THE SIX BASIC RULES FOR EATING HEALTHY MEALS!
This webpage
shares six basic rules that can be used to help people eat healthier daily
meals. It also shares a lot of
information that clears up many of the most common misunderstandings that
people have about nutrition these days.
First I'll share the six basic rules, and then I'll go into more depth
on each of them.
The Six Basic Rules
for Eating Healthy Meals!
Rule #1: Have only natural
foods and drinks! This rule addresses the importance of
having foods and drinks that occur in nature, or are made from ingredients that
occur in nature.
Rule #2: Have organically
grown foods and drinks whenever possible! This rule
addresses the importance of having foods and drinks that have been grown only
with natural plant fertilizers, plant pesticides, animal feeds, and animal
medications.
Rule #3: Have plenty of
raw foods and drinks! This rule addresses why raw foods and
drinks are usually much healthier than cooked ones.
Rule #4: Use healthy food
storage and cooking techniques! This rule addresses the healthiest ways to
store and cook foods.
Rule #5: Have a variety of
foods and drinks in your daily meals! This rule addresses what types of foods and
drinks you can have each day, to ensure that you get enough water, vitamins,
minerals, sugars, fats, oils, amino acids, digestive enzymes, and other
phytonutrients.
Rule #6: Supplement Your
Daily Meals With Nutritional Supplements! This rule addresses which nutritional
supplements are best to take each day, to ensure that you get all of the
nutrients that your body needs to be healthy.
Now here is
each rule described in more depth...
Rule #1: Have only natural
foods and drinks!
Natural
foods and drinks are ones that are found in nature, or are made from
ingredients that are found in nature.
Natural foods would include mainly fruits, vegetables, seeds (such as
grains and nuts), herbs and spices, fungi (such as mushrooms), bacteria (such
as yogurt and cheese), meats (such as poultry and sea foods), and various
animal products (like milk and eggs).
Natural drinks would include mainly water, herb teas, and fruit and
vegetable juices.
One way that
food manufacturers make foods and drinks that are unnatural, is by adding
synthetic (man-made) food additives to them.
The human body must change most chemicals that are eaten into other
chemicals. This is mainly done in the
liver. Most synthetic food additives
are chemicals that have theoretically never existed in nature. As a result the human liver is not designed
to be able to change them into useable nutrients, or chemicals that are less
toxic. The result is often that eating
and drinking synthetic food additives, over time severely weakens a person's
liver. When a person's liver weakens,
it's more difficult, if not impossible, for a person's body to get rid of many
synthetic food additives. The result is
that the body stores many of them in human cells. This results in the cells not being able to do their jobs
properly. When this occurs, the
person's body tends to weaken, and the person becomes diseased. It's better to avoid synthetic food
additives whenever possible, than to risk weakening the body with them.
Another way
that food manufacturers make foods and drinks that are unnatural, is that they
remove many of their nutrients. Food
manufacturers tend to process foods and drinks this way, because they
supposedly taste better, and so they sell more of their products, and they make
more money. But the body can tell the
difference between natural foods and drinks, and ones that have been processed
in this way. The human body tends to
thrive on natural ones, and weakens on processed ones. Some examples of processed foods include white
bread, most soft drinks, candybars, as well as nearly every food or drink made
with white sugar.
To eat
healthier foods, I suggest you eat at natural food restaurants whenever
possible, and buy your groceries at natural food stores whenever possible.
"Natural food restaurants" are similar to regular
restaurants, except natural food restaurants serve much healthier meals. To learn where there are natural food
restaurants in your area, I suggest looking at the website, www.VegDining.com. This website has a free directory of natural
food restaurants all over the world.
You also might be helped by the book, Vegetarian Journal's Guide to Natural Foods Restaurants in the U.S.
and Canada, complied by the Vegetarian Resource
Group (copyright 1998; published by the
Avery Publishing Group, 120 Old Broadway, Garden City Park, New York, 11040,
U.S.A.).
