Taking care of ourselves should be a simple task but sometimes, it can be a process of hard decisions. Choosing what, how and why to eat something can take a lot of time from our daily routines. Granted we can all learn this from the moment we start grocery shopping and realizing the products that are out there but it can be confusing to opt for one food item instead of the other. I’ve been doing this since I am 17 – for almost ten years – and I researched a lot to get to where I am today and to pick the food I choose to put in my body. I try to have a balanced life style and make decisions that, in the long hall, are going to matter. This includes picking a few products in detriment of others:
Sweet potatoes provide 400% of our daily requirement of vitamin A
and have less calories and carbs than a regular potato.
White rice is an unhealthier version of the brown rice and specialists
say that the brown rice hasn’t gone through the refining process that
the white one goes through. When in doubt, always choose products
that don’t undergo a complex process until the time they get to you.
Yes, it takes longer to cook but it’s also a lot better for your health,
lighter, easier to digest and rich in anti-oxidants.
Portugal is known for its excellent collection of olive oils. They are
more prominent in the supermarket shelfs and our kitchen. I’ve never
used anything but. Olive oil is a natural juice from the olive and is
rich in monounsaturated fats – which lower cholesterol. Nowadays
the difference isn’t as dramatic, between regular oil and olive oil,
but overall, olive oil being a more natural juice wins by its characteristics.
Why is dark chocolate so dark? Because it has less refining. It’s more
cocoa and natural ingredients than milk chocolate that has, well, milk.
It has twice the amount of potassium, phosphorus and magnesium, four
times the fiber and half the sugar. The taste is certainly more biter but
enough to satisfy that sweet tooth.
White bread is made with a whole set of unhealthy ingredients and
refined carbohydrates that triggers a high level production of insulin –
the insulin hormone shuttles away the rapidly absorbed sugars you’ve
just eaten out of your bloodstream, where they present a danger to your
body. It then converts them into glycogen and then into triglycerides for
storage in your body’s fat cells. Opt for actual brown 100% whole grain
bread, which provides you with a great source of fiber, prevents heart
disease and colon cancer. It also helps to keep you fuller for longer and
make you eat less throughout the day.
White meat is leaner and is known to contain less fat content, compared
to red meat. White meat does not contain more vitamins and nutrients
than red meat, which you can eat once in a while, but if you simply
cannot live without meat, opt for the lighter version of it and mix it
with a large plate of vegetables or salad.
We all heard the fact that humans are the only mammals that continue to
drink milk when they grow. Milk was, in the past, a source of big advertising
campaigns incentivizing you to drink it. But in the past few years, it has been
subject of several studies that say it contains a lot of saturated fat content and
suggest alternatives to the intake of milk. Calcium, potassium, vitamin D can
be obtain in different sources of intake – such as almond milk, leafy green
vegetables, fresh fruit, grains and legumes.
I have written before (here, here and here) how I always include a glass of water
with a freshly squeezed lemon in my regime. The benefits are clear and you know
where the juice is coming from. It’s always better to drink a freshly and homemade
squeezed juice than to opt for the packed alternative where we don’t know exactly
how much sugar is in it.