Every couple months a new diet fad pops into the spotlight. Keto, Paleo, No Sugar. Every one of them professing to be the next best thing for Human nutrition. How do you decide which diet is right for you and your family?
Why we Choose Clean Eating
The issue that niggles me is simply this - we (all of us Humans) have been feeding ourselves successfully for thousands and thousands of years. Our ancestors didn't need Nutritionists to tell them how to eat. And as far as a species goes, we were pretty successful at it. We've flourished in all environments. Until recently.
For the first time in Human evolution, we have a generation of children that may not outlive their parents. Our health problems consistently point back to the current state of our food system.
Diet related illnesses are epidemic, and the scary thing is that the effects of our diet on our health is still a relatively new science. There's more bad news to come.
Food is Common Sense
Every day someone somewhere is touted as having discovered something 'new' about what we should or shouldn't be eating.
It's hard to sieve through the mountain of advice relating to food. Think about how often a new diet is conflicted by the next new diet.
It's exhausting.
And yet, despite the billions of dollars spent on finding the answer, we're still arguing over what we should be eating.
Deep down (actually, not that deep), we know what food is good for us and what's bad. Whole foods are good, everything else is questionable. It's common sense, but we either doubt ourselves or lie to ourselves because the latter is often the easier choice to make at dinner time.
Despite what some people might like you to think, no-one has all the answers. We don't have a Nutritionist doing our grocery shopping or helping us to pick food out our pantry. We each have to make our own decisions regarding our food choices and values.
For me, this means choosing to eat Clean.
- Related Post: What is Clean Eating: The Ultimate Beginners Guide
- Getting Started with Clean Eating as a Family
- 5 Things we found really tough about Clean Eating
We base our decision to eat Clean on these food values:
1. Food is big business.
Processed food accounts for the majority of most household's food budget. But, what goes into processed food is decided by profits - Are you going to trust it?
Don't be fooled by the health proclaiming packaging around your kids breakfast cereal. Your family's health is not a priority to the major players in the food industry.
Food ingredients are now more science than food. Chemicals and additives manipulate taste, texture and smell to make processed foods highly addictive and profitable. They are cheap to make and - we love them. It's the perfect product. The more we eat, the more profit is made.
I don't want my family to be a number on a balance sheet. I want to be the one who decides what ingredients goes into the food that I put on their plates.
2. Our Diet affects our Health
According to Michael Pollan, four of the top ten chronic diseases "can be traced directly to the industrialization of our food".
Obesity is soaring, the increase in many childhood ailments like eczema and asthma are now being linked to the diet we feed our kids.
And this is just the beginning. Processed and genetically modified foods are new in terms of human evolution. We are only seeing the short term effects at the moment, we have no idea what our diet could mean for generations to come.
Related Post: Why Processed foods are bad for us
3. Nature knows best
Whole foods have been around, well, long before us. Varieties may change from place to place, but at the end of the day, I'm willing to trust God and Nature well before anyone else.
I value the significance of science and research, but when it comes to my family's nutrition I try to keep things simple and resist the urge to follow the latest diet advice or new food obsession.
So, unless grains, dairy, or other whole food ingredient affect our health or our personal values, I'm inclined to include them in our diet regardless of any latest trends.
4. Being Accountable for our Food Choices
Clean Eating is more than simply choosing to eat whole, real foods. It's also a mindset that gets you thinking and caring about where our food comes from.
Not only are the foods of industry detrimental to our health, but our environment is also struggling under this 'modernization' of our food. Land, air and water are being polluted by the practices of unsustainable food industries. I don't want to be part of the problem.
Our family loves animals. Whilst we are not vegetarian, we do not condone cruelty. Animals are suffering at the expense of our food system. At some point we each have to choose whether or not we are going to condone this by supporting a food system that elects profit over conscience.
On that note. We still eat meat - just a lot less than we used to. We are not Vegetarian, but we do choose to eat meat from animals that lived a free ranging, organic life.
Getting Started
If you are looking to make some changes to your family's diet, whether your goal is to lose weight, get healthier or simply introduce a few more vegetables in your diet, then START HERE.
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