Day 72

For the most part I think people want to eat healthy. Sure, there are times when you splurge or treat yourself, but on a daily basis I think most people are fairly conscious of what they are consuming. Honestly I just think people are so confused about what really is good for them vs. what isn’t. Take something as simple as orange juice. Seems healthy enough doesn’t it? Well, to get juice we have to press the juice out of the orange and then throw the pulp of it away, therefore losing a lot of the most nutritious components. And any time you take something out they put something back ‘in’ to make up for that taste. But when you eat a real orange, you get all the benefits of the fruit: the fiber, the vitamins, and minerals. Drinking only the juice doesn’t allow you the same things nutritionally. It’s all about maximizing the nutrition available in food.
And as I say all the time, packaging of food is extremely deceiving. I found a box of cereal in the cupboard of someone I know and love J by Kashi - which is suppose to be THE name in healthy food and I knew this person bought it with the thought in mind that she was buying a “good for you” breakfast cereal. It says, “naturally sweetened” multigrain cereal and is “lean”. Of course, the first thing I look at is the number of ingredients it has - 18. Yes, it probably is better than some other cereals out there, but in terms of sugar it has more grams of sugar than Peanut Butter Captain Crunch! Now in all fairness, the Kashi cereal is higher in fiber and protein and lower in sodium than Captain Crunch. I guess the bottom line, is - just pay attention. Be aware of what you’re eating. And be very skeptical of packaging labels!
As I’ve said before, eating REAL food isn’t a blank check to eat all the food you want as long as its REAL. Even now I can tell a difference in the REAL foods I eat and how they make me feel. When I stick with lots of fruits and vegetables, I rarely over eat. But when I throw in the bread and granola, I can easily eat more than I should. I’ve always been a bread person and it’s one of my weaknesses so in all honesty, I shouldn’t eat it at all. Since I haven’t been home for a while, I haven’t made our homemade bread so I’ve been without for almost 3 weeks and I’m surviving just fine. J I think that should be my next ’goal’ is to cut out those things that make me feel ’sluggish’ after eating them. It may not be the food itself but the amount of that food I’m eating! I’ll work on that.