You know what? I simply DON'T know how to eat healthy.

[Garga]

I read threads on here talking about "bad" food and "good" food.

 

I've been be-bopping along thinking that I eat healthfully...but I guess I don't.

 

I mean...I thought that apples were good and canned mandarin oranges in water were ok. I like the taste of iceburg lettuce, and use it with cabbage on all my salads. I also like button mushrooms.

 

I thought that my apple while I exercise, my oranges with lunch, and my lettuce/cabbage/mushroom salad at dinner were good for me.

 

 

I am very discouraged. :001_unsure: I'm not trying to lose weight, but I had always thought that we were eating somewhat healthy meals.

 

For example: dinner tonight is homemade pizza. We eat it every Thursday. I'd always thought it was a pretty good meal. Bread, light amt of cheese, tomato sauce, a few onions/tomatoes on top. But nope--the bread is white flour and the tomato sauce is sugar laden. My cheese is probably bad, too. And the tomatoes aren't organic, so they're probably bad. Who even knows about the onion? :confused:

[I.Dup.]

Eh, sounds like you're doing fine to me. As long as you aren't gorging yourself on fast food for each meal and you're being reasonably conscious about it, you're doing good in my book.

 

I tend to fall into obsessiveness over things like this but in reality, we're all going to die. This world is laden with toxins whether we try to avoid them or not. There are certainly worse things than apples and mandarin oranges.

[Julie in Austin]

I find it helpful to think of "healthy" as a sliding scale, not a "yes" or "no."

 

For example, your homemade pizza is a LOT healthier than anything you would get at a restaurant, or if you loaded it with cheese and sausage at home.

 

And it could be made healthier if you bought sauce with no added sugar, and made it on wheat bread, and added more veggies.

 

As you get healthier, you sometimes have to sacrifice taste, or cost, or convenience. There are trade-offs, and so I don't feel the need to try to be perfect.

[meggie]

Well, with food there is bad, good, better, and best. While a homemade white pizza dough is good, it is missing the whole grain that could make it better. But it's not grease laden fast foods, so it's not bad.

 

And canned mandarin oranges in water are good, but to can foods, they must be heated and Vitamin C is very sensitive to heat and light. So they would be better if they were fresh, but they are better than super-processed foods.

 

Iceberg lettuce is good for you, it has lots of fiber and water, but is missing a lot of vitamins that darker version (like romaine, spinach, and greenleaf) have.

 

If you do some research, you will find that even experts won't agree on what is best. Some say fat is bad, some say saturated fat is bad, some say coconut oil (a saturated fat) is good. Some say organic is best, some say local organic is best, some say it doesn't matter at all.

 

My personal philosophy is that the more natural a food is, the better it is for you. I kinda follow the book Real Food by Nina Planck. If it's been around for thousands of years, it's ok.

[UnsinkableKristen]

Meh - I wouldn't worry about it. I totally agree with the sliding scale thing.

 

You can ALWAYS go more hard core with eating (Vegetarian? No, be Vegan. Vegan? No. Be Raw. Avoid non organics? No, avoid non organics AND anything not local. Etc.) and at some point you suck the joy out and make it into some endless cause or chore. Food doesn't have to be joyless drudgery to be healthy!!

 

So enjoy your iceberg lettuce and your button mushrooms and your homemade pizza and give yourself a break. :D

[KristinaBreece]

Meh - I wouldn't worry about it. I totally agree with the sliding scale thing.

 

You can ALWAYS go more hard core with eating (Vegetarian? No, be Vegan. Vegan? No. Be Raw. Avoid non organics? No, avoid non organics AND anything not local. Etc.) and at some point you suck the joy out and make it into some endless cause or chore. Food doesn't have to be joyless drudgery to be healthy!!

 

So enjoy your iceberg lettuce and your button mushrooms and your homemade pizza and give yourself a break. :D

 

ITA. Besides, it could ALWAYS be worse. You could give your kids Jello once in a while.:D

[Lady Florida.]

You're fine. As other posters said, canned fruits aren't the best, but they aren't unhealthy unless they're drowning in sugary syrup. Iceberg has little nutrition, but you balanced it with cabbage, which is loaded nutrients.

