We have all heard the phrase, “whole food”, but do you know what that is and why it should be important to us? There are many misconceptions surrounding whole foods. Some people feel whole foods are very expensive to purchase. They feel that it takes too much time and effort to add whole foods into their diets. Whole foods just don’t taste as good as “regular” food. Some people even think that focusing on whole foods is just a fad and won’t really make a difference in the long run. Let’s take a look at all of these topics and discover the wonders of whole foods.
Let’s begin by defining whole foods. Whole foods are foods that are in their natural state with minimal processing such as peeling, dehydrating, preserving, to name a few processes that interfere with the food’s nutrition. Generally speaking, “whole foods” refer to fruits, vegetables, and grains. Whole foods are foods that we have not tampered with out of “convenience” or to make things “look” better.
Americans have gotten so busy with their everyday lives that processed foods are more popular than ever. Too many times people think that they just do not have the time to eat healthy, but this does not have to be the case. You can go to the store an purchase a bag of regular enriched white flour and go home to use that in your recipes, but you are missing out of many nutrients. You are also consuming many things that are not the greatest for you to consume. Before that bag of flour reaches you, the whole wheat grain is stripped of many nutrients. Once a grain of wheat is milled, it begins to oxidize and within 72 hours 90% of over 30 nutrients are virtually gone. That pretty white flour also goes through a bleaching process. Bleach is not something that should be consumed. In the 1920’s when millers began mass producing white flour, many diseases became much more prevalent such as beriberi and pellagra. It was found that vitamin B deficiency was the cause of these diseases. The health officials suggested the millers go back to producing whole wheat flour in smaller amounts and to be sold daily. Instead of doing this, the millers decided to “enrich” the flour with 4 vitamins (remember after 72 hours 30 nutrients are almost gone). Mass production made them more money. White flour has been associated with many other diseases such as: appendicitis, hiatal hernia, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and many more. Purchasing a grain mill and wheat still in tact is a much healthier option. It only takes a few seconds to grind up the wheat and then you can cook with flour that has all of it’s nutrients. This flour can be used for all of your baking needs from your own bread to pastries and cookies.
Grains are very important to our diets and the USDA now recommends that they represent the largest portion of our diets.
Fruits and vegetables are another entire area. Picking up an apple or some grapes take less time than opening a candy bar wrapper and about the same time as peeling a banana so time should not be an objection. Many complaints about incorporating these into our diets are that we or the kids don’t care for their taste. I personally am not one to say that fruits and vegetables are my favorite, but there are so many ways to add these into your diet where they really do taste good. One of my newest ways to do this is that I use a Vitamix blender and make smoothies. I can add some fresh or frozen fruits, a bit of yogurt, and some fresh veggies that I keep in the fridge, flip a switch and I have a remarkably yummy smoothie. I never thought that I would eat spinach or carrots raw, but in smoothies, I don’t even taste them. Now that’s my way to eat some raw fruits and veggie! You can also use the Vitamix when you are preparing dinner. You can add a variety of vegetables from spinach, to celery, to carrots, to cabbage to any type of sauce or soup and they go virtually undetected. You can even make ice cream that has cabbage in it. Amazing! I personally like using my Vitamix, but there are many other ways to incorporate fruits and vegetables into your diet - especially if you already enjoy their taste. Add some fresh fruit to your cereal or make some fresh fruit syrup to go on your homemade (fresh ground) pancakes. You can add more veggies into your stews, soups, and casseroles. There are limitless ways to increase your intake of fruits and veggies.
Whole foods really are not a fad. They truly are more nutritious for you and in many ways are much less expensive than their processed counterparts. Every time a food is processed, the price goes up since there are individuals needing to be paid to process the food. Just compare a bag of brown rice to a bag or box of some favored rice.
As we enter into springtime, I encourage all of you to begin looking at your diets and adding more whole foods into the mix of things you fuel your body with. You might even consider beginning a small garden to get the freshest produce (and cheapest) around. My family does gardening in square foot gardens that need very little upkeep and produce amazing produce.
Keep that Pil Suhng spirit in your meal planning as well as every area of your life.