How's your Sunday been/going/will be? How's your food going? Are you eating? Well, I hope you are eating! So let's get the deets. Are you having a cruisy brunch with afternoon cakes? Having a traditional Sunday roast? Busily batch cooking for the week ahead?
Now hey. There's something this check-in has got me thinking about, and I wanna know you guys' opinions. When we talk about food and fitness, we (not just here, but society generally) talk about don't eat this, and don't eat that, not too much, and whoa, easy there big fella. I feel like this associates food restriction with...perhaps virtuousness is the word. "Food is fun but I am too big, therefore I eat too much, so I must get rid of fun so I can be a better person." Or something along those lines. Maybe it's just me (I don't think it's just me), but I don't find trying not to do something especially enjoyable.
So I wonder if a different mindset is helpful. Instead of asking ourselves am I eating too much, perhaps we should instead ask ourselves am I eating enough. Am I eating enough fibre? Most people don't. Depending on where you are, the recommendation is usually to get about 30 g of fibre per day; a carrot has about 1.7 g of fibre, 1 cup of raw spinach 0.7 g, and an apple 2.4 g. Fibre is important for lots of things, like helping prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers. How about plant diversity - am I eating enough of that? Plants are loaded with phytochemicals - there are thousands of them, and they do stuff like help prevent cancers and reduce chronic inflammation. Eating lots of different types of plants also helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome, which is super important for some huge number of aspects of health, including immune system, mood, heart, weight, brain, digestion, blood sugar, and probably more that I don't know off the top of my head. But this check-in isn't a research paper. There are various guidelines out there for how to eat a sufficiently varied diet. One is to eat at least 5 colours of fruits and vegetables per day (I find it hard to check the blue or purple box). Another is to eat at least 30 species of plants per week.
I've been following the 30 species per week approach for a while, and I really like it. It doesn't mean you can't eat other things in addition to 30 species per week. And it doesn't mean you can't have occasional slip-ups - what matters is what we eat in the long term. And I notice that when I eat loads of different plants, I feel better. I enjoy the focus on eating more, rather than eating less. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. It's plenty of food, so I'm full, and I'm not continually reaching for the cupboard. But if I want a burger, or chocolate, or a cheese platter, or whatever it is, that's fine. I can have that too. It just doesn't count towards my 30.
So today's question, which as always is totally optional, is has anyone else tried such an approach to healthy eating? If so, did you like it? I find it helpful, but maybe for some people it will just promote overeating? Or maybe you'd prefer to tell us a joke instead. What do you call fake noodles? Impasta!
Food for Thought, 7 February 2021
Hello my foodie blendies!
How's your Sunday been/going/will be? How's your food going? Are you eating? Well, I hope you are eating! So let's get the deets. Are you having a cruisy brunch with afternoon cakes? Having a traditional Sunday roast? Busily batch cooking for the week ahead?
Now hey. There's something this check-in has got me thinking about, and I wanna know you guys' opinions. When we talk about food and fitness, we (not just here, but society generally) talk about don't eat this, and don't eat that, not too much, and whoa, easy there big fella. I feel like this associates food restriction with...perhaps virtuousness is the word. "Food is fun but I am too big, therefore I eat too much, so I must get rid of fun so I can be a better person." Or something along those lines. Maybe it's just me (I don't think it's just me), but I don't find trying not to do something especially enjoyable.
So I wonder if a different mindset is helpful. Instead of asking ourselves am I eating too much, perhaps we should instead ask ourselves am I eating enough. Am I eating enough fibre? Most people don't. Depending on where you are, the recommendation is usually to get about 30 g of fibre per day; a carrot has about 1.7 g of fibre, 1 cup of raw spinach 0.7 g, and an apple 2.4 g. Fibre is important for lots of things, like helping prevent heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers. How about plant diversity - am I eating enough of that? Plants are loaded with phytochemicals - there are thousands of them, and they do stuff like help prevent cancers and reduce chronic inflammation. Eating lots of different types of plants also helps maintain a healthy gut microbiome, which is super important for some huge number of aspects of health, including immune system, mood, heart, weight, brain, digestion, blood sugar, and probably more that I don't know off the top of my head. But this check-in isn't a research paper. There are various guidelines out there for how to eat a sufficiently varied diet. One is to eat at least 5 colours of fruits and vegetables per day (I find it hard to check the blue or purple box). Another is to eat at least 30 species of plants per week.
I've been following the 30 species per week approach for a while, and I really like it. It doesn't mean you can't eat other things in addition to 30 species per week. And it doesn't mean you can't have occasional slip-ups - what matters is what we eat in the long term. And I notice that when I eat loads of different plants, I feel better. I enjoy the focus on eating more, rather than eating less. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. It's plenty of food, so I'm full, and I'm not continually reaching for the cupboard. But if I want a burger, or chocolate, or a cheese platter, or whatever it is, that's fine. I can have that too. It just doesn't count towards my 30.
So today's question, which as always is totally optional, is has anyone else tried such an approach to healthy eating? If so, did you like it? I find it helpful, but maybe for some people it will just promote overeating? Or maybe you'd prefer to tell us a joke instead. What do you call fake noodles? Impasta!