After last month’s newsletter with the Creamy Potato Soup recipe I got an email from one of our readers:
“I have a question on that soup. I’ve always heard potatoes have a lot of starch and carbs, and since I’m trying to eat really healthy these days, I’d like to hear your thoughts. I’m guessing you would say probably all in moderation.” ~ Shelley
Such a great question, since we are continually bombarded not only with warnings to not eat this or that food, but also insistent commands to eat this food or that. Here’s my response:
“Hi Shelley. You know I’m all about Meal Making Transformation, and item #1 on the transformational journey is figuring out what kind of eating you want to transform to. So it’s good you’re wondering what it means to “eat really healthy.” It’s not uncommon that we don’t know what that looks like on our plates.
After 30 years seeing diet fads and eating approaches come and go, and experimenting plenty on my own, I’ve come down to the Real, Whole Food philosophy as my guiding approach.
Over the years, I watched different people say: Don’t eat this fat, or eat this protein, or don’t eat that grain, or make sure you eat a lot of this nut, or don’t eat potatoes, in your case. While there may be a lot of quibbling over these details, underlying them all is the foundational principle of eating only real, whole foods.
In other words, no one suggests that you eat not-foods, like potato chips, white crackers, Cheeze Whiz and hot dogs!
When we talk about unhealthy fats, excess sugar and salt, artificial additives, etc., it is not-foods where all these problematic ingredients live. Get rid of them and you almost automatically get a healthy diet.
And the easiest way to get rid of not-foods? By eating only real whole foods. Amazingly and automatically that eliminates all of the problematic foods in your diet (e.g., processed foods!)
So, given my Real, Whole Foods approach, I am fine eating potatoes because they are straight from the earth and our bodies were designed to eat foods that come from the earth—just like every other species on the planet.
However, I eat potatoes only once or twice a week, because wild and delicious diversity is another key healthy eating tenet. Every food has a different nutritional profile. Eating as many as possible means you have a better chance of getting all the different nutrients your body needs to thrive.
And yes, there is truth to the saying, “all foods in moderation.” Note however, that this only refers to “food,” i.e., things that come from the earth. It does not include not-foods.
Our best health is best served by eliminating not-foods as much as possible. So yes to potato soup, but not so much on the potato chips!”
0 Comments