"Natural food stores" are stores that mainly sell
healthy types of foods, cosmetics, toiletries, detergents, and other products
normally sold at most grocery stores and supermarkets. For a helpful listing of more than a
thousand natural food stores located throughout the United States, I suggest
getting the book, The Tofu Tollbooth, complied by Elizabeth Zipern and Dar Williams (copyright
1998; published by Ceres Press (in
collaboration with Ardwork Press), Post Office Box 87, Woodstock, New York,
12498, U.S.A.).
Click here to see a list of
“Healthier Alternatives to Common Foods and Drinks".
Rule #2: Have organically
grown foods and drinks whenever possible!
This section
explains the importance of having foods and drinks that have been grown only
with natural plant fertilizers and natural animal feeds. Also, when plant pesticides and animal
medications are necessary, natural pesticides and medications are preferred
over synthetic ("man-made") ones.
"Organic"
means that a food was grown without the use of synthetic hormones, synthetic
drugs, synthetic pesticides, or synthetic fertilizers. Only natural hormones,
natural drugs, natural pesticides, and natural fertilizers can be used on
organic foods and drinks. Organic foods
and drinks will generally state that they are organic on their packaging
labels.
"Inorganic"
foods often have a lot of toxins in them, and very few nutrients in them. For example, plants that are sprayed with
synthetic pesticides, can absorb some of these pesticides. So, when we eat these plants, we may also be
eating any synthetic pesticides that are on the outside and inside of these
plants. Some of these pesticides can
then be stored in our bodies, and over time they may weaken our bodies. Various types of pesticides have been found
in human mother’s milk, implying that some pesticides can be stored in women’s
breast tissue or other parts of women’s bodies.
Plants
absorb minerals from the soil, and use them to make a variety of other
nutrients. When people eat these
plants, our bodies use these nutrients to keep us healthy. Inorganic fertilizers usually have mainly
the gas, nitrogen, and the minerals, phosphorus, and potassium in them. When plants absorb these three nutrients,
they can make very few nutrients from them, so the plants are unhealthy. So, when we eat them, our bodies get very
few nutrients. However, natural
fertilizers include animal “dung”, various types of minerals, fish meal, and
various types of dried plants. Each of
these tends to have many more minerals in them than the inorganic fertilizers
usually contain. So, when farmers grow
plants using organic fertilizers, the result is that you get to eat foods that
have many more nutrients in them. Then
your body can use these nutrients to keep you as healthy as possible.
The same is
true for animal foods. Do you think
chickens, pigs, or cows will be healthier if they eat foods that have been
grown with synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, or organic
fertilizers, and no pesticides, or natural ones when needed? Do you want to eat an egg that has few
nutrients in it, and various synthetic pesticides in it, or one that has no
pesticides, and a wide variety of nutrients?
Sometimes
animals are given synthetic medications.
Some of these medications can be stored in the animals’ bodies, and when
we eat the animal, we also are eating the medications. Do you want to be eating animal foods that
contain toxic pesticides, unknown medications, and few nutrients? If not, then I encourage you to eat organic
animal foods whenever possible.
As you can
see, organic farmers are very important to us, because they provide us with a
variety of healthy foods and drinks. Another
reason why organic farmers are important is that they grow foods in ways that
maintain a healthy environment. Since
organic farmers use only natural substances in their farming practices, the
earth is kept healthy. The soil becomes
healthy topsoil, with minerals in it, and lots of worms, helpful bacteria and
fungi living in it. This is what
healthy topsoil is like, and healthy topsoil encourages various types of
insects and animals to thrive. This is
encourages a healthy natural environment!
On the other
hand, non-organic farmers treat the land in a variety of destructive ways that
damage the environment. When farmers
use non-organic pesticides and fertilizers, this tends to result in soil that
many living things can’t live in. The
synthetic, and non-organic chemicals that the non-organic farmers use make the
soil toxic, and nutrient depleted, so worms, and helpful bacteria and fungi
can’t live in it. If this occurs, the
layer of topsoil disappears, and this often results in soil erosion. The toxic soil then gets washed into lakes
and streams, where it fills them up with dirt, and pollutes them with toxins as
well. Then the life in and around the
water (like plants, insects, frogs, fish, deer, and birds) gets poisoned from
the water too! Ultimately, it’s easy to
see how non-organic farming tends to ruin the environment, by ruining the
health of trillions of living things.
