You are what you eat, is how the saying goes. And it seems that doctors and a lot of other very smart people are beginning to take that message to the streets.
An interesting article in the New York Times this morning showcased Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives an annual leadership conference aiming to create a bridge between science, health care and the culinary arts.
"Dr. David M. Eisenberg is the founder and chief officiant of “Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives,” an “interfaith marriage,” as he calls it, among physicians, public health researchers and distinguished chefs that seeks to tear down the firewall between “healthy” and “ crave-able” cuisine. Although physicians are on the front lines of the nation’s diabetes and obesity crises, many graduate from medical school with little knowledge of nutrition, let alone cooking. It is a deficiency that is becoming increasingly apparent as the grim statistics climb. (By 2050, for example, as many as 1 in 3 adults will develop diabetes if current trends continue.) "
Since I've been following a 'clean' diet - mainly fruits, veggies, lean meats, no dairy, no processed sugar - I can certainly attest that what you put into your body is incredibly important. While following a healthy diet has done wonders for my waistline, I've also noticed a generous upswing in my moods and mental clarity. I no longer experience what I like to call my midafternoon cranky-pants - and I directly attribute this to not being stark raving mad from the constant highs and lows of blood sugar fluctuations.
Now that my husband and I are forming our own little family unit, I strongly feel that learning how to cook is an important building block in the foundation of a healthy lifestyle.
Recently, and perhaps a slightly unfortunately for my husband, I began reading a book called Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Like many Americans, Steve eats processed foods. I also used to love processed foods, until I read his book. In this little expository tale, Steve describes the origins of some of America's most common processed food ingrediets. Hearty places like; phosphate mines in Idaho, gypsum mines in Oklahoma and oil fields in China. Ettlinger reveals how each Twinkie ingredient goes through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powder with a strange name—all for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.
Sounds appetizing doesn't it?
After the first chapter I started to really think about what I was putting into my body and I made the decision to completely eliminate processed foods from my diet. Somehow a paragraph of unpronouncable, unidentifiable ingrediets on a package is no longer appealing to me.
Which brings me back to Dr. Eisenberg and his Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference. I've been putting a lot more effort into figuring out how to cook simple, healthy meals for my family partially because I am an information overloaded, neurotic Millenial child, but mostly because I want to be able to identify what I'm eating from (sorry, unavoidable pun ahead) soup to nuts.
What I've been finding is that it's surprisingly easy to do once I started to get the hang of things. And I feel so much better knowing that my family is eating simple, natural ingredients instead of stuff like benzoate preservatives, brominated vegetable oils. Mm!
An interesting article in the New York Times this morning showcased Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives an annual leadership conference aiming to create a bridge between science, health care and the culinary arts.
"Dr. David M. Eisenberg is the founder and chief officiant of “Healthy Kitchens/Healthy Lives,” an “interfaith marriage,” as he calls it, among physicians, public health researchers and distinguished chefs that seeks to tear down the firewall between “healthy” and “ crave-able” cuisine. Although physicians are on the front lines of the nation’s diabetes and obesity crises, many graduate from medical school with little knowledge of nutrition, let alone cooking. It is a deficiency that is becoming increasingly apparent as the grim statistics climb. (By 2050, for example, as many as 1 in 3 adults will develop diabetes if current trends continue.) "
Since I've been following a 'clean' diet - mainly fruits, veggies, lean meats, no dairy, no processed sugar - I can certainly attest that what you put into your body is incredibly important. While following a healthy diet has done wonders for my waistline, I've also noticed a generous upswing in my moods and mental clarity. I no longer experience what I like to call my midafternoon cranky-pants - and I directly attribute this to not being stark raving mad from the constant highs and lows of blood sugar fluctuations.
Now that my husband and I are forming our own little family unit, I strongly feel that learning how to cook is an important building block in the foundation of a healthy lifestyle.
Recently, and perhaps a slightly unfortunately for my husband, I began reading a book called Twinkie, Deconstructed by Steve Ettlinger. Like many Americans, Steve eats processed foods. I also used to love processed foods, until I read his book. In this little expository tale, Steve describes the origins of some of America's most common processed food ingrediets. Hearty places like; phosphate mines in Idaho, gypsum mines in Oklahoma and oil fields in China. Ettlinger reveals how each Twinkie ingredient goes through the process of being crushed, baked, fermented, refined, and/or reacted into a totally unrecognizable goo or powder with a strange name—all for the sake of creating a simple snack cake.
Sounds appetizing doesn't it?
After the first chapter I started to really think about what I was putting into my body and I made the decision to completely eliminate processed foods from my diet. Somehow a paragraph of unpronouncable, unidentifiable ingrediets on a package is no longer appealing to me.
Which brings me back to Dr. Eisenberg and his Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference. I've been putting a lot more effort into figuring out how to cook simple, healthy meals for my family partially because I am an information overloaded, neurotic Millenial child, but mostly because I want to be able to identify what I'm eating from (sorry, unavoidable pun ahead) soup to nuts.
What I've been finding is that it's surprisingly easy to do once I started to get the hang of things. And I feel so much better knowing that my family is eating simple, natural ingredients instead of stuff like benzoate preservatives, brominated vegetable oils. Mm!
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