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General food guide

  • Meals and Timing
  • Water
  • Vegetables
  • Fruits and Fruit Juices
  • Diseases
  • Processed/convenience food
  • Sweet stuff
  • Spices
  • Beverages

Meals and Timing

3 meals a day is good.

How you time your meals is significant. Having an eating window can really enable a good routine for you.

Intermittent fasting is generally the term used for eating patterns where the fasting(not eating) period is longer than a normal overnight fast(8 hours).

When done right, Intermittent fasting can be really beneficial for the body.

While fasting(when the energy is not being used to digest the food) your body is carrying out a lot of important functions like cellular repair.

Not only this, but studies have shown how fasting can improve insulin sensitivity, promote fat loss and muscle gain.

There are multiple eating windows you can choose from. Just don’t push yourself too far.

You can start experimenting with something like a 14 hour fasting window and then find what works best for you.

One of the best eating windows is provided to you by the nature itself. The time between sunrise to sunset. You can try working this window out if your lifestyle allows it.

Water

A lot of us have read in our books that the human body is composed of 70% water.

Water is essential in almost every system our body has. Building cells, protein and carbohydrate breakdown, removing waste are just to name a few.

Dehydration or the lack of water can lead to the following symptoms:

  1. Extreme thirst
  2. Less frequent urination
  3. Darker-colored urine
  4. Fatigue
  5. Dizziness
  6. Confusion

The amount of water you need to drink depends on the area you live as well as the weather.

You’ll need more water in hot weather than in winter. You might need more water in winter if you’re living in extremely cold areas or higher altitude due to moisture loss from dry air.

Finally wait at least 30-40 minutes after a meal before drinking water.

This take is usually opinionated but studies have shown that drinking cold liquids immediately after meals can cause dilution of the acid in the stomach, and ultimately indigestion.

Vegetables

If consumed properly, or rather I should say cooked properly, vegetables are an incredibly healthy way of getting the nutrients your body needs.

Vegetables like Spinach, Carrots, Broccoli, Peas, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage and cauliflowers are filled with a lot of essential nutrients.

Not only nutrients but dietary fibers as well. Vegetables can be combined with rice and salads to make some really tasty and nutritious dishes.

Try adding local and seasonal vegetables to you meals to make them nutrient rich and healthy.

You might wanna check the effects on cooking section for an overview on how certain vitamins in the vegetables might react to certain environments.

Fruits

Fruits are filled with nutrients. They contain a lot of Fibers, Vitamins, Minerals and Antioxidants as well.

It is a really good way to meet the nutrition requirements of your body.

Fruits like apple, banana, orange, mango etc are filled with micro-nutrients.

A fruit can be a really good way to kick-start the digestion system in the morning.

Try adding local and seasonal fruits in your diet.

But what about fruit juices?

When turned into juice, the fruit looses it’s dietary fibers, which results in quicker digestion times. This leads to an instant spike in blood sugar levels.

Dietary Fibers are really important for a healthy gut microbiome.

It is always better to eat fruits rather than drinking them in the form juice or shakes. Plus eating fruits will always feel more fulfilling than drinking a glass of fruit juice.

Diseases

Consistent baby steps!

We’ve been reading so much about how diet influences our bodies and health. A lot of diseases like type 2 diabetes, heart disease, autoimmune diseases can be caused by a prolonged bad diet.

We should also take into consideration, mental health and sleeping patterns.

Fats are highly researched topic. However without making things too complicated, let’s take a brief overview of the different kinds of fats.

Sue-Ellen Anderson-Haynes did an articlebased on a study that shows how the gut microbiome is heavily influenced by the diet and how an unhealthy gut can be responsible for an array of diseases.

The phrase prevention is better than cure is gold here. Prolonged use of highly processed foods is often the cause for a lot of diseases.

Eat clean, sleep well, exercise in order to prevent the body from these diseases.

Processed food

There is this quote by Wendell Berry that goes like this:

“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.”

