What's Wrong With What You Eat?

In recent years more people have come to realize the importance of selecting the foods that will most benefit their health. This interest in the life giving values of food is great as it marks a great advance in human welfare. Below you will find 8 important facts you should know about eating healthy.

1. Eat all your foods as close to their natural state as possible. Most people overcook their food, specially their vegetables. For example, most people peel their potatoes before they cook them. Potatoes in particular should never be peeled for the most valuable elements lie directly under or in the skin.

2. Get your vitamins and minerals naturally, not from "enriched" products. Nature has provided an abundant supply of vitamins and minerals in foods in their raw state. If you have not destroyed them by peeling or overcooking, you will receive an adequate supply so long as you eat a rational diet. The so called enriched foods have already been devitalized. The mere addition of a chemical equivalent of the necessary vitamins and minerals does not compensate for the loss of natural food elements.

3. Use fruits and vegetables immediately after cutting. The Vitamin C content of fruits and vegetables is lost at an extremely fast rate once the vegetables fibers have been cut or bruised.

4. Don't throw away the water used for cooking your vegetables. Drink it, or save it for tomorrow's soup. Such water is rich in the vitamins extracted from the vegetables during the cooking process.

5. Don't skip meals to reduce. Your body requires regular and frequent supplies of energy. In reducing your weight, it is not how much or how often you eat that counts, but what foods you choose and how well you chew them.

6. Eat a good breakfast. Coming as it does at the start of a new day and after fourteen or more hours without nutrition, breakfast is a means of replenishing your energy and strength. It will help carry you through some of the busiest and most demanding hours of your day. If you want to reduce, choose a salad instead of a heavy meal at lunch time, but only after eating a nourishing, balanced breakfast.

7. Eat some organic food every day. Include at least one food that is organically grown in your daily diet. It would be ideal if all the fruits and vegetables we consumed were organically grown, but there are not enough organic farmers to supply us with all our needs. The next best thing is to include at least one food that has been organically grown. They will provide the final link with natural nutrition which each of us must maintain.

8. Cook vegetables quickly and in very little water. The value of food, which is created in the growing process, is easily destroyed in the process of cooking. All foods should be cooked far less than is the habit in most homes today. Very often the water in which they are cooked is more valuable to your health than the vegetables themselves.