And so, when
you buy and eat organic foods and drinks, you are financially supporting
organic farmers. You are encouraging
the health of your self and your loved ones.
And you are also encouraging the health of the environment as a
whole! Eating organic food keeps the
planet healthier for all of us!
Rule #3: Have plenty of raw foods and drinks!
To my
knowledge, humans are the only living beings on Earth that apply high amounts
of heat to some of their foods before they eat or drink them. Some of the ways that people do this are by
cooking, canning, bottling, and pasteurizing foods and drinks.
One of the
main reasons why people apply high amounts of heat to foods and drinks is to
kill any potentially dangerous infections that might be living on the foods or
in the drinks. Orange juice might be
pasteurized (heated), before it is bottled, to kill any harmful bacteria that
might have gotten into the juice. Cow’s
milk might be pasteurized to kill any salmonella or shigella bacteria that
might have gotten into it. A hamburger
or a piece of chicken might be cooked, with the intention of killing various
types of parasitic worms, and their eggs.
The intention here is to kill any infections that might not be killed by
the hydrochloric acid in our stomachs or the digestive enzymes in our stomachs
and intestines. Considering that many
people have poor digestive systems, I think in general, these are
understandable reasons why people apply high amounts of heat to some foods and
drinks.
Never the
less, as a general rule, raw foods are healthier than one’s that have been
heated to high temperatures. This is
because raw foods have many more nutrients in them, and fewer toxins in them,
than ones that have been heated to high temperatures.
As you know,
all living beings’ (animals, plants, etc.) bodies create nutrients, known as
enzymes, in order to digest food, take in and use oxygen from the air, detoxify
various poisons, think, heal injuries, see, and many other daily
functions. When one living being eats
another living being, it ingests the many enzymes present in the food, and its
body can use some of the enzymes as they are, and others it can digest down
into smaller particles, which can later be reassembled into new enzymes. And so in this way, nature has designed
people to get various types of enzymes with each meal we eat. These enzymes help keep our bodies (and minds)
especially healthy.
Enzymes are
generally unaffected by being subjected to cold temperatures. In fact enzymes have been found still
perfectly fine in ancient seeds, and woolly mammoth dinosaurs that had been
frozen in ice for thousands of years.
However, when enzymes are heated to high temperatures, they are
molecularly modified (heat altered) and destroyed by the heat. The result is that people often have foods
and drinks that have no enzymes in them.
Because of this, people’s bodies then have to create many of these
enzymes that they normally would have gotten in daily meals. Eventually, people’s bodies weaken from
getting so few enzymes in their daily meals, and their bodies have fewer and
fewer enzymes. This is one of the main
reasons why some people are in such poor health these days.
Another way
that heating foods and drinks to high temperatures reduces the health of the
food and drinks is by turning oils and fats rancid. When high amounts of heat are applied to oils and fats, their
molecules combine with oxygen, and they are now called “rancid” or “oxidized”
oils and fats. While oils and fats are
normally very healthy nutrients for our bodies, rancid oils and fats are
dangerous toxins, and severely weaken people’s health.
With all of
this in mind, I encourage people to have plenty of raw foods and drinks each
day. I also believe it’s important to
use common sense as to which raw foods and drinks are safe to eat and drink,
and which ones are best to avoid. As a
general rule, I encourage people to have plenty of raw fruits and vegetables,
and I also encourage people to cook their meats thoroughly (to kill any
possible parasitic worm infections).
Having plenty of raw foods in daily meals encourages people to have
strong, healthy bodies, like those of the energetic wild animals found
throughout nature!
Rule #4: Use healthy food
storage and cooking techniques!
This section
shares the most and least healthy ways to store and cook various foods and
drinks.
Food
Storage Techniques
There are
many ways that food can be stored, in order to preserve the food, until we eat
it. Here's a listing for you of various
food storage techniques. To be most
helpful to you, I've arranged them into the categories of
"Healthiest", "Less Healthy", and "Unhealthy".
