Healthy Nutrition

My mum was a reluctant cook, but passionate about nutrition. So I grew up on plain, but nutritious food. We always had lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. Baking was always with wholemeal flour, dark brown sugar and no baking powder. Animal protein was limited.

I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I am so glad now.

My mum had lived through the rationing after two world wars, so when we went to live in East Africa, she embraced the availability of the diverse fresh produce. Holidays at the coast was as much of a paradise for her as it was for her children.

Her particular paradise was to buy a basket of mangoes at the local market, then take it and a knife to the beach and sit in the shallow water. Eating mangoes can be messy, but she wanted to extract the last of the nectar. I don’t recall anyone else wanting to eat an entire basketful, of around twenty, in one sitting. I guess she had a lot of catching up to do!

Eating an abundance of real food, if you crave it, is healthy. Your body will crave what it needs, as long as it is real food, unadulterated by processing and manipulation. Real food is natural food. When you have topped up on what your body needs, the craving will disappear.

One objection I hear over and over again, is that too much fruit is bad for you. A myth, like so many. You can never have too much fruit as long as it is fresh and not manipulated, such as with GM. The sugar in fruit is easily broken down by your body. You have evolved to do just that. Natural fruit sugar, in real, fresh fruit, is not the problem with diabetics. The problem is the processed, refined and manipulated white sugar, that I call poison. It is also one of the main reasons, or causes, behind cholesterol and heart problems.

Cut out white poison from your diet and get your sweet fix from real food, ie real fruit. Make your own chocolate, desserts and other sweet delicacies, with stevia, real honey or the water from soaked dried fruit, such as dates. Whole sugarcane, often sold under names such as rapadura, is also fine as it comes from the whole cane and is simply ground up and dried.

When you eat real, whole food, ie natural food, rather than processed or otherwise manipulated ‘food’ so common today, your health takes a big turn for the better. Fresh fruit is also the ultimate, and original, fast food. Your bank balance will also benefit.