Wednesday, August 23, 2006

bread and jam

One of the food items people in this household will not go without next year is bread and jam, the staple of our lives. the cupboards are filling nicely and if there is a crisis there will always be bread and jam.
I am reading a book on Optimum Nutritrion in which bread and jam would figure badly. There were however some interesting pointers that I thought could be incorporated. The message of the book is that every human being has different nutritional needs depending on genetics, environment, culture etc but that all of us have some things in common that need to be supplied. The diseases currently surfacing are not just new diseases but are the result of not having the optimum nutrition required for our bodies.
Easy things you can do without changing too much:
  1. one heaped teaspoon of ground seeds or one tablespoon of cold-pressed oil ( omega oils)
  2. Two servings of beans, lentils, quinoa, tofu, or seed vegetables
  3. three pieces of fresh fruit such as apples, pears, bananas, berries, melon or citrus fruits.
  4. 4 servings of whole grains such as brown rice, millet, rye, oats, wholewheat, corn, quinoa as cereal, breads and pasta.
  5. 5 servings of dark green leafy and root vegetables such as watercress, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, spinach, green beans, peas and peppers.
  6. 6 glasses of water, diluted juices, herb and fruit teas.
  7. eat whole organic, raw food as often as possible
  8. supplement your diet with high strength multivitamin and mineral preparationand 1000-mg of vitamin C
  9. avoid burnt and browned food, hydrogenated fat and excess animal fat.
  10. avoid any form of sugar, also white, refined and processed food with chemical additives, and minimise intake of alcohol, coffee and tea. have no more than 1 unit of alcohol a day ( i.e. one glass of wine).

Thats probably enough to get you thinking. Its a good book, very scientific so can only be read in stages. Food as we buy it in the shops however has not got the amount of nutrients we need, and that is why we supplement with sweet foods which give us an energy boost but it is not good for our bodies.

Changes I have made as a result is adding some seeds to my cereal and granola, eat more berries and try out some other grains that I had not heard of. The green leafy vegetables are not an issue because we grow them anyhow. There is a general reduction in our household in meat eating...but then again, you cannot change people’s eating habits over night it needs to be done gradually.

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