If you are serious about having a healthy body and want to live well and live long, then read on. Based on my studies and compilation, here are a few reasons why equipping ourselves with some basic understanding of nutritional stuff is important:
- Basic nutrition helps us to focus in regulating our blood sugars, which is important in managing our energy levels, hunger and weight.
- If we consume nutrient-dense unprocessed foods without the added solid fats, sugars, starches, or sodium, this will greatly improve and help in preventing chronic diseases.
- Lifestyle changes may not give us immediate health improvement results; however, medical studies showed that this alone can help us decrease, or even eliminate the need for several medications related to cholesterol levels, blood pressure, diabetes and even depression. The reason lifestyles changes are important to a healthier and stronger body is that they can modify the many contributors to cardiovascular diseases, such as high blood pressure, high blood sugar and obesity.
- Eat more beans and quinoa. These two ‘superfoods’ will provide sufficient protein and fiber to our body that helps us to regulate our blood sugars, hunger and energy levels.
- Don’t take fats lightly as far as health is concerned. Fats can actually help us prevent vitamin deficiencies and create satiety in our life. Both the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats from nuts, oils, avocados, and olives are essential for us to absorb fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, and K.
- Many processed foods cause our pancreas to work more than twice as hard as it should. Hence, it wouldn’t be surprised for us to often hear many Americans have diabetes and millions are pre-diabetic.
- Don’t consume too much sodium per day, as it can result in high blood pressure, heart disease, fluid retention and stroke.
- Do not be misled by the many attractive food or nutrition advertisements in the market. You need to aware many food companies use multiple and sometimes confusing schemes to attract consumers to their products despite each local government imposing strict labeling requirements.
- Fiber can help us sustain a healthy digestive system; however, isolated fiber, i.e. the fiber that food manufacturers add to foods that would otherwise not contain fiber is not equivalent to whole fiber.
Best,
Tan Kok Hui
Nutrition Made Simple, Life Made Rich
