“To eat is a necessity, but to eat intelligently is an art.”
– La Rochefoucauld
There is a new first class way to eat that also promotes natural weight loss and more.
For centuries, food was scarce and having access to an abundance of foods meant you were wealthy. Eating as a status symbol used to be all about eating the most calorie-rich foods possible; beef, pies etc; and in the last 100 years in particular, it has given rise to the disease-economy we have today.
Heck, In times past, when most workers did physical labor outdoors under the sun and often had little calorie rich foods, being pale and fat was the look of status, indicating wealth and prosperity (through having more than enough food and not having to do manual labor).[1] Meanwhile, given most people weren’t wealthy, people didn’t get lifestyle-induced diseases from poor eating and inactivity because they were active in the fields, and ate 90% or more plant based nutrient rich foods.
It’s no wonder that The China Study, the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted, emphasized the distinction between the diseases of affluence, which include lifestyle-induced diseases such as being fat (yes, the overweight condition is a lifestyle-induced disease) gout, arthritis, diabetes and heart disease… and diseases of poverty, which were those diseases associated with unsanitary conditions, such as tuberculosis and pneumonia.
Today, status around food has changed.
With easier access to more foods, meals and menus than at any other time in human history, requiring very limited energy output to acquire it, no one is suffering from a lack of calories (macronutrients) and almost everyone is suffering from too many; too much protein, too much carbohydrate, and too much fat all the same. At the same time, most people are not getting enough micronutrients in the form of vitamins, minerals and fiber and phytochemicals, which provide the major nutrient load in plant foods; even more so than vitamins and minerals!
The result? The lifestyle-induced, overweight condition and other diseases that are a burden not only to a persons self esteem but also to society in the form of lost productivity and higher heath care costs that we all have to pay, are frowned upon and symbolize someone who does not have a healthy lifestyle and is basically not taking good care of their body. Looking at this from the stand point of status, eating predominantly calorie rich, nutrient poor foods such as steak and sweets, is a reflection of someone who is not in-the-know, ignorant to health and the environmental impact of food choices.
It’s time to save face.
The New First Class Way to Eat
It’s not calorie rich, nutrient poor foods the way it used to be. It’s nutrient rich, calorie appropriate foods. Notice I didn’t say nutrient rich, low calorie foods; that’s because not all nutrient rich foods are low calorie!
That said, many nutrient rich foods are low calorie and because eating nutrient rich ultimately means a vegetable “based” diet; we eat leafy greens, green vegetables, and colored non starchy vegetables in the largest volume. These are the lowest calorie foods in the planet and just so happen to be the most nutrient rich. Along with fruits, beans, raw nuts and seeks, these are thew new first class foods. These are the foods that people in-the-know about health, performance and productivity are eating 90% or more of the time.
You can eat Nutrient Rich foods in abundance, in more creative ways than even your garden can deliver, get more than enough calories (protein, fat and carbs), more than enough nutrients (vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals), and do so in more amazingly great tasting ways, than you can ever imagine at one time.There are more nutrient rich foods, meals and menus to be eaten and made than you will ever get to in this life time, or many life times for that matter.
If there is one thing we’ve learned from the agricultural revolution in the past 100 years, it is all the things you can do with food. When animal products became more abundant the cookbook industry came out with thousands of ways to eat these foods. As food technology expanded, cookbooks that specialized in refined food recipes also exploded. We learned that we like variety, we like eating foods in multiple ways, and we like convenience.
Cookbooks for decades now have revealed thousands upon thousands of way to eat the foods we like, with thousands of nutrient rich recipes, and it has fostered a sense of discovery and curiosity to continuously explore new ways to eat.The same is now happening with the worlds best and healthiest, whole plant foods or “super foods” and the reason why high nutrient density, nutritarian or superfood eating styles are emerging. You can eat first class nutrient rich foods raw and conservatively cooked ways that are simple quick and easily prepared ways, and gourmet.
As you may know NutrientRich.com introduced The 3 Classes of Foods with this very new first class nutrient rich way to eat insight in mind. We wanted people to know that you can eat smartly, not leave a destructive foot print and have a sense of status from eating in a way that now symbolizes intelligence, sustainability, care. These are the emerging values of our time for good reason.
Now imagine that eating first class also promotes natural weight loss!
That’s right, first class nutrient rich foods, promote natural weight loss to boot and this is why savvy and smart people are no longer duping themselves into believing they can eat like overweight kings and queens from centuries ago, who died young, and are now, adopting the new status that comes with staying healthy, living at or near your ideal weight, functioning and performing well in today’s performance culture.
Eating Nutrient Rich is not only the best way to fuel your body right, without gaining weight or getting unhealthy it is the new way to eat “First Class”
See: Eating the worlds best and healthiest way to eat.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Status_symbol