Nutrition
Those who are looking for the best nutrition advice have often heard that the healthiest way to food shop while at the supermarket is by purchasing foods mainly from the perimeter of the store, while skipping the shelves that line the aisles because the perimeter is where (most of) the real food resides. We could even take this further by saying that the best way to grocery shop is at your local farm, skipping the supermarket all together!
But what is meant by real food anyway?
In short, real food is unprocessed, whole, and perishable. It’s the stuff that was once a living thing, be it a plant or an animal.
Most of the items found on the shelves of the center aisles in the supermarket, are things made from the cheapest, poorest quality raw ingredients. These are then processed and stripped down severely into substances that hardly resemble food at all, before being mixed with manufactured palate pleasers (like oils and salts and sugars) and sometimes added nutrients (manufactured or not) – which allow the company to produce labels and packaging with unsubstantiated or misleading health claims.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: one of the major problems with processing foods is that we don’t know what we don’t know. When we strip raw ingredients down by extrusion, molding, and milling we are taking away all the unknown bits and pieces of those once-real-foods, keeping only what we can work with, and then adding other processed ingredients to form ultra-palatable food-like substances. We take out the nutrients, the vitamins and minerals. We remove the fiber. We strip it of any phytonutrients and any other yet to be discovered parts that are essential to our good health. In addition to this, what we are left with contains so much less bulk, the stuff that helps us feel satiated and satisfied, and far more condensed calories. In the end you eat more, often way more calories than you need and you feel less satisfied. Lets put some visuals to this:
An 8oz bag of Lays Potato Chips has 1280 Calories. Notice the suggested serving size is 1/8th of the bag, just 15 chips. This serving size makes the amount of calories shown, 160, seem more reasonable. How many people do you know that eat just 15 chips? A more realistic serving size is half or even the whole bag for most. To put that in perspective lets now look at the nutrition values for 8oz of white potatoes:
If you eat a potato, that is the same weight as a bag of chips, you are eating just 159 calories. That’s a pretty big difference. And chances are, you’ll feel much more satisfied and full after eating the potato than you will the full bag chips.
So how can you know if you’re eating real food? Ask yourself a few questions before you put it in your mouth.
Would your great, great, great grandmother recognize it as food?
Ultra processed foods are relatively new, but not new enough that your mother or grandmother, great grandma or even great great grandma could escape them. So ask yourself if four generations ago people would recognize what you’re eating as food. If the answer is no, chances are it’s not real food and you shouldn’t eat it – at least not regularly.
Is it capable of rotting and was it once alive?
Real food is most often perishable. It should rot within a number of days if left on the counter or in the fridge for long enough. Dark chocolate aside of course! Dark chocolate is the only real food I can readily think of that doesn’t rot quickly – though I’m sure there are at least a few others. All joking aside and generally speaking, real food should expire and have telltale signs that it has gone bad like strong unpleasant smells, or it should become soft and squishy to the touch, or mold should grow on it. It shouldn’t necessarily need an expiration date written on the package for you to know whether or not it’s good to eat. Ever see an expiry date on a banana, strawberry or orange?
How long or complicated is the ingredient list?
The shorter the ingredient list, the more likely it is that less processing went into making it. Simple, real food ingredients are what you’re looking for. If the ingredients include long, complicated words that you cannot pronounce or things you wouldn’t consider eating on their own or adding to your own baking, it’s not real food and you’re probably best to avoid it as much as possible.
Does its packaging make health claims?
A few exceptions aside in the cases of packaged raw produce, an industry that is slowly catching up with the marketing strategies of mass processed food companies with huge marketing budgets – more often than not if the package makes health claims like, “Vitamin Enriched,” or “Added Fiber,” or “Low Fat,” you’re looking at an ultra processed food-like item. Remember that manufacturers can only add the nutrients that they know, or science currently says you need. A few years ago it was believed that a low fat diet was the healthiest diet. We have a lot of foods still labeled low to no fat, lining the supermarket shelves because of this, even though we now know as a matter of fact that low fat diets tend to lead to more cardiovascular disease, obesity and a slew of other ailments. What we also have on our shelves now is a growing number of the complete opposite ‘good fats’ or ‘ketogenic’ food labels appearing – because current science tells us good fats are good for us. When we learn something new tomorrow, the trend will again change. Remember for now that what’s naturally packaged with your real foods are things that your body thrives on, yet are still greatly unknown to us.
Fueling your mind and body by eating a variety of real food while avoiding the processed food-like substances as much as possible, is the healthiest way you can go.
