Essay Sample on Food Rules

Introduction

Food is a basic need for every human being. But what kind of food should we consume and how should we consume it? Most of the people go by the 'mythical advice' given by health physicians and nutritional books that hinder them from eating the kinds of foods that linger in their minds whenever they get to visit a menu or ailing down the supermarket's food sections; the so-called 'unhealthy foods'. In the modern days, food is no longer food, rather the nutrients contents in the food. The most important ingredient in food nowadays is what is the nutrients content of the food? Does it contain any calories? Such invisible food content is what matters to most people, and is the misconception of the eating well (Pollan, 2009). We are all in a confused state, where no one knows if the 'western diet' is the right diet or the 'traditional diet' is healthy eating. Any nutrition vocabulary or biochemistry is highly avoided, but the book is not being anti-science, the fact is people are supposed to eat real food, and in moderation Pollan, 2010). The major rules of food that I shall discuss in this paper are the keep it real rule and Eat all the junk you want as long as you cook it yourself. For millenniums, human beings led a healthy life and ate well, before the nutritional science interrupted to dictate to us how to eat, however, the answer to what we should eat should not be too complicated.

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As earlier stated in my introduction, my two basic food rules are:

Keep it real. Eat Food, not too much. Mostly plants. Food is food. It has no definite explanation. However, food is can be categorized as real food and highly processed food. The highly processed food products have dominated the modern American food market and peoples' diets. This rule of food helps one to distinguish between the real food; that is the animals, plants and the fungi generations have been eating from the modern highly processed food products. These rules have an agenda of keeping people away from unhealthy foodstuff. Buy market food that is uncooked or prepared in any way. Prefer to buy the whole grains rather than processed grains.

Plan to buying a whole fruit, rather than fruit juice, eating a banana rather than a banana flavored breakfast cereals. Eating as lightly processed foods as possible and by this I mean food that has totally zero stage of a refinery. The manufacturers nowadays completely strip nutrients from real whole meals, to produce packaging that is highly refined and preservatives added to increase the shelf-life. The preservatives that they use are such as sugar, unhealthy fats, and sugars. For healthy eating, it is advisable to stick to the natural real whole foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables, whose phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals are natural to play their purposes in the bodies, of disease protection, weight control and general health of the consumers.

In this rule, choose foods that cannot go for long without getting spoilt. They offer the most nutritious benefits. Most of the industrial farms pick the farm produce before they mature, to ship them for long distances without getting them spoilt and while avoiding processing. However, according to a report given by the Harvard Medical School, harvesting some fruits and vegetables before maturing reduces their nutritional values. The red peppers and tomatoes to be specific, maintain their rich vitamin C if allowed to ripen over the sun, while on the plant (Shi, & Maguer, 2000).

Eating a variety of foods will not harm since the stomach does not choose what to process based on colors or the type of foods taken in. an array of food every day on your platter goes a long way in maintaining a healthy life and food diet since a mixture of all the different foods contributes different nutrients to the body. Try swapping foods often, like if your daily fruit is a banana and a watermelon, try mixing it with a bit of pineapple and mangoes. Dice it up with some strawberry to extract all the vitamin C. If you do or die butter is peanut, how about making it more fun by mixing it with a dash of some cashew butter? (Goetzke, Nitzko, & Spiller, 2014).

People often have a myth about spices. Spicing up your food is much more than adding pepper and salt. Spices not only add flavor to food but have a wide phytonutrient value. Mixing a variety of spices like Thyme, Cumin, Cardamoms, Oregano, Bay leaf, rosemary, ginger, Cinnamon and turmeric do more health benefits to the body than to the food's taste. For example, ginger and Turmeric are anti-inflammatories and anti-oxidants Murray & Pizzorno, 2010) and (Goetzke, et. al., 2014).

