When the word food is uttered, the first thing that comes to your mind is ‘taste.’ But food is much more than just flavor and happy memories.
What happens when food travels beyond the tongue? Food is fundamental to society and culture worldwide. It causes wars and creates peace. It is essential and integral in every way, even in regard to the base components of human life.
When you eat anything, in a few hours it vanishes and becomes a part of you. Isn’t it magical? So what you eat becomes you or in other words, you are what you eat.
You Literally Are What You Eat
So you think like what you eat, you act like what you eat and your body behaves like the food you’ve consumed.
Your life depends on what kind of fuel you fill your body with. Many times in India, due to poverty or in the name of smart thinking, some people mix coconut oil with petrol to make it cost-effective.
Temporarily they enjoy this savings, but in a long run how many people realize that the quality and performance of the engine has gone down because of their silly attempt to save money? The same goes with the human engine!
When you develop joint aches, muscle pains, physiological instability, etc., how many of us realize that it is because of the lack of quality food that we have been feeding our bodies for so long? To compensate, we invest time and money in tablets and medication. We lose out on our lives by worrying and combating less than optimal health.
Is there a way to fix this? Of course. There are always solutions available when one is open and willing to make a change. But prevention is always much better than a cure. But the main problem is that many don’t even realize the severity of the situation until it is too late.
That’s why it is so important to bring awareness of these issues to the forefront of young and developing minds. For those who are already suffering ill health, it is not impossible to do something about it.
We can always find remedies and take the support of available resources and facilities. But for those of us who are still young and vibrant, it is time to take our well-being into our own hands and act, not for anyone else, but for ourselves.
Superfoods
So let’s do this with the selfish motive in mind to live long, stay mentally sharp and be fit. In order to do this, we must take care of just one thing – food and superfood! Superfood has been defined in many ways.
Food that consists of organic ingredients, which could be dietary or otherwise, and provides health and well-being is known as a superfood. It almost implies that humans can become super by eating superfoods. It is very true.
Actually some people took an effort to spread awareness by making a film some time ago called, ‘Hungry for Change.’ In an interesting way, they covered so many aspects of what is discussed here.
Let’s take a look at what kinds of food items can help create a better body, how to eat them, as well as how to make them more tasty and enjoyable. We will also look at proper consumption techniques for optimizing benefits, and making more efficient use of our time and money in our culinary endeavors.
Chew Your Food
The first step is very simple. Though initially it may seem tedious and almost impossible because of one’s old habits, it is of the utmost importance.
Chew the food that you eat. It must be ground almost into a paste by the time it leaves the mouth and enters the throat. Why? When food is being chewed, it mixes with saliva which is the first stage of digestion.
When it mixes and gets ground with saliva, the food then enters the stomach, the acids in the stomach then dissolve the food particles effectively, help them to be absorbed and all of the nutrients that the particular food item holds are effectively delivered to the body.
Thus, food becomes energy. The amount of time you use to chew your food is important so that the stomach is prepared to treat the newly crushed material that is going to be dissolved.
What happens when food is not chewed? When food is not chewed, it means the first stage of digestion did not happen.
When the food enters the stomach as chunks and pieces, only a portion of the food is dissolved by the acids, so only below 20% of the nutrients are absorbed and the rest goes straight to the bin to get released. Because of this, the body is still craving energy and in turn asks for more and more food.
That’s when we end up eating sweets, coffee and soda throughout the day thinking that’s going to satisfy the appetite and provide needed energy. But that is all temporary. Soon, the body asks for more. So, when you chew well, if you notice, you eat a smaller amount of food compared to when you gobble food and don’t chew well.
What to Eat
The next step is what to eat? The best example for this topic is interestingly and clearly explained in the film “Hungry for Change.” This is good because everyone loves messages in the form of films/documentaries. An informative film is much better than any advice or to-do-list.
In this film, they talk about and prove how food, when poorly chosen, badly affects one’s health It also discusses what kinds of foods enrich the human system and make one’s life healthy and wonderful.
Many famous people from different fields share their experiences; explaining how their life was before and how they have been transformed just by fixing their food habits. The film clearly shows us how we are fooled by foods that are sold in the name of dietary supplements, and how they actually spoil one’s health.
Quite often this happens in today’s world because everything is judged by its physical appearance. People are driven to look good no matter what kinds of tribulations they must go through to get there.
But one main thing they miss are the eventualities of such modes of being. It has been proven that soft drinks like diet Coca-Cola and Pepsi are alternatives to toilet cleaners and in fact they do a better job than toilet cleaners do.
This is one of the best examples for being fooled by words and physical appearances. They say they are soft drinks, but they are nothing more than strong acids.
To Eat or Not to Eat?
The truth about sugar and products with sugar, artificial ingredients, sweeteners and food preservatives, etc. that was targeted in the film, was accurate and helpful in understanding why they are harmful. Their ‘not to eat’ list contains meat, artificial foods, fast food items, grilled meat, etc.
Their ‘to eat’ list consists of fresh raw vegetables, fruits and fish as the main sources of food. A unique approach they used to show the world was someone may try to diet, control their urge to eat more to reduce their weight, but in turn they may put on more weight because of the stress and hormonal imbalance that they go through because of embarrassment, guilt, shame, etc., towards their obese body, especially for women.
According to (2006) A Prospective Study of Dairy Intake and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women, Diabetes Care 29; 1579-1584, “The inverse relation between dairy intake and incident type 2 diabetes remained unchanged after further adjustment for dietary calcium, vitamin D, glycemic load, fat, fiber, and magnesium intake. These associations also did not vary significantly according to BMI.”
This basically means that natural dietary intake makes a bigger difference than utilizing supplements in the treatment of type 2 diabetes. So it is better to include more organic products meant for targeted ailments which won’t cause side effects.
When to Eat
The last step is when to eat? There is a yogic study out of India, which proves that every full meal takes 4 full hours to get digested properly during day time and it take 10 hours to digest while sleeping.
So it is best to have 8 hours of space between two full meals as the digestive system needs enough time to get ready for the next meal.
For example, if you eat a mini breakfast then you can eat in 4 hours. If you eat food in the form of only raw vegetables and juices like they mention in ‘Hungry for Change,’ then you need to eat or drink fresh juices at least 4 to 6 times during the day time.
But it is advisable to always leave an hour gap before sleeping and drink a minimum of 2 liters of water per day.
Superfood as mentioned in the ‘Hungry for Change‘ film, can be made tastier and enjoyable just by following their guidelines, or also by adding lime, salt and pepper in juices. You can also add palm sugar, dates, honey or sugarcane juice to add sweetness to the juice as well.
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