For years, I thought being healthy meant going for a run and not eating quite as many desserts. My normal week might only consist of one desert, but I was eating cereal or pop tarts for breakfast and hot pockets or sandwiches on processed white bread for lunch. I knew salad was better than pop tarts but I didn’t really understand why. Little did I know that the key to healthy eating was the whole foods based diet.
When God put us on this earth, He gave us certain foods to fuel and sustain us. The closer we get to the original things we were meant to eat, the better we feel, and the better our bodies respond.
If a food is a single ingredient item, then it is a whole food: apple, banana, squash, broccoli, lettuce, chicken, watermelon. If you don’t even need a label for it, then that’s a good sign. Also, ask if your great great grandma would have eaten it. If it’s something she would have eaten, like honey, potatoes, and beef, then it’s more than likely a whole food.
Modern Food
The problem with many modern diets is they are full of items that are filled with man-made chemicals that do not exist as food. We have a food-like diet without any actual food. These added chemicals wreak havoc on the body’s internal systems and do not give us the energy our bodies need.
For example, we all would agree that salad is better for us than Doritos. But why? The simple answer: salad is a whole food and Doritos is full of unknown ingredients. Some of the ingredients on the label include Maltodextrin, Monosodium Glutamate (MSG), Dextrose, Yellow 6, Yellow 5, Red 40, and Disodium Inosinate.
Check Your Labels
Evaluate what your putting inside your body. If there’s an ingredient you don’t recognize, look it up. I challenge you to especially do this with foods that you’re eating on a daily or weekly basis. Also look for things in their purest, less-refined form. If you can find a farmer’s market or afford organic options, that’s a great way to get closer to the original product. The closer to the original that you can get, the closer you get to the “whole food.”
A lot of companies have realized that so many people are starting to look for more natural, non-processed options. Now, you can find a lot of protein bars, protein powders, and other items that are made from only whole foods. A good example of this are RX bars. It consists of dates, egg whites, almonds, cashews, chocolate, coconut, natural flavors, and sea salt. We’re looking for items we easily recognize as we read the label. There are many fun flavorful options out there. The key is to read the label, not the front packaging. A lot of companies present their food as “healthy, natural” options as a marketing strategy, but their labels are full of things other than whole foods.
One tip to help you shop for more whole foods is to focus on the exterior of the grocery store. These sections usually include your meat, deli, produce, and dairy sections. Nearly all of the aisles in the interior sections are full of boxed, processed foods. If it’s in a box, it probably has a label and is highly processed. There are exceptions to this, like bags of beans or rice and canned items. But, if you’re spending the majority of your time and money shopping the “middle aisles”, then your family’s diet is probably lacking a healthy balance of whole foods.
The Key isn’t Perfection
We live in a real world and most of us do not eat “perfectly healthy” all the time. However, each step in the right direction can make a dramatic impact on your family’s life and health. Picking up a few whole foods you know your family loves is a step in the right direction. Starting to cut out foods with colors, processed snacks, and slowly making swaps for items you eat all the time are additional steps you can take.
It isn’t about just eating salads forevermore. It’s about finding those whole foods you enjoy and eating more of those. There are so many fruits and vegetables and proteins out there; this is your journey to figure out the ones you love and that make you feel great!
For us, this has included a lot of experimenting. Some members of my family love a fruit bowl with strawberries and blueberries. Others love smoothies with almond milk and fruit. My husband and I enjoy a pan full of seasoned roasted veggies, but my kids are a lot pickier with their veggies. On nights we do roasted veggies, I might plan apple-sauce or fruit for them or some raw veggies they can dip in peanut butter or hummus.
The key is to figure out what you or your family enjoys and eat more of those things. Start to replace the things that are clearly processed and bad for you. We have discovered things we didn’t know we liked, like roasted brussel sprouts. There’s still a few veggies that I am not crazy about. I’ve tried them different ways to see what I like, but those aren’t the things I buy every week. I buy the ones our family loves!
What are the whole foods you actually love? What are some labels you should look at before grabbing snacks at the store? Like I said, it isn’t about perfection. It’s about taking it one step in the right direction and choosing a healthier lifestyle! Even if it takes time and a bunch of baby steps, you and your family are worth it!
