Eating Right To Stay Healthy Against Illnesses

Our modern society has grown by leaps and bounds in many areas of life, giving all of us much easier ways of life these days. However, within our modern communities, we also find many illnesses lurking and people suffering from all kinds of serious health problems. Some who suffer them include young children.

Our good health predominantly stems from what we put into our body system—the food we eat, and the way we manage our thinking and emotions, too. In terms of what we eat, there are many school of thoughts as to what’s deemed healthy and what’s not. I’m not about to add another version, but simply sharing a more wholesome manner of eating.

You may already have heard of some of these healthy eating ways, but they serve as a good reminder for all of us. Let’s make conscious choices for our family’s healthier diet everyday.

Healthy Eating is About Choosing Healthier Options

We know a healthy diet must comprise balanced meals with all the nutrients we need to be included in our foods. Many of these simple facts have been learned since our younger days. But much has also changed over the years, and many new studies have been done to determine what constitutes healthier nutrients for us.

So here are some of the ways suggested by many studies on how to eat healthy to maintain good overall health and what helps to keep illnesses at bay.

1. Eat Real Food Vs. Processed Food

Eat more real food, i.e., foods that are as close as possible to the way nature made them instead of processed foods. As a matter of convenience, the food industry has provided us with all kinds of processed foods that allow us to put food on the table in a short amount of time.

But processed foods have all kinds of added ingredients that are not healthy for us. Preservatives, additives, and a whole lot more go into processed food stuff. It is scary just how much processed food we consume in our lifetime. Just walk through the supermarket aisles and you will see that most aisles contain processed foods instead of real foods.

Any food that comes from a factory to the shelves of the supermarkets are simply processed foods. Real foods are simply the raw, perishable ingredients like meats, fruits and vegetables.

Imagine feeding our children all kinds of processed foods from breakfast all the way to supper during the course of the day. Let’s say they start the day with cereals or some premix pancakes, that’s processed food. Lunch is chicken ham sandwich with canned mushroom soup and fries from the frozen section. Tea time is jam-filled biscuits and a pack of strawberry milk. Dinner is pre-marinated grilled chicken with mixed veggies of carrots and peas, all picked up from frozen section of the supermarket. Supper is a cream-filled bun or orange flavoured waffle.

See how much of those are real vs processed food that we are putting into our bodies?

2. Healthy Proteins Are Not Just From Animals, But Plants Too

Proteins are one of the most important building blocks in our bodies. Having said that, overloading protein is not the way to better and healthier eating. In fact, it can cause harm to some of our organs. 

Meats and vegetables contain different kinds of proteins and some are of higher quality than others, too. Many of us grew up with thinking proteins largely only comes from meat, and that’s why when we talk about a healthy intake of protein, many will tend to provide lots of meat on the table as a source of protein.

Many studies have shown that not all proteins are made equal, and not all rich proteins from meats are healthy for us. You can easily search on the Internet and read from books about why meat-based proteins tend to cause more illnesses than plant-based proteins.

I won’t bring the whole research into this sharing, but in a nutshell, here is the gist of many scientists, doctors, and nutritionists’ findings. Whilst many types of animal proteins are found to be higher quality proteins than the plant-based ones, it is also unfortunate that these same high quality proteins are what cancer cells feed on to grow. Interestingly, these cells do not grow and thrive on plant-based proteins. 

So, starve these cells by consuming more plant-based proteins in our diet, and we should have a healthier life. Having said that, we also need to know how to derive sufficient amounts of complete proteins if we were to eliminate animal based proteins. But fret not, there are many sources of information on where we can find these sources of proteins.

3. Swap Whites With Browns

We also tend to eat a lot of “white” foods like flour, sugar, bread, rice, and noodles. It has been made known these white food stuff are typically heavily processed food, and are generally high in refined (simple) carbohydrates, and contain fewer nutrients as they have been removed during processing.

What we want is to consume more complex carbohydrates instead of refined carbohydrates for better health. The alternatives to the above mentioned white foods are things like wholewheat and rye flour, palm sugar or molasses, brown rice or grains, and whole grain pasta or noodles. 

The benefit of reducing or removing white foods include natural weight loss and restoration of blood sugar balance in our system.

4. Drink Your Vegetables And Eat Your Fruits

Much has been said about the goodness and benefits of juicing. Do take note, that the way to healthy juicing is to have more vegetables and smaller amount of fruits. Vegetables provide us with healthy doses of nutrients that we need. 

However, when eaten in small quantities, our bodies do not get sufficient nutrients out of them. We’re unable to eat lots of vegetables at a go, but juicing helps. It takes large quantities of vegetables to make a glass of juice, and if we drink it all up, we end up consuming the goodness of vegetables.

Fruits are healthy foods and many have lots of antioxidants which are great for us. However, fruits contain higher calories and sugar content than vegetables. When we juice, we get rid of the healthy fibres and end up with more sugar in the juices.

Whilst this is a healthy way to consume lots of fruits and vegetables, we should learn to juice the right way so that we absorb the best part of it, nutrient wise.

Read, Learn, And Adjust to Healthier Eating Ways

There is much literature and scientific findings out there that talks about eating right and healthy. We will also come across many contradictory views. But it is important for us to understand both sides of the coins, and apply our own thinking.

So, do explore and do your own research by reading up and sharing your findings with your family. After all, eating and staying healthy is everyone’s priority and should not only fall on a single person’s shoulder. A family that eats well and healthy together, grows strong together! And we at Motherhood are rooting for your family to stay healthy always.

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