2016 - Nutrition: Educate yourself on what your food does TO or FOR you..

How often do we grab something from the supermarket shelf without even thinking about the effect it has on our bodies? A packet of crisps, a candy bar, cheap imported biscuits or cookies from a foreing country with 20 ingredients to make it last for years and years... and the list does not stop there... even with the best intentions, we do not realize the amount of pesticides and hormones used to produce our fresh food, also making it all the way into our bodies, damaging our systems as it goes along...

Maybe it is time we remove the wool from our eyes and start taking nutrition and what we do TO our bodies, very very seriously. After all, we only get one body, and we need to manage it as best we can, because we WILL pay for our mistakes later on in life, with NO ONE to blame but ourselves...

SO how would one go about it, how would one start this process of education on what we consume?

READ the label of the product your are CONSIDERING to purchase. Fresh fruit and vegetables do not have a list of ingredients, so they would by FAR be the best option. Everything else should be inspected with great care. Look out for added sugar, preservatives, sodium content, carbohydrate content, coulourants, MSG and the undisclosed coded ingredients loaded to the product to make it taste like something it is not.. Then carefully place it back on the shelf and praise yourself for taking the first step to saving your life!

When it comes to animal protein, remember that cheap, imported or bulk frozen meats come from poorly treated animals, fed with growth hormones, loads of antibiotics to ward of disease, poor quality feed and no space to roam, creating a poor quality protein.. As you no longer will be overloading your body with huge portions of food, you can now CHOOSE to purchase meat from sustainable farmed free range animals, fed a quality diet, free of hormones and antibiotics, ensuring good quality protein for the same amount of money, in smaller portions.

The same goes for fruit and vegetables. Ridden with pesticide residue, most fruit and veggis needs to be thoroughly washed before constumption. Support your local farmers market and seek out organically grown produce where possible, otherwise use this easy method of cleaning your comercially grown fresh produce:

How to make fruits and veggies safer for consumption?

There is a simple and cheap trick that can help you get rid of those nasty chemicals. You can simply wash your fresh produce in distilled white vinegar and water solution. Soak your veggies and fruits in a solution of 10% vinegar to 90% water. Make the mixture, and let the produce sit in for 15 to 20 minutes. When you remove them, you’ll notice that the water left in the bowl is dirty and may contain some gunk. Rinse fruits and vegetables in fresh water, and then enjoy your cleaner product. This method shouldn’t be used on fragile fruits, such as berries, as they have a very porous skin and might get damaged and soak in too much of the vinegar. With other fruits, there should be no lingering vinegar aroma. If you wish, you can also use lemon juice.

You are, after all, what you eat, so make sure your CHOICE of food is safe for your body!