Nutritional Science is killing us!

Now I know what you are thinking - B.J. has gone off the rails and has eaten too much fruit!  But hang on and let me explain.  Today we live in a society of counting nutrients and calories.  We want to make sure we have this many vitamins, this many calories, this type of protein, this kind of fat, etc.  On the surface these seem reasonable, but here is where we lose sight.

Nutrients, by themselves, are almost meaningless.  If nutrients were the only thing that mattered, then we could take a few pills filled with nutrients and call it a day.  However, Mother Nature does not work that way.  Real, whole foods are complex - we are just beginning to understand how they work.  When we “fortify” food, or add in nutrients, we are losing the benefit of eating the food in its natural state.  We aren’t smart enough to trick Mother Nature.  We can’t strip a food down to its single nutrient and serve it up as meeting our daily recommendations.

What about all the nutrients we do not understand or know about yet?  How can we believe that taking a product like wheat, refining it, stripping it of all its nutrients and then trying to make it healthy again by adding in nutrients is a good thing?  The best example of this is children’s cereal.  At its core, cereal is made up of highly-processed flour and sugar, and is devoid of any nutrition.  It is a box of worthless flour and sugar, with chemicals added to make it bright and colorful.  Then “Big Food” adds in some “fake nutrients” and calls it healthy because it meets all the requirements for nutrition.

Really?  Do we truly believe that this stuff is healthy?  It does not end there. Most packaged foods are created the same way.  If you eat packaged foods from the pantry or freezer - then be aware that you are not giving your body the true nutrition it needs.  When this happens, your body will continue to crave more food until it finds what it needs.

The only way to give your body what it needs is to eat real, whole foods in as natural a state as possible.  The more it is cooked, processed, and altered - the less nutritious it is.

To make sure we are eating a well-balanced diet, we must eat a variety of foods, making sure there are plenty of colors – greens, yellows, reds, etc.  If you do this, then for the most part you will be eating a healthy diet.  You won’t have to worry about all the single nutrients that most people get caught worrying about.