The change of our calendar year is a good time to sit down for a while, think about how I’d like to spend the upcoming year, and to set some goals. In this post, I’ll explain my diet goals for 2010 and explain what I think would be a healthy diet.
Expect to read musings about the following:
- General guidelines for a diet I believe is the healthiest one for me and for everyone. Yes, you too!
- Confused musings about the more controversial diet issues: why I’m not quite sure about them but how I feel about them anyway.
- Why I feel there is no One True Perfect Diet™ that would magically make everyone healthy.
- A summary of my diet goals for 2010.
Guidelines for a Healthy Diet
When it comes to a healthy diet, there are certain things most people, both “diet gurus” and scientists alike, seem to agree on. These are the points I also agree on, based on my very own diet experiments and some scientific research articles I’ve read:
- Veggies are good for you. Eat them as much as you want. No, actually, eat them more than you want!
- Protein is good for you. Eat enough of it! It keeps you feeling full longer, and your muscles need the building blocks. Just don’t overdo it. A good rule of thumb for your daily protein needs would be 1 gram of protein per 1 kilogram of bodyweight.
- Trans fats (partially hydrogenated vegetable oils) are bad for you. They’re worse than any other kind of fat out there. Don’t eat them. At all. Seriously, even butter, lard and bacon are better for your health than this stuff!
- Sugar is bad for you. It makes you fat, messes up your metabolism, causes Type 2 diabetes, rots your teeth, and is bad for your heart and arteries. White flour and white rice are basically the same thing as sugar, so they’re bad for you as well. Eat them in moderation.
- Natural, unprocessed foods are good for you. The less something is processed and the less it contains artificial additives, the better it is for you. A good rule of thumb is to buy only the kind of stuff your great-grandmother would recognize as food!
- Use alcohol in moderation. Moderate drinking is good for your health, but drinking too much pretty much ruins it. Plus it makes you look older than you are. Drink moderately or don’t drink at all.
These guidelines, I believe, are pretty much universally agreed on. Next, I’ll discuss the more controversial issues and tell you how I personally feel about them.
Healthy or Not?
Sometimes, diet seems to be like religion: people fiercely defend their personal opinions and believe their view is the only right one. Scientific research isn’t helping much here, since you can find a completely valid, well executed scientific study supporting pretty much any view you can think of. Just cherry-pick the articles that support your personal view, and you’re doing well.
That’s why I believe scientific research articles should always be read with a grain of salt.
The following are the things I’m currently undecided on. Actually, on some issues, I’m totally torn! I’ve read quite a bit of scientific articles on these issues, and it doesn’t seem to help anything, as the research findings seem to nicely contradict each other. I’ve learned to listen to the ultimate authority on these issues, and I suggest you do the same: your very own body!
- Meat. I have a spiritual problem with eating dead animals. While I know nature operates like this – animals eating each other – we humans are capable of thinking about the moral consequences of our actions, unlike other animals who just follow their instinct. Also, it should go without saying that factory farming is unnatural, unethical, and cruel. However, I’ve noticed I feel the best when I eat a lot of meat and animal fats. If I try to eat vegetarian food, I become sick, even if all my meals are “perfect” according to the book. Despite this, one of my goals for 2010 is to reduce the amount of meat I eat, but I’ll discuss this issue later in another blog post.
- Milk. I don’t drink milk because I hate the taste but I do enjoy cheese and other dairy products. Plus I think butter is healthy. (Yeah, this would need its own blog post too.) Unfortunately, milk is pretty much ruined: cows are suffering for their whole lives, raped so they will constantly produce milk, pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, and on top of that, the milk is pasteurized and homogenized. Raw milk from a happy free-range cow might be healthy for you, but how about this stuff that is totally ruined? And how about cheese?
- Carbs vs. Fats. The high carb, low fat diet is recommended for us, but I’ve noticed it just doesn’t suit me. Whenever I’ve tried to eat that way, it’s been a total disaster. I’m thriving on a low (or moderate) carb, high (or moderate) fat diet. Recent research also seems to support the notion of limiting your carb intake, but instead of contradictory scientific research, I’ll just listen to the highest authority on this issue: my own body. And it tells me to eat low carb, high animal fat.
- Saturated fats vs. unsaturated fats. This is a complex issue that would, again, need its own blog post. (Maybe some day…
) The thing is, if you get most of your fats from vegetable oils, your Omega 3 / Omega 6 fatty acid ratio will tend to get totally messed up. You’ll get too much Omega 6 fatty acids compared to Omega 3s if vegetable oils are your main source of fat. Despite the bad rap they’ve been getting, animal fats and saturated vegetable fats (such as coconut milk and oil) seem to be a safe choice. - Grains. Whole grains are supposed to be good for you. They contain a lot of fiber, vitamins and minerals, and are a nice source of protein for vegetarians. But if I eat too much of them, I’ll get all kinds of stomach problems, and – believe it or not – pimples! For me, “too much” is the 6-9 pieces of bread my government recommends eating! A couple of pieces seem to be fine, though.