Most companies have only one goal – profit. And the equation for that is:

profit = revenue – cost of production.

Reducing the cost of production will lead to better profits. Hence quality of production can often go compromised.

Whenever you buy anything that comes in a packet, please make a habit of reading the ingredients list.

Avoid foods with these ingredients:

  1. Artificial ingredients like food colors, artificial flavors.
  2. Refined Carbohydrates like added sugars and refined flour.
  3. Cheap fats like seed and vegetable oils

These ingredients are often found in products like:

Cookies, biscuits, cakes, chips, white bread, sugary drinks like sodas and fruit juices, candies, sugary chocolate bars, nut butters, chocolate spreads, ice cream, instant noodles, ketchup , sauces and others.

There are some good companies that make the above products without any artificial ingredients. The key is to always check the ingredients list and the nutritional value labels.

You could also check local shops and bakeries for foods with fresh ingredients.

And finally, you can also try making the above products from scratch at home. This could be a really fun and joyful activity as well. Plus you can always customize the ingredients according to your taste! Look up for recipe blogs or search on YouTube. There are tons of resources on the internet.

A lot of highly processed foods are low on nutritional content and can cause health problems when consumed for prolonged periods.

Avoid processed or convenience food as much as you can.

Sweet stuff?

Sugar tastes sweet and so do fruits, so what is the difference here?

Nutrients and Fibers.

If you look up the nutrition facts for sugar, you’ll find find that it is just empty calories and does not contain any micro-nutrients.

Now look up the nutrition facts for a sweet fruit like mango. Apart from having 13.7 grams of sugar, every 100 grams of mango also includes:

  • 11 mg of calcium
  • 10 mg magnesium
  • 168 mg Phosphorus
  • 14 mg Potassium
  • 1.6 g of fiber
  • 36.4 mg of Vitamin C

and other micro-nutrients as well.

Studies have found the consumption added sugars to be linked with a list of diseases that include:

  • Heart Disease
  • Obesity
  • Type 2 Diabetes
  • Depression
  • Fatty Liver

Almost everything that tastes sweet, will cause a spike in your blood sugar levels.

The goal then, is to limit the amount of sweet stuff you consume. This means cutting down on foods with added sugars as well as skipping sugar in the meals you cook and the beverages you make.

Note: If you are having unnatural sugar cravings, it can be a symptom of an unhealthy gut microbiome.

You can try replacing sugar in recipes with organic jaggery or honey which contain other micro-nutrients as well. Although consuming a lot of honey or jaggery will also result in a blood sugar level spike.

You can also go with fruits if you want to eat something sweet.

Spices

Spices are a way to spice up the food(Pun intended!). However, just like everything there is the good, the bad and the ugly. Here are some of them:

The Good
Black pepper, cumin, mint, turmeric, ajwain, mustard seeds, green chilies(limited), cloves, coriander, cinnamon, oregano, thyme, rosemary, basil and more.
The Bad
Red chili powder, Chili flakes.
The Ugly
Most of the processed, packaged and boxed ones, like chaat masala and others.

The good ones generally provide essential nutrients and are healthy for the body.

The bad ones like the red chili powder can cause some side effects like an upset stomach.

Avoid the ugly ones.

Beverages

Drinking coffee and tea first thing in the morning is often considered normal. But both of these drinks might cause acidity for some people when consumed on an empty stomach.

Caffeine can also be addictive and regular intake can alter the chemistry of your brain.

Try replacing it with placebos like green tea or soup! You can make soup!

When it comes to alcoholic drinks, a lot of beers contain added sugars the effects of which we’ve already talked about. Excessive alcohol can also cause liver diseases.

A healthier option among these can be the red wine. Red wine is made by crushing and fermenting dark-colored grapes and can be a really good antioxidant.

Lemonades (unsweetened), buttermilk, mojitos, green tea, soups, red wine, spinach and some vegetable juices, coconut water etc are some of the healthiest liquids you can consume and enjoy.

Always consult your doctor before making any changes to your diet.