Healthy

Know why you eat what you’re eating?

• A person asks for only egg white in their scrambled egg at the deli.
• Another orders the grilled chicken breast instead of the fried.
• A person asks for Diet Coke over regular, to accompany their meal.
• Another buys skim milk for their family at home.

People are buying “organic” labeled food as a reflex these day, but what does organic even mean?

A patient told me one time that they avoided gluten because they heard it was a poison that was put in the food to make people sick.

They all think they are making a healthy food choice. But, what is health food?

Government Guidelines Want to Say they are Health Food

Health food is largely a modern lens that we apply to food. Whereas in the past, we relied on family and ancestral knowledge to almost intuitively know what food nourished and sustained us, today there is only confusion, and trends that change every 6-12 months.

So the USDA and DHS will tell us, right?

The question is, who are they really serving?

The government and the largest producers of food in this country move in lockstep.

This is the lobby effect we see all across the board in government. This is how lunchables and chocolate milk becomes health food. This is why you buy protein water today.

One year, California marks coffee as a carcinogen. The next year, a headline reads “Coffee drinkers you’re in luck, you will avoid alzheimers”.

Enter the Healthfluencers

Everyone wants to be the final word on health food. And, in a nation where we have lost so many of the traditions of the meal that ensures true, seasonally approriate, and made-from-scratch meals, we fall for them again and again.

They move the goal posts. Cholesterol is bad, then it is good (sort of). Sugar destroyed civilization, but then it is ok.

The food producers are always two steps ahead in the game, so you feel that you are always on the cutting edge of food science with the shiny package you buy. The grocery store opens up their gluten free and plant based aisles, but all you end up with is longevity mitochondria support cereal.

FERF: First Eat Real Food

Real food does not advertise itself. It does not adorn itself with flashy packaging. It does not adapt itself to the health trend du-jour.

This is as close to a moral crusade as I will get in my life. This is why I will always fight for the preciousness of a family meal and cultural and religious food traditions through my medical practice.

It is why I never argue or say what food is healthy, and instead created the food sourcing hierarchy to help you on your way to never stress about choosing what to eat, for the rest of your life.

I choose nonnas over nutritionists, sourdough demi-baguette bakers over dieticians.

I don’t eat healthy food.