I spend a fair bit of time working with clients on strategies for them to pick foods that will help them reach their goals. For the last two years, the majority of the clients that I have worked with have been focused on measuring the calories they consume and comparing them with the calories that they burn. This is the most basic formula for weight loss and weight gain, which are the concerns of most health conscious Americans.
Calories in vs Calories Out doesn't tell much of the story
This simple formula will help you gain for lose weight, but it isn't really much of a blue-print for how we should eat. Last week, the famous Weight Watchers point system underwent a major overhaul and no longer features calories as part of their counting process. Instead, they now count carbs, proteins, fiber and fats. The new system is designed around the basic principal that not all calories are created equally. Our bodies process different foods better than others and gain more benefit from some macro nutrients than they do from others. One of the most notable changes is that Weight Watchers clients can now each fruits and veggies without adding to their point total. End result, people are encouraged to eat more fruits and vegetables. Go figure.
Processing the price of the process, reversing our instincts
Processed foods are generally more calorie dense and easier for the body to digest than unprocessed foods. This is a great thing if your society has a shortage of calories. It's even been argued that humans discovering how to cook their food allowed their bodies to use calories more efficiently and provided the calories we needed to use additional calories for the development of brain function and consequently to ascend to the top of the food chain. Nowadays, calories are available to Americans by the millions. It takes very little effort to consume far more calories than are needed and our bodies love to do it. We still have not evolved beyond our cravings for high calorie foods, and food companies have provided for these cravings with easily available fat and sugars. Now, we need to retrain ourselves to seek out less processed foods and avoid the high quantity of calories that are available to us. Essentially, we must reverse our instincts in order to avoid obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and other health problems that come with over consumption.
Losing the feelings for our food
Throughout history, the food chain has been a very intimate part of the human experience. Native cultures treated hunted animals with respect and reverence. Farmers had a relationship with the living beings they raised to provide sustenance for themselves and their communities. Healthy, relatively contented animals were crucial to success in production. Today in America, the vast majority of us don't know a farmer. We don't hunt our own food and we rarely encounter any of the meat products we consume until they are wrapped nicely in Styrofoam at the grocery store. The logic behind the fact that the average American consumes more meat than ever before (about 200lbs. a year) would lead to the notion that more farmers and ranchers are raising meat than ever before, but that is not the case.
Food factories
There are five companies that control about 80% of the meat production in the United States. There is one company that "owns" the soybean production in the United States. Nearly 30% of the land in the United States is used for corn production. There are 13 meat packing plants in the country that handle the aforementioned 80% of the meat we consume. A single cheeseburger could have meat from over 1,000 cows in it thanks to the mass production of meat at these plants. All of these numbers are a little overwhelming. What does it actually mean though? One of the consequences of this is that most of our food is controlled by just a few companies. They have developed ways to produce more food than we actually need, but their focus has been on quantity and profit with little regard for quality and conscience.
Ignorance is bliss
My guess is that spending a few hours at a modern slaughterhouse, would cure most of us of our desire for meat. Even a few images in movies like Food Inc. or Fast Food Nation get me to swear off factory produced meats for some time. I just can't handle watching animals being treated as part of an assembly line. It is against my nature. It's the fact that we don't see our food that allows us to eat it without much thought or thankfulness. Hunting, raising or gathering your own food is not easy, but should, in my opinion, be part of the human experience. When your closest connection to your food chain is the Safeway on the corner, you are less likely to make smart decisions about what you eat and more likely to choose foods that will have health risks in the future. Even if raising, hunting and processing your own meat is not your thing, meet someone who does and purchase your food from them. Bring your food chain closer to home and see if just maybe your eating habits and overall health improve as a result.
Learn some more
Please spend some time this holiday season thinking about your food and how you can make some subtle changes to bring yourself back in line with your food chain.
Movies
Food Inc.
Fast Food Nation
Supersize Me
Websites
Organic Consumers Association
Takepart.com
Please take the time to post some of your favorite food related websites in the comments section.
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