Donna Douglas

Disagreement arises as there can be no option that suits everyone. Back to our car analogy. Not everyone wants cruise control, leather seats or a 2-seater car. This is where we must acknowledge our differences and tap into our intuition to decide what is best for our individual needs. Every single one of us is different. There can be no nutritional rule that is one size fits all. However, the destination is the same. We want to live healthy lives – filled with energy, vitality, sleep and most importantly we want that to last for as many decades as possible.

Fruit – no fruit, one piece a day, eating certain fruits, eating in abundance

It’s all about the fructose. How much natural sugar do you need?

Coffee – no coffee, one a day, four a day, not before bedtime.

Caffeine is a drug that gives us a lift. If that’s a craving or an addiction I would suggest that’s not a healthy option.

Chocolate – not as confusing as you may think.

General agreement is that the occasional small piece (30 to 60 grams) of dark chocolate is ok. Again, if you feel an out of control need for it – walk away!

Alcohol – the guidelines on alcohol are actually clear….we just don’t follow them.

How does it make you feel before you drink? During? Afterwards? A hangover is the body telling you something. Loud and clear it is saying TOO MUCH.

Meat – I’ve been a vegetarian since my teens so it’s something I feel quite passionate about. Even those that say we need to eat meat talk about portion sizes of 100 grams or less, organic or grain fed meat and cook to retain nutrients. On the other side (you knew it was coming!), meat production is responsible for most of our environmental and climate problems. Animals are treated in an incredibly cruel and inhuman way. Our antibiotic crisis is caused by our desire for meat. Most of the antibiotics made are for livestock. It’s a financial disaster if your livestock are sick. This then means that the animal flesh you are eating is packed full of antibiotics….. then when we are sick we have become immune to the effect of the antibiotics. General agreement is that we are heading for an antibiotic crisis that’s caused by consuming meat and our environment is suffering.

Gluten – hype or real?

Opinion varies greatly here. What is agreed on is that our grains are infested with chemicals. Roundup is sprayed on the weeds, which is then absorbed into the soil which the plant grows in. One of the nasty chemicals in Roundup is Glyphosate. This is a poison that is in the plants that we digest – not good! To add to this livestock are fed a high grain-based diet, which is then slaughtered, wrapped in plastic on Styrofoam trays, cooked and eaten – increasing our gluten and glyphosate intake.

I encourage you to try a gluten free or grain free diet. If you feel better that is a clear indication that your body prefers it.

Carbonated drinks – to sparkle or not to sparkle?

It all comes down to your gut health. If I’m out I will pick sparkling water over alcohol, juice, tap water….. I don’t go out very often 😬 Again base your consumption on how you feel. I know that after Soda stream bubbles I feel quite unwell – that’s an indication for me to avoid it.

Dairy – for decades we were told that dairy was necessary for bone health and we ate it in abundance for strong bones. Turns out that in Australia we have one of the highest amounts of dairy consumption and the lowest amounts of bone density. An alarming co-incidence…… Cows produce milk like humans do. It’s to fatten up their young and make them healthy. It’s packed full of nutrients for a healthy calf. Not only are we drinking that as adults, we have a lot of dairy in every meal – milk, butter, cheese, yoghurt, ice cream, cream….

By the way “we” doesn’t include me. My grandmother had a dairy farm when I was growing up. One day my mum hand milked a cow and gave me the cup to drink. It was warm and disgusting and was the last time I drank cow’s milk!

Butter and cream are packed full of fat. The experts all agree – fat is good for us, but too much fat will make us fat – clearly!

Cheese is curdled milk, packed with Casein which is an opiate. It’s addictive and can make you sleepy…

Coconut – took the health world by storm as the latest and greatest.  It is very high in saturated fat compared to other fats so use small amounts….. as a guide I feel very unwell if I use too much – it’s a good indicator!

Protein – for a long time we were fed (excuse the pun!) the belief that our protein must come from animal flesh. Animals don’t naturally have the protein we need in their flesh. They eat plants and build it which we then eat. It’s entirely possible to bypass the middle man (or cow, pig, chicken, fish) and eat the plants yourself, getting your protein direct from the source.

