Eat Food, the Whole Food and nothing but the Whole Food

Eat Food, the Whole Food and nothing but the Whole Food

 So help me God.

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase Whole Food?  Does your mind automatically wonder off to a health food store by the same name? Or do your eyes roll back to the back of your head followed by a big sigh and smell of burning sage?

When I first started on my “health journey” years ago, I thought that the term Whole Food referred to something that only a granola crunching, wheat grass juice drinking, environmental and animal rights activist hippie would dare to speak out loud.  My understanding of food back then was based on my taste buds- if it tasted good- it was good enough for me.

When I finally realized that what I ate was directly connected to how I felt and my overall health I decided to open my mind and stop all eye rolling activity.  I started learning about nutrition and from that point forward I was married to the phrase Whole Food.  We have lived many happy years together…

So what is it and why am I still in love with it?  Well, whole food is unprocessed and unrefined before it gets consumed.  Another way of understanding the whole food is to ask a question “does this food have all its constituents intact?”, and “ how is this food adulterated”.

For example when I look at a banana or an apple, it looks the same as it looked when it was hanging on a tree.  When I make a spinach salad- the green leaves look exactly the way they did when they got picked from the ground. Potato, beans, celery, blueberries would all qualify as well.  But I have never seen a pop tart tree or a fruit roll up bush.  How close is pizza to its natural state?

There is an incredible amount of processing and changing of the raw materials (grains for crust, tomatoes for the sauce and I can’t even imagine how pepperoni is made), that by the time its actually consumed by us, the whole foods used in the process are totally unrecognizable.  Fiber is mostly removed, most nutrients destroyed by processing, lots of chemicals added during the refining process and all there is left is a product very high in calories and extremely low in health promoting nutrients.  Mac and cheese? Hamburger helper? Chicken nuggets?  Oreo cookies?  Cheetos?  Which one of those remotely resembles their ancestors? What are cheetos made of anyway… corn, wheat, or some mystery yellow cheesy crunchy styrofoam? 

Have you ever wondered what goes into processing of the processed foods?  What gets added to things so they would stay on shelves for years without spoiling? What’s really in your kids lunch box? What’s on your dinner plate?   Most of us don’t want to know because it’s just way easier that way.  We let out taste buds dictate what we should eat and we try not to disturb status quo.

My life and my health have changed drastically when I finally understood that concept of Whole Foods and now I teach about that with passion and conviction.  My personal journey from self proclaimed sugar junkie to a healthy energetic whole foods advocate has been filled with lots of blessings and gifts. Now I am sharing my knowledge and experience in Nutrition classes.  New series starts this week- check out my website for more info if you are interested. 

Here are few links to help you jump start your own health journey:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tPl9nDnonQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y0QQrUvCjU

Iwona Leger, RN, MSN, Certified Health Coach,  owns Love and Peas Health Coaching and runs individual and group coaching sessions. She is very passionate about disease prevention, lifestyle and diet modifications, as well as stress reduction techniques.

For more info visit www.loveandpeashealth.com