How to Find Your Healthy Foods
What is healthy eating? What does it mean to you? What are healthy foods for you?
The joy of life is that we are all so different! I love meeting new people, making new friends, and finding out new things. To me, if we were all the same, life would be boring. Of course this can be very challenging when it comes to diet.
What are healthy foods for me, may not be healthy for you. So finding out what are healthy foods for you will be a voyage of discovery.
There are certain basics things that are good for everyone. That is to eat as much fresh whole food as possible and reduce packaged and processed foods.
If the food says artificial, like artificial sweetener, then avoid it as much as possible. A potato product means it has some potato in it. A cheese food means it has some cheese in it. Why not have the potato or the cheese instead of the artificial versions? When I was a young child my father suffered from heart disease. Back then, doctors encouraged the use of margarine instead of butter for heart patients. When I moved out of the house and was cooking for myself, I figured that margarine was fat and butter was fat, but butter tasted better. I never bought margarine again. Use the real food, not the artificial food.
How will you know if a food is not good for you? You can follow a formal food challenge protocol (a local naturopathic doctor can help you with this), but if your health problems are small, you might start with just noting what you eat and how you feel. This is how I found that gluten is bad for me.
Common Inflammatory Reactions from Food
Foods that are bad for you personally will cause some kind of inflammatory reaction in your body. An inflammatory reaction indicates your body is unhappy with something you ate, drank, breathed, or rubbed on your skin. So what are the symptoms of an inflammatory reaction? Here are some common ones that are easy to spot:
- Post-nasal drip without being sick
- Stuffy head without being sick
- Sneezing, especially just after eating something
- Stuffy ears without being sick
- Asthma
- Acne
- Skin rash
- Hives
- Pimples (sometimes in odd places, like on your forearm or leg).
- Upset stomach
- Gas
- Diarrhea
- Abdominal pain
- Joint pain
- Swollen joints
- Arthritis pain
- Fuzzy headed
- Dizzy
- Headache
- Memory problems
- The Blahs
I’m not saying food is the only cause of these things, but it can certainly be a contributor. I had moderate arthritis in my lower back, verified with an X-ray. When I stopped eating gluten, all the pain from the arthritis went away. When I tried having a nice spaghetti dinner with garlic bread, I was in such pain the next day I could not walk. That was enough to convince me to go on a gluten-free diet!
How Long Will it Take?
How quickly will you have a reaction to foods that are bad for you personally? It can be anytime from immediately to as long as 72 hours. If I cheat on gluten (I have), I will know it the next day (about 12 hours). So you can see that tracking what you eat is important because the reaction may be delayed and you may not remember what you ate.
When you stop eating a problem food, how long will it take to feel better? I suggest making a goal of not eating the possible problem food for 2 weeks, but you will almost certainly see improvement before then. Most people I know start feeling better by 48 hours, and feel much better after a week. If you do not feel better after 2 weeks, that food is probably not a problem for you (or other foods are even bigger problems).
Start with Whole Food Groups, then Fine Tune
It is easier to find problems with whole food groups than individual foods. So here is a short list of food groups that many people have problems with:
- Sugar of all kinds
- Gluten products, primarily anything made with wheat, rye, and barley
- Dairy products of all kinds
These food groups cause problems for enough people, it is worth a try to eliminate one from your diet if you think food is causing you problems, then see how you feel.
Just because a food is supposed to be healthy does not mean it is one of your healthy foods. One friend thought she was being really good on her diet, but started feeling bad when fresh blueberries were in season and she was having them every day at breakfast. When she stopped eating blueberries, she felt much better. Fresh blueberries are generally thought to be a healthy food, but they are not healthy for her.
Of course there are many other things that may be unhealthy for you. I have heard of people having health issues when they eat peanuts, soy, eggs, salmon, shell fish, broccoli, tomatoes, and cucumbers. Some people do not tolerate foods in the nightshade family which includes tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant, and okra. A blood or skin test may be useful to find allergies to specific foods.
It takes some work to find out your personal healthy foods, but the reward is you will feel much better overall and possibly clear up some health issues along the way.