 

I generally try to follow what Michael Pollen (The Omnivore's Dilemma) says:

 

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

[SonshineLearner]

I think that what we should try to do is eat.... food in it's most natural state. SO, organic, unprocessed, food... and flour should be freshly milled.... As close to that as one can get. Of course, everyone dies, but I'd rather not die early because of poor healthy choices. So, I'm not a purist, but I'm trying to be healthy. :)

[Crissy]

You could give your kids Jello once in a while.:D

 

You call that a healthy snack? :confused:

 

 

 

;)

[Crissy]

I read threads on here talking about "bad" food and "good" food.

 

I've been be-bopping along thinking that I eat healthfully...but I guess I don't.

 

 

 

That depends on which expert you ask.

It's so confusing, isn't it?

It seems to me that we are beginning to understand a bit more about how sugar and processed carbohydrates affect our bodies. Because low-fat, high-carb diets are the "official" recommendation at the moment, the messages are contradictory.

[Mommyof4ks]

We try to eat healthy too, but it is hard to decide today what is best with organic/non-organic, GMO, 'natural' what does that even mean (anthrax is natural but eating it might not be a good idea), and 'the experts' can't even agree. I know people who have eaten cr*p all their lives and are healthy and people who ate right, exercised right and died of a heart attack in their 30s and 40s. We ate mainly organic, stayed away from pesticides, and on and on and my son still got cancer. There are toxins in our world that we cannot control, so do the best you can and don't stress about the rest.

 

We had organic peanut butter on homemade whole wheat bread for lunch, but then we added Doritos on the side with our organic apple lol. Some things just taste good.

[Nestof3]

:chillpill:

 

You can kill yourself trying to eat perfectly.

 

Dare I tell you that my husband announced it was take-out pizza night?

 

So, I had two slices, a mound of steamed spinach and 5 large asparagus stalks.

 

Oh, and birthday cake. :lol:

 

What's wrong with apples?

 

*****************

 

I would like to add that based on people I see, I think genetics has more to do with how long a person lives unless you're talking about very unhealthy lifestyles (alcoholic, smoking, etc.)

 

I still try to eat well, but I've already had skin cancer at 38. I know many women who were tanning goddesses who have no skin cancer. (just one example)

 

I think the same thing is true for weight. I think people just overall have different body styles and propensity to be larger. I know many people who eat like cr@p compared to me and they are sticks.

Edited April 29, 2011 by nestof3

[Garga]

 

What's wrong with apples?

 

 

 

Exactly! I don't know!

 

On another thread about food in the school cafeteria, someone said something along the lines that apples aren't the best choice of fruit...(I'm loosely paraphrasing.)

 

And it's things like that. I was very proud of myself for eating my apple every morning while I walk on the treadmill...and then I find out that someone out there is saying apples aren't that great....It's just baffling to me.

 

 

Maybe they're not good because you eat the skin, and so they're covered with pesticides, unless you buy organic. Which I don't.

[Lady Florida.]

 

You can ALWAYS go more hard core with eating (Vegetarian? No, be Vegan. Vegan? No. Be Raw. Avoid non organics? No, avoid non organics AND anything not local. Etc.) and at some point you suck the joy out and make it into some endless cause or chore. Food doesn't have to be joyless drudgery to be healthy!!

 

 

 

I love this.

[susankenny]

ITA. Besides, it could ALWAYS be worse. You could give your kids Jello once in a while.:D

 

LOL. That was a good one! I got it;)

 

Susan

[Lady Florida.]

:chillpill:

 

 

*****************

 

I would like to add that based on people I see, I think genetics has more to do with how long a person lives unless you're talking about very unhealthy lifestyles (alcoholic, smoking, etc.)

 

 

 

I do believe this plays a part. Dh had one grandmother who lived to be 95, the other 103. Both grew up in the south at a time when cooking in bacon grease was commonplace. They cooked vegetables until they were mush. And bread was always white. Oh, and there was never a shortage of red meat on the table.

[Truscifi]

I think apples are good for you. Sure, it is better if you can buy organic, but we can't usually afford that. But my non organic apples are still way better than peaches in heavy syrup, which is still better than a twinkie. I guess I'm a fan of the sliding scale of healthiness too. ;)

[Nestof3]

I do believe this plays a part. Dh had one grandmother who lived to be 95, the other 103. Both grew up in the south at a time when cooking in bacon grease was commonplace. They cooked vegetables until they were mush. And bread was always white. Oh, and there was never a shortage of red meat on the table.

