Show Your Love With Real Food

James Taylor’s advice to “Shower the People you Love with Love” seems apropos on this Valentine’s Day, but how should we put it into action? What do we want most for the people we love?

If you’re anything like me, you want your loved ones to enjoy good health and happiness. We all know intuitively that having good health makes everything else possible. Good health provides the opportunity to be the best version of ourselves and to live our fullest lives. If you doubt that, think about how limited your opportunities were to engage fully in life the last time you had the flu, a migraine, stomach pains that made you double over, or painfully achy joints. Would your life be more expansive or more limited if you had a chronic disease that required medication with debilitating side effects, frequent visits to the doctor, caused chronic pain, and put you at risk of early death? Health is wealth and that’s why our first wish for the people we love is to be healthy.

Good health is built upon the foundation of a nutrient-dense diet, well-functioning digestion, controlled blood sugar, restorative sleep, and effective stress management. Other factors, including genetics, movement, trauma, toxin exposure, and access to resources, also play a huge role in health.

When it comes to the first part of the foundation of health – eating a nutrient-dense diet – we learn from a young age that “you are what you eat.” Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said, “Each of the substances of a man’s diet acts upon his whole body and changes it in some way and upon these changes his whole life depends.” Eating a nutrient-dense, whole foods diet is inextricably linked to health and well-being. As far back as the early 1900s, research showed rapid declines in health, including the onset of chronic "diseases of civilization," in populations that replaced traditional, nutrient-dense real food with modern, nutrient-poor foods including, in particular, refined flour, sugar and processed vegetable oils. The food you eat and serve to others is an expression of love because proper nutrition, or a lack thereof, affects every cell, every tissue, and every organ in our bodies.

Despite these admonitions, in our hectic modern society, convenience often prevails over nutrition and our diets become laden with fast food, takeout, and factory-made, ultra-processed foods high in sugar and refined flour, inflammatory seed oils, chemical preservatives, and mineral-depleted refined salt. These foods, eaten in extraordinary quantities, contribute to a grim picture of health and nutrition in the United States. For example:

• 70% of children’s diets, and 55% of adults’ diets, now consist of ultra-processed foods.

• On average, each individual consumes over 150 pounds of sugar per year.

• 6 in 10 adults have a chronic disease.

• Only 12% of adults are considered metabolically healthy.

• Approximately 74% of adults and 40% of children and adolescents (ages 2-19) are overweight or obese;

• In the past 60 years, there has been an 800% increase in Type 2 diabetes. 11.5% of adults in the U.S. now have diabetes; another 38% have pre-diabetes.

• At least 20% of children ages 12 to 18 have prediabetes; by some estimates, the prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in this age group will quadruple by 2050.

• Fatty liver disease, also called nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), once unthinkable in children, has become the most common form of childhood liver disease in the United States, more than doubling over the past 20 years. Studies estimate that 5% to 10% of children now have NAFLD.

• 90+ percent of Americans are deficient in one or more nutrients at the Recommended Daily Allowance level.

Chronic diseases can often be prevented or alleviated through nutrition and lifestyle changes. Children, in particular, need help with this because they usually can’t control what food is available to eat – they’re at the mercy of the adults in their lives who provide for them. The food you put on the end of your fork, and your loved one’s fork, every day plays a critical role in deciding whether you or they will one day show up in these statistics.

This Valentine’s Day, instead of “spoiling” your children, grandchildren and other loved ones with sweets and treats, consider spoiling them with fun experiences, your undivided attention, and a delicious and nourishing homecooked meal prepared with real food. Using real food, shower them with an abundant love that will set them on a path to health and wellness for a lifetime.

If you need support with your nutrition, I can help.

Schedule a free 20-minute discovery call to learn how nutritional therapy moves you forward in achieving your nutrition and health goals.