Nutrition is so confusing, what should I eat?!

The number one complaint I hear in my office is that people are confused about what to eat. They want to improve their health but don't even know where to start. Nutrition has so many spokespersons who are qualified and unqualified alike, all with different recommendations and products for you to follow or buy. Most of them sound convincing and wewantto believe them....but we're just not sure and in the end we do "our own thing" that combines a bunch of our favorite ideas. And maybe we throw in a couple of glasses of wine because we heard about studies on resveratrol's benefits and we don't want to miss out on THAT phytonutrient! wink, wink.

So yes, I will agree that human nutrition is becoming a very complicated topic as we begin to unfold all of the ways that our diet effects chronic illness, our microbiome, gut health, mental health, gene expression, individual nutrient needs, etc. In a way, as science is taking our knowledge forward it is also making it appear as if we may never really understand what a "healthy diet" looks like. However my message today is to tell you that a healthy diet doesn't have to be complicated- in fact, once you hear the answer you will not be surprised because deep down it will resonate with you! Here it is:

Our bodies were designed to ingest food and water for only this:

food --> breaks down into small molecules of protein, fat, & carbohydrates--> we absorb them --> we create new cellular components from them (aka new body parts)

Once we understand the above concept, it's easier to understand why holistic health practitioners promote whole, unprocessed foods; they are literallyrecognizableto the body and can easily be turned in to quality replacement parts. for example, your body looks at roasted pistachios and says, "ah thank you, that's a whole food grown in nature and I'm programmed to recognize it, break it down, and reuse it's components to make a few new body parts". On the contrary when you eat cheese whiz and crackers, your body might think, "I'm pretty sure this isn't even a food and it looks more like a bunch of toxins so I need to send out for remediation services and eliminate via diarrhea". So the bigger picture here is that naturally occurring foods are good for us and highly processed foods are harmful to us. Not rocket science.

That being said, it's easy to understand that there is really only one true diet that's healthy for all of us- a REAL FOOD DIET! Yes, we all have different tolerances, allergies, and philosophical reasons to eat different foods. but regardless of what your personal list is, you can still follow a whole food diet. No science will ever change this fact and you can be sure that it will always be the best choice for you.

Examples of whole foods:

• all fruits and vegetables
• meat & fish (grass fed, organic, wild caught, uncured)
• nuts & seeds
• legumes & grains (if tolerated)
• healthy fats (avocado, coconut, grass fed butter, fatty fish, nuts/seeds, olives/oil, etc.)
• fresh cheese, aged cheese (if tolerated)