Feasting and Fueling

Sunday August 7, 2011

There are a lot of things wrong with our food system, but most of it can be dumped into two buckets. The first is the degraded quality of food generally available.

It's kind of like the old maxim that even if you are paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. The mesh of crappy diet, convenience food, and an epidemic of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer is too much to dismiss. Imagine what an epidemic of people choosing to eat well and reverse their obesity and diabetes would do to the economy. Goodness but I do love a good, well researched conspiracy theory!

The second aspect is the size of portions in the U.S. Thi is actually a function of the first issue, in that the lack of nutrition in the food we eat keeps us wanting more. Add to that the presence of 'excitotoxins' added to food and drink to literally addict us, (see Dr Oz's web site:' Are Carbs the new Cocaine?') and my beloved conspiracy theory is on pretty damn solid ground. We keep eating past our caloric load because there is so little nutritional value in much of the food available.

The solution, of course is a phrase you have run across repeatedly on this site: 'Optimal health is a result of a diet based on nutritionally dense foods.' And it really is that simple. All a choice- we have had years of granola and soy and similar foods being espoused as health creating, when in fact they contribute to most of the ways we are poisoning ourselves. Traditional foods, with a few additions are what we have eaten through all but the last century of our evolution. As easily as we seem to be able to adapt to technology, our chemistry is slower to catch up.