Healthy Nutrition

 To me Healthy Nutrition is a no brainer. 

There is the simple logic that if you want the best out of your body that you have to put the best into it. The acronym SISO (Shit In,Shit Out) applies to nutrition. If you want to fill your body with a diet that is filled with highly refined carbohydrates, fats and sugars aka Shit, then you can expect to be sick.  

If, on the other hand you want to fill your body with fresh fruit, fresh vegetables and healthy protein, then you can expect it to be healthy. Yes, there are unhealthy proteins and they are found in junk food and arguably protein supplements.

There is however one problem with Healthy Nutrition. Healthy Nutrition takes time and effort. It is far, far easier to just give in to our laziness and grab something quick from the supermarket than it is to plan and cook a healthy meal. What doesn't help is that we are on the receiving end of an entire industry that is devoted to moving as much product as it can. 

Make no mistake, when you visit a supermarket you are entering a seriously thought through place. Supermarkets as businesses are most decidedly more thought through than most of our decisions in life. Supermarkets are researched to death and absolutely nothing is where it is by accident. 

Have you ever noticed that the least healthy breakfast "foods", which are invariably quite expensive, are at eye level for kids? Have you ever noticed that in order to buy a healthy breakfast food like rolled Oats (which are considerably cheaper) you have to reach down. In my local supermarket, Cheetos are at the same height as my six year olds, they are at eye level in fact, the rolled Oats are on the bottom shelf and thus out of eye level for everyone but the very smallest of us. Fruitloops are about $5 a  300 gram box, Oats are $1.50 a 750 gram bag. You can see why Oats aren't exactly being flogged. Yet which food is better for you? The food industry makes heaps more profit from Fruit Loops than it does Oats.                                                                                                                                              Companies pay to have their products placed where they are, and they expect a return on their investment. All those chocolates and other things like "Lifestyle" magazines and trash mages flogging the latest fad diet at the checkouts...they cost a bundle to be there. They are there because the companies have researched the Nag factor and therefore know that we are more likely to impulse/boredom buy or give in to the kid who is currently pestering us to buy them if they are what separates us from ending our shopping. These companies are depending on our laziness to be profitable. And they are incredibly profitable.                                        

 Which are the best and worst cereals?

Five of the healthiest cereals on the market

Product	Health Star Rating	Brand	Total Fibre (g per 100g)	Sugars (g per 100g)	Sodium (g per 100g)
Kellogg’s All-Bran original	5	All-Bran Original	30	16.7	360
Sanitariums Weet-Bix Organic	5	Sanitarium	11	2.9	270
Uncle Tobys Oat Brits	5	Uncle Tobys	11	0.8	253
Uncle Tobys Shredded Wheat	5	Uncle Tobys	13	2	10
Woolworths Select High Fibre Bran	5	Woolworths Select	36	18.1	383

Five of the unhealthiest cereals on the market

Product	Health Star Rating	Brand	Total Fibre (g per 100g)	Sugars (g per 100g)	Sodium (g per 100g)
Woolworths Select Honey Nut Cornflakes	2	Woolworths Select	3	34.5	330
Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain	2	Kellogg’s	3	32	480
Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut	2	Kellogg’s	3	31.7	375
Coles Honey Crunch	2	Coles	3	42	123
Black&Gold Corn Flakes	2	Black&Gold	2	10	744

 https://www.finder.com.au/cereal-comparison  

Kurma Dasa, the Hare Krishna chef, once remarked: that if you want to be healthy, avoid the centre of the supermarket. Meat, fruit, veggies, dairy are all against the walls of the supermarket, the hyper processed garbage tends to be in the middle aisles.  But then unless you resolutely stay on the outside of the supermarket, you will have to venture into the central aisles. Just try NOT to go there with young children.
So Healthy Nutrition and how to achieve it?

Buy a pressure cooker. My pressure cooker turns raw chickpeas into cooked ones in less than an hour.
You want to cook pasta in less than 5 minutes...whack it into the pressure cooker.
Buy the cheap cuts of meat and voila you have one pot casseroles in about the same time as it takes to heat the oven.
A good rule in terms of Healthy Nutrition is: the longer the expected shelf life of the "food", the worse it is for you.

Also if the "food" is full of preservatives and flavour enhancers, then the manufacturer is trying to hide something...and that something is likely to be sub-par food.                                                              Another way of achieving Healthy Nutrition is to find someone to cook for. I love cooking for my family. So if you end up completely besotted as I did with Selina, then you have plenty of reasons to cook healthy food.
So you have found the person you want to spend the rest of your life with..and you are still eating shit food, what do you do?

 

Contemplate the cost of your shitty eating in terms of loss of life quality and length. If you happen to be in the US which has one of the most expensive, if not THE most expensive healthcare in the Western world, then you will be shelling out a lot of money to treat the:

1. Diabetes and its comorbidity
   
2. Gangrene
3. High Cholesterol
4. Snoring
5. Cardiac dysfunction
6.  High blood pressure 

 If you by chance, are luckily NOT in the US and won't have to pay their outrageous healthcare costs, then you can at the very least expect to get to know the receptionist at your local medical clinic. The price of Unhealthy Nutrition is spending your old age in waiting rooms whilst doctors pump you full of medicines. And this is if you are lucky.

My much loved brother Mark had easily the worst diet I have ever seen: 2 Litres (Quarts) of Coke a DAY, NO vegetables or fruit in his diet, Arnotts Scotch Finger biscuits for breakfast for at least 10 years.

You get the message?

Mark had 4 heart attacks and died at the age of 60.