. At the end of the day, I want everything I eat to taste amazing, and I don't want to waste calories on crap food.

As for diet soda, quite frankly I don't understand why people even drink it. What you lose in calories, you can in sugar and artificial sweetners. A coke only has like 200 calories anyway. What's the point of drinking it if you aren't going to have the taste? (Okay, coke is the exception to my rule of eating real food )

 

[Hebden]

The thing that I find interesting about soda is that people mention the calories...or the sugar...or any number of things...but you rarely hear concerns regarding the aspartame (which has been linked to migraine headaches, seizures, fainting spells, dizziness, numbness, nausea, muscle spasms, weight gain, depression, irritability, insomnia, hearing loss and tinnitus (ringing), breathing difficulty, blurred speech, memory loss, rashes, fatigue, tachycardia, visual disturbances, heart palpitations, anxiety attacks, loss of taste, and joint pain).

I used to drink at least a liter of Diet Dr. Pepper every day...it was my "treat"...then I lost consciousness (twice) and was forced to look at what might have caused it. I don't know if the soda was the cause, but as soon as I read about the potential side effects from too much aspartame it just wasn't worth it.

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ I used to drink "real" Dr Pepper, but cut it out a couple years ago & don't miss it. If you stop for 3-4 weeks, you may be like me & not go back, Meg.

A couple weeks ago I visited a little garden shop that sells, in addition to their own produce, other localish produce (from around the state, which is pretty big), raw cheese, bread made by the owner, etc. OK frankly it is that cheese made from raw milk I can't stop thinking about I'm going to have to go back soon. She also let us pick our own produce from the garden ... I pulled some green onions for the first time in a long time. Unfortunately it's not that close to home, but there are other interesting places nearby so I can kill two birds with one stone ...

 

[Meg]

Yeah aspartame is horrible which I why I don't understand why people drink diet. And that's okay ta-ta - I'm happy drinking my Coke I find it's like a cycle. When I was in highschool I would drink at least a can a day, when I moved to Britain it was a lot more expensive so I had it a lot less or had the small cans, and now I drink it maybe a couple times a week. Right now I'm having a homemade smoothie which (I hope) a good way to increase my fruit intake. Plus since I don't eat a lot of meat, I put silken tofu in for protein. It's tasty!

That place sounds amazing ta-ta. Everything you want in one place! I LOVE fresh produce - esp. fresh lettuce. It's honestly so tasty. And yummy cheese as well!

 

[Babypink920]

I went to lunch the other day w/ my cousin who is 29, who studied at an ivy league university for undergrad and graduate school. She ordered diet soda b/c she said her mom was diagnosed with diabetes so she's drinking diet soda instead of regular. Her father and both her brothers are also all doctors. I was a bit flabberghasted! Diet Soda is even worse & has soo much sugar and bad refined gross sugar at that. It's amazing how even so many of the most educated individuals dont have the faintest ideas of how bad some things are for you.

 

[dumbfairy]

I've not eaten too much processed food since Sunday and I feel a lot better,a lot less bloated. I used to drink far too much diet cola a few years ago but now I maybe have 1 can every 2 weeks and again I don't bloat. It's just getting myself to stop eating so many crisps that's proving difficult. Anyone any horror stories on crisps to scare me off of them?

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ Nate Berkus had his trainer on his radio show recently and he had 4 simple rules (and btw by his definition "avoid" doesn't mean never

• Avoid processed foods (like fast food and frozen dinners--all of them)
• Avoid alcohol (a glass or two of wine a week is OK)
• Avoid fried food (that would include chips)
• Eat carbs during the day for energy, but avoid after 6 pm

I'm trying to do this, but I was pretty close already so I'm not seeing much difference

 

[aMMbitious]

ive started drinking diet coke from never to every day :S ... thing is, it makes me crave crappy food. i might join the unprocessed bandwagon- not bread etc but the choccie bars and soda.
anyone else use stevia as a sweetener? apparently it keeps blood sugar steady.

 

[Couture_Whore]

what carbs do you eat?
I fear them so much .
I need another option beside whole-grain bread , potatoes and noodles.
any ideas ?

you don't need to fear carbs, just eat them in moderation!

whole-grain/whole wheat bread is fine but you could try multi-grain wraps if you don't want too much "doughy-ness".

instead of regular potatoes, you can have sweet potatoes instead and they can be cooked any style like regular potatoes (baked with a little low fat cream cheese instead of sourcream, chopped green onions and a little shredded cheese melted on top...or roasted, mashed and even chopped into strips like french fries!).

if you want noodles/pasta, they are made in all different types of grains now instead of regular flour...they have brown rice pasta (my fave!) kamut, spelt, corn, greentea buckwheat is really good too.

just go down to any health grocery store and look around, there's lots of healthy alternatives these days!

 

[fashionista-ta]

^ I like sweet potatoes with a little butter, brown sugar, and toasted pecans. I make a whole meal of it.

I also like to bake purple potatoes.

Love de Cecco pasta--I get the organic spaghetti. The thicker the pasta, the better the glycemic index.

Steel-cut oatmeal is good. There's brown rice, and you could try quinoa and some of the other alternative grains. Barley ... millet, which is also good at breakfast ...

 

[Andrea.RL]

okay I'm coming back sunday morning! I gave myself 'til then to eat junk food since I had such a hard time putting on weight, but I'm almost good, and it's time to get healthy!
To then .

 

[dumbfairy]

I'm jumping on the health(ier) food bandwagon from tomorrow/or next week. No idea where to begin though!

 

[Andrea.RL]

lol. I wish you good luck!
I've been telling myself I should eat healthier but I can never keep away from nutella more than a day... ^^"

 

[ChloeFrancoise]

I eat pretty healthy...but my diet will continue to include nutella.

 

[Andrea.RL]

I eat pretty healthy...but my diet will continue to include nutella.

The best thing, I don't know how they make that stuff so good...

 

[miu_miu]

a spoonful of nutella...yum

i have to give up coffee & tea, i've been having waaay too much lately and it's doing me no good at all.