Do Processed Foods Have Any Place In Your Healthy Diet Plan?

What does the term “processed foods” actually mean?

Do visions of t.v. dinners, cookies and chips (or do you call them crisps?) come to mind?

Do you think of canned meats and roasted nuts?

Is bread a processed food, or part of a healthy diet plan?

When you hear the term “processed foods” when discussing health, it only stands to reason that you are referring to any processing that would make a food less wholesome or harmful.

Fruits and veggies become less and less wholesome from the moment they are picked, but are far more wholesome than anything that comes out of a box or can even if you didn’t grow them yourself.

Any type of cutting or grinding allows oxidation of the food stuff, and nutrition is lost.

Flour is completely pulverized grains.

Heat is also very problematic.  You don’t want to cook away all your nutrients!

Roasting nuts makes them acidic.  You are far better off eating raw nuts that have not been altered by heat.

Chemicalization is adding insult to injury.  Foods are unwholesome after being pulverized and cooked, but now throwing chemicals into the mix makes for a sad meal indeed.

White flour foods with chemical additives are probably the very worst part of any diet, but they make up a very large portion of the Standard American Diet!

Just because your bread is brown, doesn’t mean it is more wholesome!

Eating 100% whole wheat products is a step in the right direction, but you are still eating a grain that has been through a lot since it left the field, and wheat is a common allergen.

Flour Foods are problematic!

“Well, what the heck am I supposed to eat then?”

Good question!  Take into consideration that all the following foods are flour products and that might boggle your brain even more.

Flour Foods

• breads/muffins (except those of the sprouted variety)
• pastries/doughnuts
• cakes
• pies
• cookies
• pasta (GASP!)

“Ew, 100% whole wheat pasta?”

Typically you don’t expect whole wheat pasta to taste good.  Well, I never did, anyway.  That is, until I found a wonderful, absolutely delicious, 100% whole grain pasta made by Bio-Nature.

Even my neighbors children love it, and they have been raised on processed food.  Their mother was shocked to hear it!  She just about fell over when she watched her kids come back for second and third helpings of my whole grain brown rice at a community pot-luck.

Most Hawaiian locals are hard core white rice eaters.  Heck they eat it for breakfast lunch and dinner.

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Top Secret Tip

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I make my organic whole grain brown rice with Auntie Maile’s secret recipe.  She likes it when her rice tastes better than every body else’s.  So don’t tell her I let you in on her secret!

Put one and one quarter cup of water for each cup of organic whole grain brown rice into a pan with a secure lid.

Bring it to a boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer.  Once holes form on the top you want to watch closely to see that there is still a bit of water on top, but when you tip the pan, water doesn’t come up the side.

At that very moment you grab it off the burner and wrap it with a big towel.  Let it sit for 15–20 minutes at least, before serving or removing the towel.  This time is important to make the rice absorb the small amount of water and take on a yummy texture.

Hawaiian locals and kids love “sticky rice”.  Do you eat sticky rice where you live?

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When I am feeling a bit run down, I substitute half the amount of rice for organic mung beans.  It is a great food for rejuvenation.

If you can find a nearby source of whole organic grains, beans and seeds, take advantage of the valuable food source available to you.  If you don’t have a good whole food source, then look into possibilities to mail order or perhaps order through a co-op.

Thank goodness there are a lot of earthy people here on the big island.  The population here isn’t huge, so it is surprising that there are 4 significant sized whole foods stores on the Hilo side of the Big Island of Hawaii.

The fourth store opened right after I moved here, and since then, they have all gotten bigger and prospered.  That is surprising considering the prevalence of the white rice and spam diet among the locals.

Folks who shop at the wholefoods stores joke that they have to shop there because they can’t afford decent health insurance.  Although they are joking, they certainly are some of the healthiest folks I come across in the course of my day.

There is a stark difference between the whole foods shoppers and the white rice-spam eating local families.  You can tell who’s who without asking.

When foods are part of the culture that you grow up in, they become more than just your favorite foods.  They become a connection to the past.  They are true comfort foods.

If you are making food choices from a place of soothing your pain, odds are, you are not going to make healthy food choices, and your healthy diet plan is out the window.

“So how do you comfort yourself without making poor food choices?”

Glad you asked!

The folks at Heart Math have come out with a new product.  Heart Math is hard science, and will give you the skills to comfort yourself, and make better choices.

These are claims they make about their product.

This may be the only weight management program that doesn’t focus on what you eat, but rather on what you feel.

This is about understanding and eliminating emotional eating. A lot of stress and stress eating can be eliminated as you learn to have compassion for yourself, increase self-acceptance and learn how to say no to “drama.”

• Learn how to manage your emotions and release stress without depending on food to make you feel better.
• Use as a complete program or in tandem with your current weight management plan.
• Transform the physiological response to stress and quickly re-balance mind, body and emotions.
• Improve health, stamina and well-being; maintain personal balance and avoid stress and burnout in chaotic and changing environments.

Sounds pretty impressive, huh?  Like I say, these folks are scientists, you can trust that they have all the data to back up those claims.

Check out those Heart Math folks!

There is another health robbing habit that has reached epidemic proportions.

Tune in tomorrow to find out if you are guilty of this disease causing habit, and what you can do to stop if you are.

Be well!  Feel better and live better!

Many blessings,

Carrie

Heart Failure Solutions

PS– Remember everyday:

1. Relax and Release tension
2. Take deeep breaths
3. Be active in a way that adds joy to your life

Plus pure water ~whole foods~sunshine~and laughter