Increase the Nutrients

Decrease the Ingredients

Photo by Susan Q Yin on Unsplash

Introduction

How adventurous are you? Yes, even within the confines of our scheduled and productivity obsessed lives. You’re probably more adventurous than you think. Consider your pantry and your refrigerator, are they full of tasty snacks? If you grabbed a pile of those treats and threw them on your kitchen table, what would be the average number of ingredients? 

I grabbed 10 items from our pantry, the average number of ingredients is approximately 10. I have no idea how those individual ingredients impact my body, let alone how they impact my body once they all mix together, that’s adventure!

Adventure - engage in hazardous and exciting activity, especially the exploration of unknown territory.

I try to keep my food adventures low key and infrequent. I’m getting older and I’ve learned I need a little more guided exploration with my nutrition. I want to continue to move away from consuming the unknown and understand what I’m actually consuming and how it impacts my body. There are two concrete steps I use to explore my nutrition in an experimental way.

How low can you go?

One of the things my kids love to eat most has a total of 35 ingredients, that’s ludicrous. A high ingredient count stops us from realizing what we’re eating, what reacts negatively with our bodies, and what we actually enjoy eating. The companies that create the snacks we eat know how to combine ingredients that make us crave the foods they make. We all say this phrase, “I like…”, but if something tastes delicious and our bodies respond negatively to it, do we ‘like it’? I argue no. If we lower the number of ingredients in the foods we eat we can get a better idea of what tastes good to us, and what makes us feel good. 

I have a strong reaction to canola oil, and it’s not a good one. Before I cut back on potato chips I ‘loved’ them, but after I weaned myself off and replaced them with un-roasted and unsalted cashews I recognized how delicious cashews are and how bad potato chips made me feel.

Investigate Nutritional Value

Once the ingredients in the foods we’re eating are more manageable, then we can take time to figure out how beneficial those ingredients are for us. This helps us to be more intentional with our nutritional choices. Nutrition plays a big part in our physical well being. If we consume our micronutrients conscientiously, then we have a better chance to shape our bodies’ health.

If your doctor tells you that you need to lower your cholesterol or your blood pressure, then you can look up which foods help with that, focusing on their micronutrients. What a great opportunity to learn tangible steps of self-care!

Moving Forward

Can you think of a food you’re curious about with a relatively lower number of ingredients and a higher number of micronutrients than you normally eat? How would it feel to incorporate that into your diet this week? Do you have a health challenge that may be improved by healthy eating? How would it feel to research food remedies this week to learn more about their many benefits?

When it comes to food, increase the nutrients and decrease the ingredients. Articulate how you want your body to feel, and then figure out how to eat in a way that makes that possible.