Will we be able to eat healthy food? According to Harry Balzer, an NPD Group analyst, “Never, because the moment something becomes popular, someone will find a reason why it’s not healthy.” But what is healthy food really about? We attribute healthy to foods such as kale while we think of a Big Mac as something that is not. But the thing is, kale salads are not really healthy but they are nutritious. When prepared well, a kale salad would also taste delicious. Describing it as healthy is simply beyond words. If you were to eat kale only then you would become sick.
“Healthy is a bankrupt word.Our food isn’t healthy. We are healthy. Our food is nutritious. I’m all about the words. Words are the key to giving people the tools they need to figure out what to eat. Everyone is so confused.” – Roxanne Sukol, preventive medicine specialist at Cleveland Clinic and medical director of the center’s Wellness Enterprise
Words Matter…Food is Nutritious
Technically the food we eat is not healthy; we will be healthy if we eat nutritious food. And healthy is not the only misleading word widely used in packaged and processed food products. Take the word protein. Protein is definitely good for the body since it’s needed for building strong muscles and other important bodily functions. We have grown fond of protein and now consume it at an extraordinary rate compared to our ancestors. But take eating pork cracklings, which is all protein, gets frowned upon because we believe this food has huge fat content. It is made of pork skin which is made of protein under a layer of fat. When pig skin is fried, fat is rendered and the remaining connective tissue pops. Pork skin may actually be an ideal protein snack to get you throughout the day.
Another word is “refined” which is commonly added to wheat which has been stripped of the bran, the germ, and all the impurities removed as well resulting in a pure starch. Refined wheat is technically devoid of all oils, iron and vitamins that make wheat nutritious. Sukol said, “Flour stripped of the nutrition that makes it valuable to our bodies but reduces shelf life. Food manufacturers, therefore,“enrich” it. Food companies add the iron that was removed from the refining process, but not enough of what we need. Sukol also said that these additions along with the lack of fiber take a toll on our metabolic systems resulting in diabetes and metabolic syndromes.
Food is either nutritious or not and we are healthy or not. It’s a guarantee though that if we eat food that is nutritious, we will be able to improve our health.
