What is healthy food?
“Let thy food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food”
Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, circa 460-377 BC
It’s not easy to know what’s “right” when it comes to food nowadays with all the different dietary advice, trends, and diets that are around. The fact that many of these have no scientific backing doesn’t make things any easier. Some dietary advice and diets assume that you have only yourself to think about, and following them is almost like a part-time job in itself. This, together with the time constraints of day-to-day life, can mean that it’s easy to lose inspiration. Anyone who also has children with their own strong opinions about what they want to eat can easily feel like giving up. Modern research shows that healthy food is simple, natural, and varied. The basis of our diet should be plants with a variety of colourful vegetables, fruits, berries, root vegetables, beans, and lentils, which all contribute key vitamins, antioxidants, and fibre. Wholegrain products also have strong scientific support when it comes to their health benefits and provide the body with things like iron and fibre. In addition, to cater for the body’s different nutritional needs, we also need good fats from nuts and seeds, olive and rapeseed oil, avocados, and oily fish. Such a plant-based diet combined with occasional red meat and dairy products not only makes us more alert, it also reduces the risk of many different welfare diseases such as cardiovascular disease, various cancers, and premature ageing. Consequently, there’s no one food that has magical powers. Instead it’s our whole diet with all these nutrients that benefits our long-term health.
Healthy food isn’t a diet, trend, cure, or quick fix
Healthy food isn’t a diet, cure, trend, or quick fix, but a food culture that’s part of a lifestyle – a wonderful plant-based, colourful, and varied diet that forms part of a more holistic approach. This is not a temporary diet but something long-term and sustainable – something you do step by step, starting from where you are today. This is a lifestyle whose basis is natural foods, unlike many diets or cures that pick out individual nutritional groups and overemphasise them. Who hasn’t bought a low-fat or high-protein product where the whole focus is on fat and proteins? Yet we often overlook the fact that many of these contain a number of added artificial substances. Carbohydrates are not to be feared in a healthy diet, which contains smart carbohydrates that contribute to good intestinal health and function, as well as ensure stable blood sugar levels and useful energy for both mind and muscles. Since we’re looking at things as a whole, we need to remember the old saying that you can have too much of a good thing, and this also applies to healthy things.
Food that is as natural as possible
Eating naturally healthy food means avoiding processed food as much as possible and, ideally, choosing locally grown and seasonal food for optimal nutritional intake. In this way, you can avoid many of the unnecessary additives that we find in food today while also being more environmentally responsible. What’s more, pure and fresh foods are usually the ones that taste best, and it needn’t be complicated at all! Fruit and veg – what better fast food is there? Or why not choose Nordic berries such as strawberries, blueberries, sea buckthorn, aronia, raspberries, currants, blackberries, cranberries, rosehips, cloudberries, and many others that are rich in antioxidants instead of the more exotic ones that have to be transported long distances? Who made us think that our own berries aren’t as good? And imagine if our root vegetables could become popular again! We often deceive ourselves by believing that more exotic products are healthier – and that’s just not the case!