FOOD STORAGE
TECHNIQUES
HEALTHIEST:
Freeze Drying –
When a food is freeze dried, it is first frozen. Then the frozen water in the food is evaporated out of it, while
the food remains frozen. Freeze drying
is one of the healthiest of all food storage techniques. Freeze drying destroys few (if any)
nutrients.
Freezing – Freezing
food is one of the healthiest of all food storage techniques. Freezing destroys few (if any) nutrients.
Drying (also
called "dehydrating") (using low
temperatures) – Drying food using low temperatures destroys very few
nutrients. In general the cooler the
temperature that the food was dried, the healthier the food is. Even temperatures that are 118 degrees
Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius) have been found to damage some nutrients
(including some enzymes).
Refrigerating –
Refrigerating raw or cooked foods will destroy few (if any) nutrients.
Salting – Salting
is a food preservation technique that's sometimes used to preserve meats. If a person has healthy kidneys, and the
person gets the basic daily nutrients needed each day (including a variety of
trace minerals), then eating the large amount of salt on the food should be
perfectly healthy for the individual.
In general, salt (sodium chloride) is a very healthy nutrient, supplying
the body with the valuable nutrients, sodium and chlorine.
Vacuum sealing
(also called "vacuum packing") – This is one of the healthiest of all
food preservation techniques. Vacuum
sealing involves storing the food in a package, in which the air has been
removed. No heat is applied to the food
during this process. This destroys few
(if any) nutrients, and the food can often be stored for very long periods of
time.
LESS HEALTHY:
Bottling – When foods or drinks are put into bottles, they are generally
heated to temperatures that destroy some of the nutrients (including most, if
not all, of the enzymes).
Canning - When foods or drinks are put into cans, they are generally
heated to temperatures that destroy some of the nutrients (including most, if
not all, of the enzymes).
Chemical preservatives (using safe, natural chemicals) - This involves mixing
safe, natural chemicals into the food.
This can include safe chemicals (like vitamin C and vitamin E) that keep
certain nutrients in the food from changing their molecular forms. It can also include safe chemicals that are
"growth inhibitors" (antibiotics).
Growth inhibitors generally keep bacteria and fungi from living and
reproducing on the food. Some natural
growth inhibiters discourage the growth of both harmful bacteria and helpful
bacteria as well.
Drying (also
called "dehydrating") (using high
temperatures) - Drying food using high temperatures destroys many nutrients
(including many, if not all, enzymes).
In general the hotter the temperature that the food was dried, the less
healthy the food is. As mentioned
earlier, even temperatures that are 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48 degrees Celsius)
have been found to damage some nutrients (including some enzymes).
Jarring - When foods or drinks are put into jars, they are generally
heated to temperatures that destroy some of the nutrients (including most, if
not all, of the enzymes).
Pasteurizing – Pasteurizing refers to heating a food (usually a liquid) to
high temperatures, in order to kill bacteria and any other types of living
things in the food. Often the food or
drink is pasteurized right before, or at the same time it is being packaged
into bottles, jars, cans, cartons, or other containers.
UNHEALTHY:
Chemical preservatives (using harmful, natural or synthetic chemicals) – This
involves mixing harmful chemicals into the food. This can include harmful chemicals that keep nutrients in the
food from changing their molecular forms.
It can also include harmful chemicals that are "growth
inhibitors" (antibiotics). As
mentioned earlier, growth inhibitors generally keep bacteria and fungi from
living and reproducing on the food.
It's important to remember that harmful chemicals are poisons. So, adding harmful chemical preservatives to
foods, turns healthy foods into poisons.
Irradiating
(also called "radiating") – This food preservation technique involves
exposing food to large amounts of radiation from either nuclear waste (from
nuclear power plants), or x-rays. This
leaves the food so "damaged" that not even bacteria or fungi can live
from eating it.
Smoking - Smoking is a food preservation technique that's sometimes used
to preserve meats. When meats are
smoked, they are put over a fire, where the foods are heated to very high temperatures,
and covered with smoke. This dries out
the meats, and the smoke acts as a natural preservative (which helps to keep
bacteria and fungi from growing on it).
