An issue came up with my friend Costa and I while we were eating a salad which i have never considered. Apparently we underestimate how much our bodies crave whole foods. What are whole foods? Anything that hasn’t been processed. For example, eating and apple is very different from drinking apple juice. There are certain key ingredients that your body can be missing. When you cook whole foods you are also taking away certain substances that you could have had if the food was uncooked. Vitamins are not foods, and according to Costa they are “just singular chemicals”, whereas food contains properties that can only be found and made in nature. This can also be considered when you are sick and need vitamins. Vitamins are “chemicals that lack important food substances that you can only get with food”. And this comes as no surprise to me. Whole foods contain natural vitamins and minerals that the food produces itself, antioxidants, etc. Most of the time, when eating processed foods, you are not only digesting chemicals that are found in whatever whole food, for example vitamins found in an apple in apple juice, but also chemicals and vitamins that are not found in that fruit. Eating processed foods and drinks can make us forget to eat other foods that we need. If I were to eat an apple, I would have to eat something else as well to get all of the nutrients that I need, which encourages exploring different types of whole foods and what each one can do for your body. This I think is much better than eating a cliff bar and calling it a day. After this discussion I was convinced that I should start eating more whole, uncooked foods. When we get into the science of food we can learn a lot more about what we are actually eating, and the implications of our actions.
Eating whole foods
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