Diets - Eating
Instinctively
I start from the premise that eating instinctively means eating
healthily. I strongly believe that the body can transmit to the brain
accurate information about its nutritional necessities: a moderate
amount of food, and only foods that are beneficial for health.
Most of these natural eating instincts, alas, are lost on the way.
Usually, during the growing process, adults project their unhealthy
habits on children, offering them a range of foods that are not always
the best choices. As adults, we form our own eating habits, which are
more or less healthy. We usually worry about our children's eating
habits, but their instinct is often correct.
My theory has as starting point my own experience as a child, when I
recall rejecting foods that I found too greasy or too deeply fried.
Observing the behaviour of babies and children towards feeding might
give us an idea about what eating instinctively means. Small children
who did not have the time to be influenced by adults, have their natural
eating instincts unspoiled. Contrary to adults' opinion about eating,
they want to eat many smaller meals and only when they are hungry.
To support my thesis, I resort to the recommendation made by
specialists in baby nutrition. They advise on feeding babies on request,
not forcing a program on them. Thus a meal program will be generated by
their inner scheduler according to their needs.
So, from children we learn that one should eat when hungry, and the
amount strictly required by body necessities. We should not be driven by
social cues such as eating out with friends, even if we are not hungry,
or take a lunch break just because it is 12 noon.
Another reason which supports the theory of a simpler way of eating
is that based on foods offered by nature. All living creatures find in
nature what they need to sustain life. Theoretically, foods of natural
origin in their unspoiled state should be sufficient to ensure a healthy
existence. While I do not support any kind of paleolithic diet, but we
are bound to make reference to the simple way of eating in ancient
times. In modern times modern and more complex diseases have developed.
These include the increased incidence of tooth decay, allergies and
various diseases of the digestive system such as diverticulitis, most of
them tightly connected to modern diets. Man was not built for so many
refined and super-refined processed foods. Cooking, the great discovery,
was just a means to make foods more digestible. Nowadays we experience
an extreme version of modern eating, one abounding in processed foods
and pre-prepared meals.
Eating raw foods, such as vegetables and fruit, in proportion to
cooked meals is definitely healthier. It is also healthy to choose
unrefined foods, as natural as possible.
We need to reconsider our diets and healthier ways of eating. But it
is harder to re-educate ourselves and easier to acquire good habits from
scratch. First we need to forget everything we know, get rid of all our
unhealthy habits and only then rediscover eating. And it is even harder
to resist the many temptations scattered around us.
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