The truth can seem a difficult pill to swallow… but as my friend Dr. Jane Philpott from Cooking for health says aim to “eat plants not pills”.
If you’ve been online and looking at natural health related information for a while now, you’ve no doubt seen all sorts of health claims about foods regarding their nutritional properties or benefits of consuming certain foods like for example:
- Almond milk is a high in protein.
- Almond milk is high in calcium.
- Almond milk has half the calories of regular milk and
- Coconut milk is so good for you (or coconut anything is soooo good for you).
Well, rather than just tell you whether or not these statements are true, I believe its far more useful to help you develop some skills and show you how you can use some simple tools that are already available to you to begin to deconstruct these messages for yourself.
and I mean tools like:
- the nutrition information panel on the food packaging and where to find this if your food doesn’t have packaging
- a calculator – like the one that is on your phone
- a simple set of kitchen scales
- willingness to find out that the answer might be different than you want it to be
In fact developing these skills is absolutely essential.
Why?
Because without them, you’re bound to fall prey to every promising headline, advertisement and article that you come across.
And this actually matters, you get some of this stuff wrong and at best you’re feeling fatigued but at worst, you’re setting yourself up for increased risk of osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, anemia, neurological damage, menstural irregularities and many other health problems.
I’m all for eating healthy but I often see people going out of their way to eat particular foods because they believe them to be healthy, or eat in a particular diet style because they believe it to be healthy possibly because some kind of gorgeous celebrity recommended it, or someone they perceive to be a knowledgeable healthcare practitioner recommended it, or a publication they percieve to be reputable published it. Without developing some of these basic but essential skills, then it’ll be harder for you to decide whether or not you should ‘go nuts’ about a particular food or ‘take it with a pinch of salt…’
So if you’re ready click on the video below.
(Btw. I actually like almond milk and I make it at home sometimes).
What other health claims have you heard that you’d like to better investigate? Write them in the comments below, or head on over to facebook and let me know:-)
