Tom's Blog on Life

As you know, food comes in a wide variety of tastes, colours, shapes and sizes, It also has an enormous variation in quality. And I’m not just talking fresh versus stale, I’m also talking about the quality of the nutrition and therefore nourishment that food provides our bodies.

At one end of the food quality scale, food can be natural (not genetically engineered), grown without herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer, contain no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavours and colours, no added sugar, no excitotoxins (like MSG, to make you crave more) and not be irradiated or washed in chlorine.

At the other end of the scale it can be genetically modified, artificially fertilised, doused in pesticides and herbicidal poisons, manufactured with artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavours and colours, contain added sugar, excitotoxins (like MSG) and be irradiated or washed in chlorine. In other words, a toxic cocktail that contributes to degenerative diseases and an early death.

No wonder Jack LaLanne, the famous American body builder said, “If man made it, don’t eat it!”

So, why is it that our food supply can cover such a wide variety of extremes. Purely and simply because we don’t all purchase only that which is good for us. That’s why companies make the stuff at the bad end of the scale. Because people buy it. If nobody bought it, companies would not make it.

So why do people buy it? Primarily because we are not all on the same page with regards to the definition and purpose of food.

For a moment, let’s have a look at the purpose for food. Why do we eat it? Right from the moment we are born, our bodies crave nourishment, we get hungry and look for something to eat to quell the pain of hunger. Mum offers us a nipple and away we go. So we start out by being suckers on the subject of food and the food giants expect us to remain so!

All jokes aside, this killing the pangs of hunger is the first purpose for eating. Unfortunately, for many around the world, it remains the only purpose.

As we grow a bit older we are introduced to things that taste nice. We are rewarded with food when we are “good”.

So food now assumes a new role. As well as taking away the pain of hunger, food is now something to eat that tastes great, so it is a source of pleasure, it makes us feel good.

Gee, we haven’t even got to school yet and we are seriously off the rails with regards to the purpose of food.

So then we introduce peer pressure on the subject of food, advertising aimed at kids, we get busy and don’t have time so we look for fast, easy and convenient, preprepared and “fast” foods. We are now easy targets for what the definition of food has become, “Something tasty that takes no time to prepare that I can eat quickly to not feel hungry and will get me through to the next meal time.”

Wow! What a degraded scene.

What’s the ideal scene? What would be the optimal purpose for eating? OK, food is fuel for the body. If we wanted the best condition for our body, what WOULD we want our food to do?

How about this? As well as the minimum purpose for food being:
1. To satisfy our hunger cravings
2. To taste acceptable
We additionally want to provide sufficient nutrients so:
3. Our body had sufficient energy so we could do what we wanted to do
4. We had no mental fog leaving us fresh and alert till an hour before sleep
5. The body would rarely, if ever get sick
6. If the body got ill, it would recover quickly
7. The body could repair itself and reverse disease
8. The body maintained as close to optimal functionality despite aging

If that is the proper purpose for food then as a society we have strayed a long way off the rails and have a long way to go to get back on the rails. The good news is that you and I have the power to make a change in our own diets and to encourage others to do the same.

The first step is to decide to take responsibility for your future diet and health. One way you can do that is to make a list of what you will cut out of your diet and another list of what you will add in or buy more of. I find one of the easiest ways to do that is to create an eating plan, meals and snacks, for the coming week then buy for that eating plan. And only go shopping on a full stomach! That’s a big help!

If you are looking for some options for snacks or “pick me ups” or mini-meals that are healthier than oats and sugar bars, check out www.healthelicious.com.au. I practice what I preach!

I was thinking recently about the difference between those who eat a really healthy diet compared to those who eat at the other end of the spectrum.

It occurred to me that one of the most straightforward ways of describing the two groups would be in how they define the word food.

If asked, those who eat a mainstream diet would probably define food along the lines of something edible you put in your mouth when you are hungry that tastes good. The liability of applying this broad a definition is that many manufacturers use ingredients or flavour enhancers or preservatives that do nothing to improve your health and a lot to deteriorate it. So, because that definition includes substances that reduce your health and life span, it is a non-optimum definition.

The really healthy eaters have much stricter definitions of food. Their definition would exclude many items not excluded by the above definition. From what I am reading, there are probably way too many variations given the definition of food by healthy eaters to get a consensus but all of them much more limited than the above.

If you haven’t clearly stated your definition of food, I invite you to do so. If you feel so inclined, by all means share yours with me.

Which reminds me of two thoughts shared with me by experts in their field. One was a management consultant who said, “As you grow your business it becomes more important what you say no to.” The other was a marketing consultant who said, “Opportunity is the enemy of small business.” The reason being that you do not have the resources to take advantage of all the opportunities you see so you have to be disciplined about saying no to most of them otherwise you lose focus and dilute your efforts so much that little of note is accomplished.

I guess the same principle holds true in choosing what you put in your mouth. You can say yes to everything that resembles or is marketed or offered to you as food or you can hold in mind and apply a stricter, more limiting definition of food so you better maintain your health, physical energy and mental alertness.

It is also interesting to note that in this society at this time we are not taught to say no. At least we guys aren’t. Those with the big advertising budgets are rather averse to consumers having any ability in this area! So we are constantly bombarded with sales messages and urged to say “Yes!” to this that and the other without a corresponding or balancing emphasis on improving our ability to say no.

If you get talked into doing things against your better judgement or feel at all uncomfortable about your ability to say no, try standing in front of the mirror and practicing your “No.” technique. Practice being polite, firm and unyielding. Then imagine yourself tired, run down, under slept and hungry. Practice saying no from that viewpoint too. Because that’s your most vulnerable time, the time when you are most likely to say yes to things you shouldn’t.

Writing this it makes me realise the different choices that might have been made by all the celebrities who died of drug overdoses had they only 1. Had a clearly defined statement of their lifestyle choices and 2. Were more accomplished at saying no to those drug pushers who got to them in moments of weakness.

Yours in optimal health.

Tom

Having gotten back from the USA I am doing some housekeeping on my laptop files before copying them over to my desktop. I came across this that I wrote a few years ago. Don’t know if I have shared it with you or not but since it has been 4 years since I wrote it, could bear repeating.

I had some very tough news this week. A friend had to have a large part of his bowel removed due to cancerous growths. He was a smoker his whole adult life but his lungs didn’t cop it, his gut did.

Looking at the roaring trade that the fast food chains do and the amount of stock on the shelves at the supermarket that I would not touch with a 40 foot barge pole, it really brought home to me how little planning time most of us spend on the important things. I recall seeing a meme once to the effect that most people spend more time planning their annual holiday than they do planning their life.

Along this line there’s a wee bit of advice I give to youngsters at the festivals I go to. I figure it is the best assignment they could ever get. It is to talk to their aunts and uncles and older folk in their family. Ask them the degenerative diseases from which they suffer. Then work out what dietary and lifestyle changes they need to make to avoid those diseases.

If this seems like a lot of work and you’d like to shortcut it, just head over to www.howtolivethehealthiestlife.com, part with a mere $47 and get the most important data I have accumulated over the last 14 years of reading on health. Then you’ll have the best advice I take myself! The next step is to start doing something about it. Implement something from it each week. Your future self will thank you for it!