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Because food is one of the most important things in our daily lives, I like to give you some facts about healthy food,as hardly anybody thinks about the consequences of what they eat and how it will effect their health and the quality of their live. As food is such an important factor in our lives, it should be a priority as one of the fundamental topics that children learn about throughout school. And parents don't generally compensate for this lack of education because they were never taught about it either. If you want to be truly lean and healthy, you need to think differently than the average person who eats what they see and knows what tastes good, without thinking about it. There have to be some simple rules in order to be able to distinguish between healthy, nutritious food and all the food that's making you fat and sick. There is a lot of confusion about what is the best "diet". People seem to jump from fad diet to fad diet, like low-fat diets, atkins diets, south beach diets, grapefruit diets, detox diets, vegetarian diets and sometimes ridiculous diets that often are based on one person's opinion or marketing scheme rather than on actual science. The only "diet" that's actually based on real science is the study of paleolithic nutrition. It's not like any other fad diet, but it's based on real archaeological nutritional science, about what our ancestors ate before the agricultural revolution. For the first 99.5% of our existence (ancestors back as far as 2 Million years ago, homo erectus) humans only ate wild plants and animals. But for the last 0.5% of our existence (since the agricultural revolution in the last 5,000 to 10,000 years), humans now almost entirely eat farmed plants and animals. The biggest change this represent is the massive inclusion of grains in our current diet, compared to our Paleolithic ancestors. Many people think that we don't know exactly what our ancestors ate, but this is not true. Nutritional archaeologists know convincingly what ancient human beings ate as they studied a lot of evidence, such as ancient feces remains, as well as isotope ratios in human bone samples from all over the world, through every time period in history to determine ratios of animals versus plants that ancient humans ate. Which was always an omnivorous mixture of plants and animals, and a fairly high protein intake. There was no such thing as ancient paleolithic vegetarians. Any nutritional archaeologist can confirm that they simply didn't exist. We were all omnivores that ate different ratios of plants and animals, based on what part of the world, what latitude we lived and what time of the year. So what exactly did our ancestors eat for the first 99.5% of our existence? wild meat,fish, and seafood (animals that ate the right foods, unlike our current farmed meats and farmed fish) ,fruits, veggies, eggs, nuts and seeds. Grains were only a very tiny fraction of the ancient Paleolithic diet, as there was no way to process large amounts of grain into flour. It would only be small amounts of wild grain in an occasional soup or stew. As you can see, this is totally different from the modern human diet that includes grain in almost every meal and in very large quantities in cereals, breads, pasta, muffins, bagels etc. Now let's get into the details of some of the most important facts about food. #1. You would be healthier and leaner if you get most of your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables instead of grains and processed sugar. The biggest problem with grains, apart from deregulation of your blood sugar system (pancreas and insulin sensitivity) is that grain contains a lot of anti-nutrients which prevent your body from absorbing some minerals, as well as gluten and other substances that cause chronic gut inflammation and even possible digestive system damage with severe gluten intolerance. Potatoes and sweet potatoes have less problems in terms of digestive system inflammation than grains do. #2. Look for quality protein sources such as wild game, wish fish and seafood, grass-fed meats, and free-roaming organically fed chicken eggs. Try to avoid most farmed meats and fish that were fed mostly grains. #3. Be aware of the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio of the food you eat. The diet of our ancestors in the Paleolithic era appears that it had a ratio of approx. 1:1 to 2:1 omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids. The current western diet contains anywhere between 20:1 and 30:1 ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats. This is a big problem and one of the reasons that there are so many degenerative diseases. In order to improve this ratio, you need to avoid soybean oils corn oil, cottonseed oil and minimize grain-fed meats and farmed fish. Instead, focus on wild fish like salmon, sardines, mackerel, free-range eggs and other foods that can help you to get more omega-3. An important fact to know is that animal sources of omega-3 are much more powerful to your health than plant-based omega-3 sources. This is because animal sources of omega-3 already contain DHA and EPA already converted, compared to plant sources who don't, and your body is very inefficient at converting plant sources of omega-3 fats to DHA and EPA. #4. Three of the most important foods in the Western diet to avoid are: corn, soy and wheat, and there derivatives like corn syrup, corn oil, soybean oil, soy protein etc. Currently, the average adult eating a typical modern western diet in countries like USA, Canada, Australia etc.consumes approx. 67% of their total calorie intake from only 3 foods: corn, soy and wheat. Our ancestors have historically eaten over 80,000 species of plants, animals and fungi throughout human history, compared to modern humans who are getting 67% of their calories from only three foods. That's a problem! #5. Watch out for hidden calories and inflammation-causing ingredients in condiments and dressings. Most people are unaware of how many calories and metabolism damaging high fructose corn syrup they are ingesting in things like ketchup, salad dressings, marinades etc. Be a label reader and avoid HFCS! Despite deceptive advertisements from the corn refining industry that claim "HFCS is no worse than sugar and is natural", this is far from the truth! These are just a few of some facts about health food and I hope this will make you more aware of the hidden facts about healthy food. About the Author: Adrian Joele became interested in nutrition and weight management while he was an associate with a nutritional supplement company. Since 2008 he wrote several articles about nutrition and weight loss and achieved expert status with Ezine Articles.com. He has been involved in nutrition and weight management for more than 12 years and he likes to share his knowledge with anyone who could benefit from it. Get his free report on nutrition and tips for healthy living, by visiting: http://www.nutrobalance2.net
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