Because smoked meats are heated to very high temperatures, a large
amount of their nutrients are destroyed.
Many vitamins are destroyed. All
enzymes are destroyed. And many fats
and oils are turned rancid.
Food
Cooking Techniques
There are
lots of ways that food can be cooked.
Food is often cooked to kill any harmful parasitic worms, protozoa,
fungi, bacteria, and viruses, which may be present in the raw food. Food is also cooked to make certain foods
(like rice and other grains) easier to chew.
Also, food is sometimes cooked to "improve" the way it tastes.
Some people
like to eat foods and drink drinks that are extremely hot. While warm foods and drinks are fine, I
highly discourage people from eating or drinking anything that's too hot. If it burns your mouth, it's too hot to
eat or drink! This is because when
this hot food or drink is swallowed, it goes into the person's stomach, and it
burns the stomach. I believe this is
one reason why many people can't digest food properly. When a person burns his or her stomach day
after day...the person's stomach is always injured, and it can't properly
digest foods and drinks.
It's also
important to remember that when cooking foods in pots, it’s best to avoid using
pots that put toxins in the food. I
recommend avoiding using pots that are made from aluminum, or are coated with
Teflon. Aluminum and Teflon can come
off of the pots, and get into the foods that you are cooking. I suggest using pots made of glass or
stainless steel, instead.
Here's a
listing for you of various ways to cook food.
To be most helpful, I've arranged the various cooking techniques into
the categories of "Healthiest", "Less Healthy", and
"Unhealthy".
FOOD COOKING
TECHNIQUES
HEALTHIEST:
Boiling – This is
one of the healthiest ways to cook food.
Boiling heats water up to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit (about 100
degrees Celsius). Water generally will
not get any hotter than this temperature.
At this temperature, most, if not all, harmful infections are killed. Also, most fats and oils will not go rancid
at the temperature that water boils at, so foods that have been boiled still
have healthy fats and oils in them, that our bodies can use as very healthy
nutrients.
Poaching – Poaching
is a way of boiling food in a small amount of water. Eggs are often poached, using little pots, called "egg
poachers". Vegetables and meats
(such as fish, chicken, or even "turkey burgers") can be poached in a
frying pan. Simply fill the frying pan
with about three quarters of an inch (two centimeters) of water, and keep the
lid on the frying pan, while it's cooking.
If you're cooking vegetables or small pieces of meat, you can stir them
periodically to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. Larger pieces of food can be turned over
periodically to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
Pressure-cooking – Pressure-cooking is a way of boiling food in water. Food that is pressure-cooked, is placed in a
type of pot, called a "pressure-cooker". The pot is designed to keep the steam in the pot until the steam
builds up to a certain pressure. Then
the pot lets some steam out, while maintaining the desired pressure inside the
pot. The pressure inside the pot (from
the high air pressure and high water pressure) helps the food being boiled to
cook quicker.
Simmering – Simmering
is similar to boiling, but when food is simmered, the water is not heated to a
high enough temperature for the water to boil.
Sometimes people will first boil a food (to kill infections), and then
let the food simmer (to finish cooking it at a temperature that will destroy
fewer nutrients). For example, grains
can be cooked by first boiling, and then simmering.
Slow-cooking
(using a crock-pot) – Slow cooking, using a crock-pot, is a way of simmering
food for long periods of time. For
example, a person using a crock-pot to make stew, might simmer the food in the
crock-pot for five hours or more, before the person eats the stew.
Steaming – When food
is steamed, it is put into a basket, which is put into a pot of boiling or
simmering water. The basket is above
the water, so the food is also above the water, where it is being cooked by the
hot steam. Like the other cooking
methods mentioned above, steaming will kill most, if not all, infections. Steaming will also not turn most fats and
oils rancid, so our bodies can use the healthy fats and oils as valuable
nutrients.
LESS HEALTHY:
Baking – Baking
refers to cooking a food in dry heat.
