How do you decide which foods are healthy and which ones are not? Your eating philosophy can be very different from mine, and that’s okay. You might think you don’t really have an eating philosophy, at least not a well-formulated one. That’s okay as well. Most people use their intuitive feelings when they make food choices. And that worked for us for generations. We learned from our parents and caregivers which foods are safe and nourishing. Our geographical location, season, culture, and the size of our pocket defined our food choices.

Nowadays, with 17,000 new food products ¹ on the market yearly and tropical fruits available at any time of the year and at any supermarket, making intuitive food decisions has become challenging. Stressful even. Layer a constant stream of conflicting nutrition advice on top, and we are getting into anxiety territory. Egg yolk is the most nutritious food but is full of cholesterol. How many eggs a week is healthy? How often can I eat them if my cholesterol is high? We now need a nutritionist to validate and help navigate our food decisions, especially if we have a health concern.

However, it doesn’t have to be complicated when you are blessed with good health.

Three simple rules to ensure nutrition

1. Choose real food over processed. Buy ingredients in their “original” form: potatoes vs. potato chips, chicken vs. chicken nuggets, olive oil, and vinegar vs. salad dressing.
2. In my last example, both olive oil and vinegar are actually processed foods. In that case, ask yourself, did people know how to make this food a hundred years ago? If yes, you are in the clear. So foods like yogurt, butter, cheese, chopped-up vegetables, vinegar, and other traditionally processed foods are perfectly healthy.
3. And a third rule I call “Good-Better-Best.” For example, all you need to make the best peanut butter is organic roasted peanuts. Suppose the brand contains conventional peanuts with some salt (better), conventional peanuts, salt, sugar, and hydrogenated vegetable oil (well, not so good). You can evaluate the brands you currently buy and see if there is a better, less processed alternative on the market.

Unfortunately, simple is not necessarily easy. The convenience and hyper-palatability of processed foods make it really hard to choose healthier options. Why swim against the current when you can just float down the industrial food river? I choose to buy more expensive, perishable ingredients, chop, and cook because it takes me closer to my goal of staying healthy. If your health is “upstream,” doing what’s easy will only take you farther from my goal. And as you practice swimming upstream, choosing to grocery shop and cook with real simple ingredients, you will get better at it. It becomes easier and more enjoyable.

Talk with you next week,

Olga