Despite all the guidelines I would suggest that you use your own intuition as a guideline. Be inquisitive, be curious. Question the beliefs you have around food – where did the belief come from?

It’s your body and we can no longer blindly assume that governments and corporations have our best interests at heart. Be a critical thinker! How does your body feel when you are eating? How does it feel afterwards? Do you feel good, positive, energetic, happy? Or do you feel heavy, sleepy, lethargic, sick, guilty?

Your body needs to love the food that you are eating not the quick fix euphoric high but a long-lasting feeling of wholeness and good health.

When it comes to food I have a high amount of discipline. I am not easily swayed to pick foods that do not fill my body with optimal nutrition. Stop rolling your eyes! I know that most reading this are now thinking I am boring and my food is limited and restrictive. For me it is quite the opposite. My freedom comes from my discipline. My discipline means I wake up every single morning feeling energised and excited about the day ahead – that s my freedom and I love it!

Remember, everything you do today impacts the life you lead tomorrow, so make your decisions count 😀

Did you make it this far? Have you been following the agreed recommendations in my last post? Do you feel better?

If you follow the principles that everyone agrees on you will be healthier. What does that mean to you? Is it sleeping better? Having more energy to get through your day? Not having cravings and making food decisions you later regret? Having a body that you can look at the mirror and smile back at?

Back to the car analogy. If you follow what all nutritionists do agree on you have a car you can drive. As for all the additional extras there are a few things that a lot of ‘experts’ disagree on. Before following their advice, I ask myself a few questions first.

⁃              Ask yourself “What’s in it for them?”. If it’s someone suggesting, you should snack more often, and they work for a muesli bar company, chances are they want you to snack on their muesli bar.

⁃              Do they work for or are they sponsored by the food industry or a food corporation?  I was reading this article ages ago about ‘healthy eating’ and five out of ten of the suggestions were dairy based. Being curious like I am (plus I don’t drink milk and have had limited dairy for decades) I read the small print and then the very fine print. The article was written by the Dairy industry….

⁃              Do they say at any time to “eat in moderation”. That’s always a warning beacon for me. One person’s moderation is another person’s excess.  One glass of wine is plenty for me to be singing and dancing, for someone else it may be a nightly habit.  When the food is genuinely healthy and nutrient dense, moderation is not required. If you are paying attention your body will let you know that you have had enough.

⁃              Is their opinion the opposite of what you have heard before? Are they saying the food is healthy when someone else has said it’s not or the other way around? I always question this kind of contradiction. Beans and legumes, soy, eggs, potatoes have been in and out of favour for years. It’s kind of like red cars that are sometimes popular and sometimes not. More importantly ask yourself – how do I feel when I eat this? I know that if I don’t wash, rinse, soak and cook my legumes properly I don’t feel great.  A lot of nutritionists in the U.S. say to not eat soy products. If I lived in the States I wouldn’t eat soy either, as their GM foods don’t have to be labelled like they do in Australia.

⁃              How much scientific research is there? At university I did a major in Social Research Methods – this makes me deeply suspect of ‘research’! Check out how many participants there were, what year it was done, how long did it run for, who sponsored it, what age, gender, ethnicity?? Don’t even get me started on the placebo effect (thanks Dr Joe Dispenza). As humans we have a huge amount of instinct. Tap into that before blindly believing in the research – it’s more powerful than any study.

⁃              Read the small print. I love the trash magazines that scream headlines out like “Alcohol is healthy”, “Chocolate is good for you”. That headline is just to sell the magazine or get you to read the article. Have you found that you stop reading when you get to the conditions – select wine that is organic, red, 1 glass a night – as it doesn’t say what YOU want it to?

Question everything… I hear you say that it takes times to do that and you don’t have the time – do you??

Do you have time for illness, to be sick, to be terminally ill, for radiation, for chemotherapy, for a heart bypass, diabetes caused impotence, blindness or gangrene? Hospitals are for sick people. Let’s focus on prevention and health.

