How to eat healthy and navigate through the junk food maze
Navigating the maze of junk food can be a difficult task, but if you want to know how to eat healthy, there are a few simple rules to follow.
First and foremost, say goodbye to the cat, king and queen of junk food, ‘carbohydrates’. Yes, you read that right, ‘carbohydrates’.
Carbohydrates are flour and sugar, alone, mixed together, and/or combined with fat. They form the basis of the high-energy diet loved by all civilizations.
Since ancient times, our genetic makeup has forced us to crave flour, sugar, and fat. In an era of scarcity, it’s exactly what you need to eat to get massive amounts of energy into your body in the shortest amount of time, whether it’s to break a famine or prepare for the famine that might be on its way.
When you have to grow or forage your own food, there’s usually not much to pick, and the food that’s readily available isn’t full of fat, flour, and sugar and isn’t wrapped in cellophane.
These days it’s the opposite. Almost everywhere he goes, brightly colored pre-packaged carbohydrates are staring him in the face, begging to buy them. You can’t pay for a magazine at the newsstand without bending over a counter full of candy. The same when you go to pay for your gasoline. His greengrocer will have a box of chocolates near the box. Even the pharmacy will have little packets of gummies to tempt you on the go, and don’t you need a little pep after visiting the pharmacy?
it’s insidious. Carbohydrate manufacturers are running amok with people’s health, leaving it to governments to clean up the mess. At a minimum, carbohydrates should be packaged in plain packaging.
But in the age of junk food, when your next snack may be ten minutes away (in the form of a chocolate chip cookie or soda pop) and contains the exact same ingredients as the carbohydrate meal you just ate, carb-loading 24 /7/365 is not a smart move. You just get fatter and fatter.
When all is said and done, (and when it comes to eating wisely, there’s usually a lot more said than done), if you want to eat healthy, ditch the carbs; bread, cookies, pasta, cakes, confectionery, chocolate… and stay away from sugary and carbonated soft drinks.
Let me give you an idea of the energy density of carbohydrates.
As a point of reference, a carrot contains about 30 calories/100 g).
The bread contains about 250 calories/100 g. The problem is that few people have only dry bread. They smother it with margarine, peanut butter, and honey, which doubles the amount of power. It becomes a huge dump of energy that the body cannot handle. They end up with all sorts of metabolic dysfunctions of which being fat and diabetic are the two most prominent symptoms.
Boiled popsicles, licorice, ‘snakes’ and jubes (made almost entirely with sugar) contain around 450 calories/100g. Have you ever eaten a 250g packet of licorice in one sitting?
Add fat to sugar and you get chocolate, which has around 550 calories/100g, nearly 20 times the energy in a carrot. And when about 2,000 calories a day is all you need, 550 calories in a couple of bites means that by the time you’ve had breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you’ll be well on your way to exceeding your daily energy intake limit.
Cookies, do you like cookies? A dry flour and fat cracker can range from 400 calories/100g to 560 calories/100g for a Ritz cracker. And nobody had a Rit (sic), or one that didn’t come lathered with sauce or cheese. The small plastic container of dip can hold up to 500 calories.
The simplest digestive biscuits are around 475 calories/100g, which leads to more than 550 calories/100g for a chocolate chip cookie. Have you ever eaten just one chocolate chip cookie? It’s like trying to eat a peanut.
When I grew up, if you said, ‘Mom, I’m hungry,’ she would say, ‘Have an apple.’ Today children are told to eat a bar full of fat, flour and sugar. They are programmed into the carbohydrate lifestyle from a very young age.
When it comes to quenching thirst, it’s more or less the same. Back in my day, when you said, ‘Mom, I’m thirsty,’ she said, ‘Have a drink of water.’ These days, when kids say, ‘Mom, I’m thirsty,’ the answer is often, ‘Pour yourself a fizzy drink.’
Second, if you want to eat healthy, stop eating so much. Some of the food served in cafes and restaurants is gigantic. The people who prepare them must have absolutely no training in nutritional science. It’s a good case to have ‘fat cops’ going around the food outlets re-educating the staff. Anyone who does not have a certificate in portion control will not be able to prepare food.
Despite what your mother has instilled in you, you don’t have to eat everything on your plate.
And did I forget to mention the fries? Don’t order fries. Every 100g contains another 500 calories.
If you want to stop eating so much, drink a glass of water before each meal. And instead of ice cream and chocolate chip cookies for dessert, have a piece of fruit.
Between meals, drink green tea. People often confuse being thirsty with being hungry. Stay well hydrated with a sugar-free drink that doesn’t come from a bottle or can.
An apple contains about 50 calories per 100 g. What do you think is better for you, an apple or a Mars bar?
Meanwhile, be attentive, very attentive; stay away from carbs and eat from the top of the hourglass.
john miller