 

Sounds like my in-laws who are 86 and 90. Yellow squash? fried. Chipped beef and gravy: standard breakfast when my husband was growing up. All vegetables boiled for hours.

 

Then, there was my super healthy, workout friend from college who ate bowls of broccoli for the fun of it. He ate amazingly and worked out every day. He ended up being diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and had a massive stroke at 30. He is now legally blind (cannot even recognize me) but still competes in swimming competitions. He also teaches advanced calculus.

[Nestof3]

I think apples are good for you. Sure, it is better if you can buy organic, but we can't usually afford that. But my non organic apples are still way better than peaches in heavy syrup, which is still better than a twinkie. I guess I'm a fan of the sliding scale of healthiness too. ;)

 

I insist they are very good for you. :D

 

Or how about some Splenda-sweetened pears? Who in the world needs to sweeten them in the first place? I never did understand that one.

[Truscifi]

I insist they are very good for you. :D

 

Or how about some Splenda-sweetened pears? Who in the world needs to sweeten them in the first place? I never did understand that one.

 

:001_huh: I have never seen this. Why on earth would someone ruin perfectly good pears that way?

[Mrs Mungo]

Do you watch Top Chef? They are having a "masters" contest this time with chefs who are already well known. The last show involved contestants from The Biggest Loser. The chefs were supposed to make low-calorie dishes of some of the contestants favorite dishes.

 

So, one chef was supposed to make a low-calorie bacon cheeseburger. He made a bean pattie thing, not even one that really looked like a burger patty, it looked more like falafel, (NTTEWWT, it's just not burger-like), slapped some cabbage on there and served it with a whole wheat pita. Then, he has the nerve to go off about how bad beef is, because he's a vegetarian, and red meat is part of the reason America is so fat, blah-blah.

 

The contestants were not happy.

 

The bean patty thing that was not a burger was not delicious.

 

The judges did not think what he did was cool, and said there was nothing inherently unhealthy about red meat.

 

He got sent home.

 

Does that answer your question? :001_smile:

[CatMomof3]

:iagree: or any other fruit.

[Nestof3]

:001_huh: I have never seen this. Why on earth would someone ruin perfectly good pears that way?

 

My MIL buys them.

[Dolphin]

One of my friends turned me onto the eat clean diet (and the mean diet as in what you are eating, not trying to lose 50 pounds in a month :lol:)

 

She really talks about trying to make small changes over time. I thought I was good giving me kids Oatmeal (the instant Quaker kind). I knew it was high in sugar, but I figured my kids are skinny, a little sugar can't hurt. Also, I personally hate oatmeal so I don't eat it.

 

After reading her book I realized that it was time to put on my big girl panties and learn to get some oatmeal down each day. So, this is how we have started to change what we eat.

 

1. I joined my kids with the Quaker oats. I added a teaspoon of ground flax seed and wheat germ to each bowl. I bought bee pollen and started the kids slowly to make sure there were no allergies. That is all I did the first month. We were going on vacation, and I wanted to read more of the book.

 

2. Now that we are back from vacation I am making real oatmeal. Still adding the flax and wheatgerm and now the bee pollen as none of us are allergic. We are using golden syrup to sweeten or brown sugar (no corn syrup) I have also added fruit on the side (right now it is mandarin oranges I have to admit.) we are going to do this for another few weeks. I am doing my plan for our next change which is..

 

3. Fresh berries with our oatmeal and a protein source, probably eggs.

 

4. Adding beans or lentils daily. I plan to do this with soups or bean salads.

 

That is far as we have gotten, and as far as we are planned. I am planning on slowly changing 1 thing at a time and getting used to it for a month before we do the next thing. We will never be a 100% compliant family. But it would be nice to get to 80%. I am noticing a difference with just the oatmeal change. The kids are too.

 

I don't think what you are eating sounds too bad, but if you are wanting a change, this is the way we are trying it.