- Cooked vs. raw food. I believe in a balance in this matter. Some nutrients actually become easier to absorb when they’re heated. Some other nutrients will be destroyed if they’re heated. So I’ll just eat both raw and cooked.
The Ideal Diet for Everyone – Does Such a Thing Exist?
Let’s look at the facts here. The fact is, humans are omnivores who are capable of surviving on a huge variety of diets.
Our species has spread wide and far, ranging from warm tropical and subtropical climates to the harsh, cold conditions of the North and the tops of mountains. Peoples have adapted to a diet most sensible for their geographical location: lots of meat, fat and root vegetables in the North; lots of fruits, veggies and rice near the Equator.
Kitava: Healthy and High Carb
For example, Kitavans are known to be very healthy. They get about 69% of their calories from carbs, 21% from fat and 10% from protein. I’m a Low Carber myself, but the Kitavan example simply shows that low carb is not the only way to eat. As the Kitavan diet shows, you can be perfectly healthy on a high carb diet as well.
Interestingly, however, the fat Kitavans consume is mostly saturated because it comes from coconuts. They also eat a lot of fish, so they get plenty of healthy Omega 3 fatty acids, too.
Inuits: Healthy with No Veggies
Then again, Inuits are also known to be very healthy if they stay on their traditional diet. If they begin eating the current Western way, they’ll begin suffering from diabetes and heart problems. Their traditional diet? Totally against all dietary recommendations: Mostly meat and fat, not much vegetables, a little berries now and then. The traditional Inuit diet is high in protein and very high in fat: about 75% of their calories come from fat.
Despite not eating veggies, Inuits can get all the vitamins they need from the animals they fish and hunt because they eat every part of them, not just the muscle meat like we Westerners do. They eat the fat and organs, as well as skin and intestines and brain and everything.
Traditional Vegan Diets?
How about vegan, then? Interestingly, there are no peoples out there whose traditional diets would be 100% plant-based. Even in India, where traditionally a significant portion of population are vegetarians, vegetarianism means lacto-vegetarianism.
However, it seems to be totally possible to thrive on a strictly vegetarian diet, provided you take care of your B12 vitamin and Omega 3 fatty acid intake.
The Bottom Line? Eat What Makes You Feel Well!
So, humans seem to be a species that can adapt to a wide variety of diets. You can’t just point out one single way of eating and say, this is the one and only way for a human to eat. Don’t make diet your religion.
What to do, then? Experiment! Experiment with diets and find out what is the diet that fits you, personally.
Eat what makes you feel good, healthy, and energetic. I personally believe that constantly stressing out about your food is the surefire way to lose your health, no matter what you eat! I believe mental factors (stress, happiness, etc.) are much more important for our heart health than we think. It’s a pity this isn’t researched more. Then again, who would want to fund a study that would show you don’t have to spend money on supplements and diet pills, all you have to do is relax and enjoy your life?
The Trouble with Meat
Like I said, I’m at my healthiest when I eat a lot of animal meat and fat, no grains of any kind, and a low or moderate amount of carbs. However, I have big ethical and spiritual problems with eating dead animals. My goal is to gradually reduce the amount of meat I eat, and if everything goes well, I might be a lacto-vegetarian by the end of 2010.
I’ll discuss the reasons behind this decision in my next post, so… stay tuned!
Diet Goal in a Nutshell
These are the things I’ll be concentrating on during the next year:
- Drink less alcohol. I genuinely enjoy the taste of certain alcoholic beverages (like fine wine, Scotch, cognac, wheat beer…) but to be honest, I also enjoy the “side effects” they produce. My goal is to cut back the amount of drinks per night, so that I would get no hangovers, blackouts, or loss of control when I go out and party.
- Gradually eat less meat. Whenever I feel like not eating meat, I will not do so, but if I feel I need it, I’ll do as my body commands and won’t feel bad about it.
- Eat at least one meat free meal per day. Dairy is ok, however, so this should be very easy to do. Yes, I know dairy is no more ethical than eating the meat of the poor cow herself, but at least it’s not a dead animal.
- Eat veggies on every meal. No, potatoes don’t count. During the long cold winters here in Finland, it doesn’t really make sense to eat fresh veggies, so until it gets warmer, I’ll eat the frozen ones mostly. Fresh veggies are, at the moment, very expensive, of poor quality, and transported from the other side of Europe.
- Cook your food yourself whenever possible. It’s a lot healthier. Besides, I love cooking!
- Watch out for MSG and other additives. I’m not going to be too strict about this, but whenever possible, I’ll choose the product that has less additives or artificial flavor enhancers. But because I aim at cooking most of my food from scratch myself, this won’t be an issue. Besides, like I said, I don’t want to fret about my food too much.
- Take care of your Omega 3s. I’ve got some fish oil capsules, so I’ll pop those in my mouth. Also, I’ll take vitamin D supplements, too.
- Most importantly: Relax, don’t fret about your diet! Enjoy your food with gratitude!
That’s it, folks. 
I didn’t list things like not eating sugar, because I eat so little sugar it would be a no-brainer anyway. The same goes for white flour – I already eat it in moderation because my skin and stomach don’t like it.
So how are you going to eat? What’s your view of a healthy diet?