I certainly don’t want to be a drama queen…. however, a little time may literally save your life and the life of those around you….

It’s a conversation I have often. It’s also a conversation that I hear often.

Good nutrition seems to have become very confusing and often contradictory. How has this happened?

I think that it is mostly due to literally every single person having an opinion! That opinion is based on our history, beliefs and values. We all eat, we have all eaten – in a way we are all nutritionists trying to navigate through mountains of information. Of course, I also have my own opinion! I have been interested and intrigued by food for many years.  It’s a conversation that excites me!  Hopefully with this knowledge I have picked up, I can sort through some of the confusion.

JUST LIKE A CAR

Think about nutrition like you think about your car.  There are heaps of different makes and models. Everyone likes something different, everyone has an opinion. Different vehicles suit our ever-changing lifestyle. However, all vehicles have some basics – wheels, an engine, seats, suspension……..

Food is kind of the same. The basics are there, if we can get that right we can then add the extras.  The problem with nutrition is that a test drive to know if it works for you or not can take months, years or even decades – certainly much longer than a cruise around the block!

CHANGE AS WE LEARN

Unlike a car, there is so much about the human body that we still do not understand.  As we learn more we also learn more about what we need. That’s evolution. That’s saying that we used to believe in following one set of guidelines and now we have learnt, grown and evolved, we need to follow another set of guidelines. What we need nutritionally isn’t set in stone. Our lives change and with that we must be open to changing the nutrients we need to function – or indeed to function at an optimum level.

THE FOOD INDUSTRY

The food industry is made up of corporations that will try and sell you their ‘healthy’ options because they will make money. Your decision impacts their profit, so they will do everything they can to ensure that you purchase their product. Food holds emotional power over our decisions. Food companies use this to sway our emotions to purchase their product. (The Kinder Surprise is a classic example of this. Who wouldn’t want to give their child one of those!) If a car dealer was this pushy we would never go back!

(On a side note please remember that the word corporation (as a body) comes from the word corporate, corpus and corpse. Not sure that it’s a good idea to get our nutrition from a dead body.)

AND THEN THERE IS SCIENCE

To add another layer to our nutritional and food decisions we have ‘Scientific Research’ – sometimes this can be enlightening and at other times be incredibly misleading. (Thanks, Ancel Keys.) Scientific research is expensive. Given that, it often needs government money or big corporations to fund it. So often we blindly follow both – thinking that they have our best interests at heart. Do they? Really? Or do they have their own interests at heart?

HABIT OR ADDICTION?

If I had a dollar for every time I heard something along the lines of “I just had to…..” or “I can’t wait to have…..” or “I couldn’t resist…..”

Often it’s a habit that’s lasted years or decades, often it’s an addiction – the food industry spends a lot of time and money finding that ‘bliss’ point which becomes highly addictive-  so the company can then continue to make money off your addiction  – “once you pop, you can’t stop”. Let the profits grow….

NUTRITION EXPERTS

Whilst it may not seem so, there are quite a few things that nutrition ‘experts’ agree on. Just to be very clear, I am not an ‘expert’… or am I? I eat every single day, have maintained the same body weight for over 30 years, I sleep well and have a mountain of energy for my day! The only serious illness I have had was pneumonia and I read – a lot! I like to read, listen and watch everything and anything I can about nutrition. I have been fascinated by nutrition for as long as I can remember. Therefore. I feel that even though I have no degree I am an ‘expert’.

FOOD LABELLING

Companies spend a lot of money getting the packaging right, to tempt consumers to purchase their product. You may be swayed by a colour, size, picture or words. So often we trust what we read and when it comes to food we need to question the words. When food is labelled as being “low” as in salt/sugar, fat make sure you know how much it is referring to. For years Nutri-Grain was advertised as the breakfast cereal for champions – in fact it has one of the highest sugar counts of any cereal. Champions don’t tend to start the day with a sugar hit.

