Live Healthy Live Well

It is the year 2012 and our society has gradually slipped away from the concept of making and eating whole foods. When reading labels of common household food products, how many of those ingredients sound like they were made in a mad scientist’s lab?  The whole foods approach is much simpler than most people think, and can provide many benefits.

Processed foods contain several ingredients that may be detrimental to our health, while taking away the nutrients that it once contained. While you may not be able to pronounce the names of some of the ingredients on the label, some of the worst ones are most common, trans fat, saturated fat and salt. These all lead to multiple diseases inclduing heart disease. The typical American diet consumes way too much salt ( sodium) and processed foods only add more to the problem. It’s a double whammy since many processed foods remove the healthy nutrients during refinement.

Whole foods on the other hand have virtually nothing harmful to your body and high amounts of nutrients. Whole foods don’t have to be organic, free range or locally grown. They simply are just natural foods in their complete form. This can be fruits or vegetables. Which in the summer we can find at local farmer’s markets and may be locally grown and even more economical.  Natural foods also include meats. The difference is simple, a tomato or ketchup, chicken breast or chicken tenders, apple or apple juice. Most of the time the second option will have preservatives and sugar added. Neither of which we need more of.

Whole foods contain numerous amounts of nutrients in them. For example, antioxidants are common naturally occurring nutrients in most fruits and vegetables.  Antioxidants do not need to be added to already processed foods, but should be in it naturally. Research is constantly finding new nutrients that we don’t even know about that have positive health benefits in whole foods.

Remember, when you can, choose whole foods option, your body will thank you later.

Source:

http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/the-benefits-of-healthy-whole-foods