So I had discussions with a couple of friends this weekend about their diets and their reasoning for their diets. Controlling what goes in your body effects how much energy your have, how long you will live, and your overall health. It seems that's a major topic these days. Everyone has an opinion, or belief. There seems to be good reasoning behind most diets, and yet they all seem so different. But I've come to the conclusion that they are all flawed.
Lets face it. If you followed a good, health eating guide, you'd just not eat anymore. Everything is bad for you, or the environment, or your moral standards. If we were all vegan, and glutton free, and only bought within the "100 mile diet", and only ate organic, and didn't eat processed foods, we would have really nothing to eat, except some local, expensive fruits and vegetables, part of the year.
People like to subscribe to one type of diet, and stick to it as if it's the one and only solution. This isn't religion, you can pick more than one.
The human body in an amazing thing. It can process so many types of foods. We have adapted over many thousands of years, to get our energy and nutrition from any source we have available. We also have an ability to remove harmful toxins from our foods. Take alcohol for an example. Alcohol is a poison, not unlike cyanide, or arsenic. If you drink a vast amount of alcohol, it will kill you. If you drink slightly less, you will vomit and pass out. These are probably signs of your body telling you, this is a poison, don't take too much. But if you have a very small amount each day, the long and short term effects are negated by your liver. Our bodies evolved to have livers, so that toxic or poisonous things can be taken out of our bodies, to prevent harming ourselves. If you ingest large amounts of poison, on a daily basis (a bottle of booze, or a case of beer lets say) your liver will be over worked and will at some point fail, but if you keep it to a small amount, your liver will probably last indefinitely. That's the wonder of the human body, it can handle almost anything, IN MODERATION.
Also, everyones body is different, and we all have different requirements in out diets. We are always told that salt is bad and avoid it at all costs, but that's because most foods these days have too much salt in them. But salt is not bad, the average person just needs less of it, but take someone that runs marathons, and sweats a lot, they often deplete the salt in their bodies, and need to take in extra. People also like to avoid carbohydrates, and calories as much as they can. This is simply because people are in the habit of taking in more energy than they are using, but if you lead a labor intensive life, and have a fast metabolism, you might seek out as many carbs and calories as you can stuff in your face. What works for one person, might not for someone else. People that are allergic to peanuts, probably shouldn't eat them, but that's not to say that peanuts are bad for everyone. Everyone reacts different to different foods. One diet wont work for everyone.
Did you ever think about the alternative to what you are trying to avoid? Some people try so hard to avoid something, that they might be putting something far worse in their bodies. Take the atkins diet, or people that use aspertame instead of sugar. Is fake sugar healthier than real sugar? Or are you just replacing diabetes with cancer? Sugar isn't bad, people just eat too much of it. Moderation people.
All the different diets try to avoid one thing, whether it's meat, or animal products, or gluten, or carbs, or growth hormones, or preservatives, or fat, etc. But cutting one or two of those things out is not healthy eating. I can eat gluten free, and have greasy, deep fried, KFC chicken, with bacon on it. Is that healthy? I can be a vegan and eat potato chips and twinkies for every meal. Is that healthy?
There's always a catch. If all farmers were to only grow organic products, production would drop approximately one third. That means there would be one third the amount to go around, which means a lot of people, would starve to death. The world needs a lot of food to feed the masses, and humanity has found a way to deliver. People complain about the way it's been delivered, but offer no solution to produce food as cheap or as fast as it's being done.
Choosing to avoid one specific thing just seems like a waste of time. I doubt that thing that you are avoiding is harmful if you eat it in moderation. Instead I offer the simple advice of common sense. Most of us could afford to eat less meat, less gluten, less processed foods, and less junk food. We could replace said foods with more fruits and vegetables, and foods with better nutritional values than doughnuts, and Doritos. Subscribing to one diet, does not make you healthy, in fact it's probably harmful if you don't research the best way to approach that diet, and know what alternatives best replace the things you are trying to cut out. You know what is healthy and what isn't. Moderation is the key.
