How Do You Decide What’s Worth Eating?

Shopping for food in grocery stores has created the need to easily discern the quality of the food you eat.

Vegan, raw, kosher, paleo, sugar, fat, or gluten free, etc.

For some people these qualifications have additional meaning due to ethical beliefs or physical conditions.

But for most, I’d venture people use them as simple rules of thumb to make sure they’re eating the right way.

If that’s you, I’d suggest one word that you use above all others.

Fresh.

Healthy food tends to be high-quality, fresh food, and vice versa.

The problem with all of the above methods of eating is that their labels can be manipulated to the point that they no longer have any relevance to your health.

All Labels Eventually Lie

Vegan diets are supposed to be pure, and they often are. But if you’re in it for the health, a high quality cut of beef is probably better for you than a slab of soy chorizo.  (How on earth can you get soy to behave and feel like chorizo without ripping out its guts?)

Almost all food, no matter the food group, has some redeeming health attributes…..if it’s high quality.  Even foods that I make a point to avoid, like milk and red meat.

For instance, it’s well established that vegetarians have better health outcomes than non-vegetarians.  But most of those differences go away when you account for food quality.  Vegetarians are just more conscientious eaters.

Thinking about whether or not a food is fresh is more simple and powerful than trying to wade through byzantine rules of different eating regimes.  It allows for greater flexibility in what you eat while still providing a guiding light that keeps your health on track.