Foods baked in an oven are cooked in temperatures that are high enough
to destroy some vitamins, destroy all enzymes, and make some fats and oils go
rancid. The water that is inside the
food helps to keep the temperature inside the food at about 212 degrees
Fahrenheit (about 100 degrees Celsius), so most of the fats and oils inside the
food don't turn rancid. However, the
water present in the outer surface of the food being baked, is evaporated away
by the high heat. This results in the
temperature on the outer surface of the food becoming extremely high, which
turns many fats and oils there rancid.
Broiling – Broiling
is a type of baking (which is described above).
Grilling – Foods
that are grilled are cooked on a metal grill, over a hot fire, or hot
coals. Grilling has a similar effect on
foods that baking does.
Microwaving –
Foods that are microwaved are cooked in microwave ovens. A food is placed inside the microwave oven,
and when the microwave oven is turned on, it sends certain types of radio waves
into the food. These radio waves make
the water molecules in the food vibrate quickly. The water molecules vibrating quickly create heat, which cooks
the food. Since the technique of
cooking food using radio waves is so different than the way foods are cooked
using more "natural" approaches, it's questionable how healthy
microwaving is, as a cooking method.
Roasting – Roasting
is a type of baking (which is described above).
UNHEALTHY:
Frying (stir
frying, pan frying, and deep frying) – Foods that are fried are cooked in a
type of fat or oil (such as butter, or a vegetable oil). The temperature of the fat or oil can get
extremely hot, and when it does, the fat or oil that the food is cooking in,
turns rancid. This is easily seen when
butter turns rancid. At the moment the
butter is turning rancid, it changes its color from its normal whitish-yellow
color, to a brown color. To cook food
in rancid fat or oil is extremely unhealthy, since rancid fats and oils are
toxic. Frying foods destroys many
vitamins, and all enzymes. Fried foods
contain a large amount of rancid fats and oils.
Smoking – Smoking
is usually used to cook meats. As
mentioned previously (in the "Food Storage Techniques" section), when
meats are smoked, they are put over a fire, where the foods are heated to very
high temperatures, and covered with smoke.
During smoking, most of the water in the meats is evaporated out. This results in many of the fats and oils,
inside the meat, and on the meat's surface, turning rancid. When meats are smoked, many vitamins are
destroyed, all enzymes are destroyed, and many fats and oils are turned rancid.
Rule #5: Have a variety of foods and drinks in your
daily meals!
Each type of
food is unique. Therefore, each type of
food has something special to offer people, and their health. With this in mind I highly encourage people
to eat a wide variety of foods. By
eating a wide variety of foods, you guarantee that your body will get a wide
variety of nutrients...to keep you healthy and strong!
Rule
#6: Supplement Your Daily Meals With
Nutritional Supplements!
In my
opinion, most people (including those who have healthy meals each day) would
really benefit from supplementing their daily meals with extra vitamins,
minerals, digestive enzymes, and helpful intestinal bacteria. The reason why I feel this way, is that we
generally don’t get enough of any of these nutrients, even if we have healthy
meals each day. This is because many of
our foods are grown in soil that has a poor variety of minerals in it. As a result, the foods have fewer vitamins,
minerals, and enzymes in them, than if they were grown in healthy,
nutrient-rich soil. The reason why I
suggest people supplement their daily meals with helpful intestinal bacteria,
is because I think it’s best to be totally sure that there are always
plenty of them, alive and well, in each person’s intestines.
If you are
eating healthy daily meals most days, then you may already be getting enough
sugars, essential fatty acids, amino acids, and/or phytonutrients. If you feel that’s the case with any one of
these nutrients, that’s wonderful! You
may not have any need to supplement your daily meals with them.
It's also
important to be aware that most nutritional supplements that are sold are not
very good. They often have poor
ingredients, such as artificial food additives, lots of synthetic vitamins, and
minerals in forms that people's bodies can hardly absorb. To learn more about the types of nutrients I
believe people need each day, and which nutritional supplements I highly
recommend, I suggest reading the webpage titled "What Nutrients Do People
Need?" on this www.AbundantHealth.ws website. (Click
here to view that webpage.)
I hope you found the six basic rules for eating healthy meals helpful to make your daily meals both more nutritious and more pleasurable! Happy eating to you!!