Have good eating behavior. Must you find yourself in a situation that it is a must to eat processed, then eat the lightly processed foods a little less. These lightly processed foods are usually hard to pin down. They include roasted nuts, berries juice, pasta, yogurt, butter, and cheese. It is okay to eat them but the point is light. Likewise, with frozen fruits, canned peas or beans, canned tomatoes, and butter. These products closely resemble real natural whole foods, therefore having a less often consumption will not give any harm

Eat all the junk you want as long as you cook it yourself. Manufacturers of candies, pastries, soda, and even fried food have made eating these foods, which were previously referred as the expensive and hard to get very cheap and easy to get, that they are accessible each day at our disposals. They have made holding special treats very cheap that it has become everyday practice. Nowadays, there is no special junk for a special occasion, but what about getting back to our old age times and making our treats count? There is totally no offense having the special occasion foods, provided that every day is not a special occasion.

Previously, frying of French fries of chicken was such huge trouble, that families only prepared such meals on special occasions. Moreover, people bought candies for their families and children when there was something special happening (Delormier, Frohlich, & Potvin, 2009). After the manufacturing world has taken over, everything, from ice creams to French fries, to fried chicken has become very readily and easily accessible. We need to embark on our culture.

The time consumed and the workload that was involved when preparing these formerly special meals was so much and tedious. It was hard to make them a daily diet. These special foods give so much life and give us great pleasure, therefore it would be so unfair depriving ourselves of them, but we need to restore the sense of the occasions.

Instead of buying chicken nuggets in a restaurant, why not buy chicken breasts and go prepare them at home? Baking desserts on our own will make us avoid that much daily hustle every day trying to make since they will be reserved for special occasions only (Delormier, et. al., 2009). Eating at home makes one avoid eating so many unknown ingredients and processed foods since you are the one who is in control of what you are including in your junk, and makes one be in control of what you are eating.

When eating at home, it is easy to control overeating and you take your time to eat, giving food enough time to get down to the stomach easily to avoid indigestion (Kokkinos, et. al., 2010). Moreover, eating from home makes one eat when hungry. Most of the people only eat out of boredom, to entertain themselves or to reward themselves. When eating from home is a no debatable idea, it gets one to get dirty and prepare a meal only when necessary, that is when hungry. Food is a form of antidepressant, therefore eating from home will help you make tests over yourself, like are you too hungry to eat an apple? If you are not, then you are not hungry. There are so many advantages of eating from home as opposed to eating in a restaurant.

Another tip to limiting junk food consumption is by coming up with an eating policy, where the junk foods are limited to be eaten during weekends and on special occasions only. This can be achievable by setting the S-policy, 'no sweets, no snack except on days beginning with the letter S'. These foods should be eaten only as often as someone is willing to make them.

Conclusion

These rules are in no doubt that they help one to have maintained a healthy diet while enjoying the meals as well. Food should be made as fun as possible and not the boring routine. An everyday new innovation of a new menu in the kitchen will go a long way in motivation to eat and stay healthy. It is not the lifestyle diseases that make us sick. It is us who invite lifestyle diseases and make them so comfortable in our bodies until we can no longer have any control over them.

References

Delormier, T., Frohlich, K. L., & Potvin, L. (2009). Food and eating as social practice-understanding eating patterns as social phenomena and implications for public health. Sociology of health & illness, 31(2), 215-228.

Goetzke, B., Nitzko, S., & Spiller, A. (2014). Consumption of organic and functional food. A matter of well-being and health?. Appetite, 77, 96-105.

Kokkinos, A., Le Roux, C. W., Alexiadou, K., Tentolouris, N., Vincent, R. P., Kyriaki, D., ... & Katsilambros, N. (2010). Eating slowly increases the postprandial response of the anorexigenic gut hormones, peptide YY, and glucagon-like peptide-1. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 95(1), 333-337.

Murray, M. T., & Pizzorno, J. (2010). The encyclopedia of healing foods. Simon and Schuster.

Pollan, M. (2009). In defense of food: The myth of nutrition and the pleasures of eating. Penguin.

Pollan, M. (2010). Michael Pollan on Food Rules: An Eater's Manual. FORA. tv.[online] Retrieved, 30.

Shi, J., & Maguer, M. L. (2000). Lycopene in tomatoes: chemical and physical properties affected by food processing. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 40(1), 1-42.