Check out the nutritional information. The nasty ingredients are hidden by long words and numbers. If you don’t know what it is I would suggest you apply some curiosity and find out. Yes, that takes time. Remember that the company that made the product is hoping you won’t make the time. Their interest is in selling you their product for profit. Take some time and get curious before purchasing. Make your dollar count and make sure you are purchasing a product that will maintain or improve your health.

So, what does everyone agree on? (Including me….)

⁃              We are in a food, obesity, health crisis. That is clear to everyone. We are more over weight, have more serious health issues, have more ‘food’ available than ever before and it’s making us sick.

⁃              We are what we eat. This is not a new concept as it was first written in the 1860’s.

⁃              “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” Hippocrates has been telling us this for a few years…. (431 BC)

⁃              Our thoughts are powerful. Negative thoughts create health issues and can cut 7 to 10 years off your life. Think healthy thoughts for a healthy body.

⁃              Sleep is the foundation for good health. Without regular, restorative sleep our bodies struggle to maintain optimal health.

⁃              The importance of gut health continues to grow. Without good gut health we have chronic inflammation. Look after your gut microbiome, the bacteria in your gut is key to good health. The root cause of many of our diseases is gut inflammation.

⁃              Our portion sizes are too big, we eat too much, too often.

⁃              Drink more water and less soft drink and sugary drinks.

⁃              Drink less alcohol. Remember before an injection the area is swabbed with alcohol to clean any bacteria…. see point above about gut health.

⁃              We need to drastically reduce the processed food we eat. The more processed it is the more it will harm your body. Everyone agrees that when you put it in your mouth it should resemble its origin. As a general tip the really processed food comes in a few layers of packaging.

⁃              If the food you are eating has a lot of numbers or long words that you can’t pronounce it is no longer food and is likely to be harmful to your health.

⁃              Eat slowly. We have become a world where it is normal to eat on the run, standing up, in front of the TV, in the car. Take time out to focus on the fuel you are putting in your body.

⁃              Eat more vegetables, that are fresh, seasonal and cooked in a way that keeps the nutrients in.

⁃              Eat whole grain products in small quantities. The low carb diet created significant nutritional change for many – mainly because our carbohydrate intake has blown out of control. Eat less processed carbs and small amounts of the good ones – rice, pasta etc. Check out the amounts of rice eaten in Asian countries and the amount of pasta the Italians eat – it’s much less than we have in Oz.

⁃              Food cannot tell time. We need to eat our main meal with time to digest it and create movement before sleeping.

⁃              We need to limit sugar – everyone agrees that sugar is not good for our bodies…. but many people are still so sugar addicted.

⁃              Eat foods that are nutrient rich. Our natural food sources are being depleted of vitamins and minerals that are incredibly important for our health and longevity.

⁃              Stop eating processed meat. It’s highly probable that it’s carcinogenic and that’s bad – carcinogenic is cancer. Stop for a moment and think about what is in that sliced chicken meat or hot dog. You know it’s not food that is going to be good for your body. Even the nutritional experts that say we should eat meat do not recommend processed meats.

⁃              Eat 3 meals a day – morning, noon and night. Breakfast, lunch and dinner meals have been around for centuries. If you are eating nutrient dense and the right portion size, then 3 meals will be enough. Nourish your body regularly throughout the day.

⁃              Snacking (if you need to) is having something small to eat that is packed with nutrients and not kilojoules.

⁃              Man made fats like Trans fats are bad for us. Eat lots of other fats – nuts, seeds, avocado. Are you still eating margarine? There is not a single shred of goodness in that spread – that’s agreed upon by everyone! Good fats will fill you up with good fuel. Bad fats won’t make you feel good – usually they are the ones that have had a lot of Human Intervention (H.I.). If you find fats confusing think about its source. If you compress and squeeze vegetables will the result be vegetable oil? It will be water right and not oil?

When it comes to nutrition we are all incredibly different, with different backgrounds, opinions, habits, cultures, addictions, finances…. the list goes on. There is no one size fits all when it comes to nutrition. However, there are foods and food habits that are good for our bodies and we know which ones they are. There is a LOT of agreement. If you can find your inner expert, you will come to the same above conclusions. Follow them and you will certainly be on the path to better health.