 

Nicole

[SonshineLearner]

And, for those in Oregon, we have great sources for organic beef and bison/buffalo... so "when I get my freezer" then I want to get organic meat. It's not too expensive when you buy it in larger quantities... :)

[Garga]

 

She really talks about trying to make small changes over time. I thought I was good giving me kids Oatmeal (the instant Quaker kind). I knew it was high in sugar, but I figured my kids are skinny, a little sugar can't hurt. Also, I personally hate oatmeal so I don't eat it.

 

After reading her book I realized that it was time to put on my big girl panties and learn to get some oatmeal down each day. So, this is how we have started to change what we eat.

 

 

See....this is the exactly the sort of thing that I'm talking about!!!

 

I just recently started eating oatmeal, because I knew it was good for me. But I've been eating the Quaker cinnamon flavored packages. And (until now) I was pretty convinced I was doing awesome, because I've been eating oatmeal!

 

I'm going to go with the "sliding scale" advice right now and know that the flavored oatmeal is better than a pop tart. (Er...right?) But not as good as the homemade oatmeal with flax.

 

I like your suggestion of reading a book and implementing only one small thing at a time. I can get a handle on that. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Dolphin]

See....this is the exactly the sort of thing that I'm talking about!!!

 

I just recently started eating oatmeal, because I knew it was good for me. But I've been eating the Quaker cinnamon flavored packages. And (until now) I was pretty convinced I was doing awesome, because I've been eating oatmeal!

 

I'm going to go with the "sliding scale" advice right now and know that the flavored oatmeal is better than a pop tart. (Er...right?) But not as good as the homemade oatmeal with flax.

 

I like your suggestion of reading a book and implementing only one small thing at a time. I can get a handle on that. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

Oh good! You mean I helped for once instead of being my normal thread killer:lol::lol::lol::lol:.

 

I started by adding the flax TO the Quaker!

[Dolphin]

And, for those in Oregon, we have great sources for organic beef and bison/buffalo... so "when I get my freezer" then I want to get organic meat. It's not too expensive when you buy it in larger quantities... :)

 

I didn't realize you were an Oregonian? Do you live near Portland? Most people around the world would think that it is weird that I go to a big bark dust and rock supplier to get my beef and pork products.

[Nestof3]

I love maple syrup in my oatmeal! I don't use it anymore b/c I am trying to lose weight, but it's yummy.

 

Sometimes, I make Scottish oats (Bob's Red Mill) which don't take very long, and while the water is boiling, I cook some diced apple in coconut oil. I then add cinnamon and halved pecans. YUM! You could add sweetener to this.

 

See....this is the exactly the sort of thing that I'm talking about!!!

 

I just recently started eating oatmeal, because I knew it was good for me. But I've been eating the Quaker cinnamon flavored packages. And (until now) I was pretty convinced I was doing awesome, because I've been eating oatmeal!

 

I'm going to go with the "sliding scale" advice right now and know that the flavored oatmeal is better than a pop tart. (Er...right?) But not as good as the homemade oatmeal with flax.

 

I like your suggestion of reading a book and implementing only one small thing at a time. I can get a handle on that. Thanks for the suggestion.

[MelanieM]

3. Fresh berries with our oatmeal and a protein source, probably eggs.

 

I add almond flour to our oatmeal for protein. I also add chia seeds and coconut oil, and usually cocoa powder so the kids get chocolate oatmeal (my daughter doesn't like it much otherwise). A little honey to sweeten and it's a yummy breakfast! :D

I totally agree on the idea of looking at things on a sliding scale. I also sometimes like to think back 10 years or so and really appreciate how far I have come instead of always focusing on how much farther there is to go. It helps to celebrate and appreciate the improvements and successes. :)

[TheCoffeeChick]

Exactly! I don't know!

 

On another thread about food in the school cafeteria, someone said something along the lines that apples aren't the best choice of fruit...(I'm loosely paraphrasing.)

 

And it's things like that. I was very proud of myself for eating my apple every morning while I walk on the treadmill...and then I find out that someone out there is saying apples aren't that great....It's just baffling to me.

 

 

Maybe they're not good because you eat the skin, and so they're covered with pesticides, unless you buy organic. Which I don't.

 

 

Have these people never heard of the old saying, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away"!?!?!? It's awesome you're having one everyday - and much better than some of the other junk out there. I have an apple everyday with my lunch - it keeps me full longer than if I go without one.

 

I, for one, think your food choices were healthy -- you go, girl! :D