It can be incredibly difficult to keep up with all the health news, fads, diets, warnings, studies, and opinions out there. One minute something is good for you, the next minute it isn’t anymore. What can you do? Who can you trust?
In this blog post, I will give you the 4 things all healthy foods have in common so you no longer have to wonder or question it. You will be able to go grocery shopping and come home with a cart full of healthy goodness and not worry about whether you made some iffy choices!
For the podcast version of this article, listen here:
How Do I Know If a Food Is Healthy or Not?
There are 4 questions to ask yourself when you are about to buy or eat a particular food to determine if it is healthy or not.
- Is it a whole food? This is the simplest of all the questions. Whole foods are any food that comes from the Earth, whether that be the ground, a bush, a tree, or a plant. It is a food unprocessed and pure. Examples include:
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Whole Grains (as opposed to refined grains)
- Beans and legumes
- Nuts and seeds
- Is it heavily processed? Even some whole foods can be heavily processed, so this is a tough one. But you are always safe if you buy food in it’s fresh form as opposed to from a box or can. Most of the time, foods that come in a box or a can have been processed in some way. There are exceptions, so check the label. If there are any ingredients that you can’t pronounce, chances are it’s been heavily processed. Which brings me to the third question…
- Are there any harmful chemicals added? Those are the un-pronounceables you see on the ingredient list. Some of these may not be harmful per se, but if you are going for a strictly whole food diet, you won’t be doing yourself any favors if you buy something with weird names in the ingredient list.
- Was it grown using antibiotics or pesticides? This can be hard to know for sure, a lot of products claim they don’t use antibiotics or pesticides, but in order to be 100% sure you would have to buy it directly from the farmer who grew it (which is why I’m such an advocate of farmers markets!)
In conclusion, all healthy foods have these things in common; they are whole foods, they were not processed, grown with antibiotics or pesticides, and have no harmful chemicals added. To be safe, shop mostly at farmers markets, health food stores, and the organic sections of grocery stores. And still check the labels if you buy items in a box or can, just because it came from a health food store doesn’t mean it’s 100% healthy!
If you found this article interesting, here is a related article about how to look for the right ingredients on food labels and how to watch out for the wrong ones:
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