Eat Whole Real Foods

As a dietitian and holistic health coach, I work closely with clients to assist them in gaining health and happiness.  Although there are many lifestyle aspects to achieving optimal health, such as getting enough sleep and reducing stress levels, I always start with food first.  This is because food has the power to either promote health or cause disease.  An abundance of research shows us that a healthful diet can prevent, treat and often times reverse chronic disease and some cancers. Food is not like medicine, it is medicine. 

We now know through the study of epigenetics that food is a lot more than just calories and nutrients, food is literally information for our body.  A healthy diet can turn our good genes on and our bad genes off. An unhealthy diet can have the opposite effect. The foods we eat have a huge influence on our health outcome. Our genetics need not be our destiny.

So, what foods should we be eating?

While each of us is unique, there are some basic and simple foundations of healthy eating. The most important being, to eat a whole, real foods diet, as minimally processed as possible.

Whole Real Foods

These are foods which are in their whole form and have undergone minimal processing before reaching our plates.  We can recognise these foods in their whole state.

Examples include fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, legumes, lentils, eggs, meat and seafood. Whole plant foods are all close to the state they were in when harvested and come loaded with phytochemicals, vitamins, minerals and fibre. 

While most foods we eat have undergone some degree of processing, there is a big difference between minimally processed and ultra-processed. 

Minimally Processed Foods

Foods that have been washed, chopped, canned or frozen can be considered minimally processed.  However, this isn’t always a bad thing e.g., tinned tomatoes or frozen vegetables can give us access to these foods year-round and form part of a healthful diet.  Rolled oats and shelled walnuts are other examples of healthy, minimally processed foods which are full of phytochemicals, fibre, vitamins and minerals – essential for optimal health.

But as the degree of processing and refining increases, the food’s nutritional value decreases.  With more processing, the likelihood that less-beneficial ingredients like fat, sugar and salt are added goes up and the likelihood of vitamins and minerals being present goes down.

Processed Foods

These foods usually contain around 2-4 ingredients and may also have additives and preservatives added.  Examples include bread, cheese and pasta.

But with further processing, we have Ultra-processed foods.

Ultra-processed foods

 These “foods” are formulations or concoctions of mostly cheap industrial sources of dietary energy and nutrients with additives, using a series of processes.  They contain minimal whole foods.  Most of the ingredients you wouldn’t recognise and the processes you wouldn’t be able to perform in your own kitchen.  The ingredients list is usually long and includes items such as hydrogenated oils, hydrolysed proteins, modified starches, anti-caking agents, artificial flavours and colours with lots of numbers.

Examples include lollies, chips, hotdogs, cereals, ready-made-meals, nuggets, wraps, biscuits, snack bars, energy and soft drinks……just to mention a few!

Ultra-processed foods are cheap, convenient and designed to be hyper-palatable They have been shown to be significant contributors to the development of lifestyle diseases, including heart disease, cancers, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Whole food diets, rich in plants, have been linked with lower rates of heart disease, obesity and some cancers, improved immunity and gut-health and lower rates of cognitive decline in the elderly.

For optimal health and wellness, choose a whole real foods diet, rich in nutrient-dense plant foods, as close to nature and as minimally processed as possible and minimise or avoid processed and ultra-processed foods.