Nutrition And You

Food and us: A connection

Have you ever wondered how the foods you eat effect the way you act, move, and just live your life? How they can completely change the way you do things? How the way a food might be prepared changes the way you feel about it, and how you feel after you consume it? Are the foods that we eat connected to the illness, and disabilities that are being found in children? Do all the happenings of our body, and brain has a direct connection to food? Food has a very big effect on the way we live out lives, and the way they are prepared, effects us, and they affect our health. A food may look appetizing to us, but really deep down inside of that delicious food, are things that are going to affect us in a negative way.

When we go to a McDonalds, we don’t think of the nutritional value of the food. We look at it as something that is quick, easy, and tastes good. We don’t look at it at something that is unhealthy or healthy for us. When we are in a hurry we go to the fast food chains and order. It has been made easy for us. We pull up to a little window, and give the voice on the other end of the box a number. We move to another window, and our food is waiting for us. How have we lost the will to get out of our car and go inside? It might seem like a simple answer, and that is, �we want to take the food home.’ But we find that we have lost the will to exercise. Yes the small amount of exercise that we would get gaining by getting out of our car and going into a restaurant has been lost due to the convenience of a fast food restaurant.

A small amount of exercise might not increase muscle, or burn a lot of fat, but that small amount of exercise would burn some of the calories, or the sugars, or even a small amount of the fat that we put on during the day sitting at the computer, watching the television, or even driving around in our cars. The convenience of pulling up to a small window to get our food has made us even lazier than we have already been. We do not get out of our cars to get our fast food, which means, we are on our way with our meal even sooner. The time that it takes for a person to park, get out of their car, walk into a fast food chain, order, wait, get back in their car, and drive off, is valuable time to the people of our society. Taking a few extra minutes in the morning to wake up early to cook a home made breakfast, which is healthy for us, has become such a chore with the ease of fast food.

Not only is the convenience of our food affecting the way we act, feel and do things, it is in the manner in which it is cooked. If our food is cooked in a healthy manner, and not being deep-fried, we are not putting fats and oils into our bodies. We are not putting unnecessary elements into our digestive system that not only takes a long time to digest, but also tacks on the pounds, because our body takes a long time to digest them.

The way a food is prepared affects us after we are done eating it. If we eat healthy foods that are prepared in a way that is going to benefit us in the end, we will feel better about ourselves, and we will be able to exercise more, and keep us healthy longer. Our food has a direct connection to the way we feel and the way we act. Eating healthier is just one way of using our food to help us benefit from it. Exercising more often when we eat is another way. Foods that are deep-fried and greasy are just another way to start having a negative feeling. They make us lazy, and make us only want to sit around, because they are heavy to our system. Foods that are pan-fried, or even flame broiled are healthier for us, due to the lack of fats that remain in the food when they are cooked.

If convenience and the way a food is prepared has such a great effect on us, imagine what the amount of calories that a food contains has on us. If a food has a high calorie count, we are more likely to enjoy it. True. But if the calorie count is low, it can still be enjoyable. We enjoy high calorie meals because they taste good. But it is not only the high calorie counts that make food taste good. It is everything else that is inserted into our foods such as preservatives, and other chemicals to alter flavor and stability. In an attempt to maintain a stable and healthy diet that also tastes good, we compromise our main goal. Because we worry more about the way our food tastes, than we care about its nutritional value and the way we get it, and what it does to our bodies, we are compromising he one thing that we originally set out for in food. And that is health. We all want to be healthy, but yet we compromise our chances of being healthy by eating deep fried foods that we don’t exercise after, just because they taste good.

The way a food is prepared or the calorie count, or even the convenience of the food is not the only thing that affects the way we feel and act, and our health afterwards. The amount of the food that we eat as well greatly affects the way our body reacts to the food, and accepts it. Instead of eating a half a bag of fried potato chips, we could eat maybe just a small handful. Or if the need to eat a half a bag of potato chips is there, we can go and exercise afterwards, maybe go for a run, a swim (if the weather is nice), or even for a walk. If we eat our food in moderation, and we limit ourselves on what we are going to eat, we will be better off in the long run. The more we eat, the longer it takes our bodies to break down. The less we eat, the faster our bodies break the food down into the minerals and vitamins that we need to survive. We rely on food to keep us alive, and to sustain life, but if we eat in large amounts, food, just like anything else, too much is just bad for us. No matter what way we look at it, food can be bad for us if we eat out of moderation. By eating in moderation, and limiting ourselves to eating smaller portions, we are guaranteed to feel better after a meal. By eating in smaller portions, and in moderation, we are not putting large amounts of calories into our bodies that we cannot digest, that just become fat that builds, and we do not get rid of. We have to eat more moderately, and then proceed to exercise after we eat. By exercising after we eat, we are burning the calories that we just consumed, burning the energy, and putting it to good use, instead of sitting around, letting them pile up.

Food is a wonderful thing, but being used in the wrong way, such as gorging ourselves, makes a wonderful thing that can be used to keep us healthy, a weapon for