DT23003 Changing my eating habits.

 But just before I get onto the subject of eating habits. This “A Digital Thought” blog is trying to achieve just one simple objective. It documents anything that is currently residing in my consciousness that I consider worthy of recording for future reference and it does not fit into any of my other blogs. It also has another important purpose. Some of these thoughts will have been triggered by reading other authors materials. This is the only blog into which the full text written by other authors will be directly copied. All the other blogs are my written words and nobody else’s. Obviously being words not written by me then the all important copyright statement needs to acknowledge  both the writer and the publisher. Plus where possible links to the original source included in the blog. No room for any sort of plagiarism amongst my work. I want to encourage and rejoice those able to produce narrative that I enjoy reading and gains traction within my consciousness to the point that I choose add it to my blog. I am here to support them in their work and their careers and to acknowledge how their “writing gift” far exceeds my own abilities. I can only aspire to reach their professional heights. So let us now look at changing my eating habits.

Changing my eating habits.

Not surprisingly it has taken a life changing event to make me consider me changing my eating habits. A heart attack and open heart surgery to replace a faulty aorta valve. In truth I was not too unhealthy thus allowing the Surgeon to be willing to perform Open Heart Surgery on my 74 year old body and heart. No smoking, no drinking and reasonable amounts exercise brought me into the operable bracket of a likely success. Many are not so fortunate. But for some reason this “near miss” has made me want to make some adjustments to my diet and exercise patterns. Sort of an insurance policy approach to preventing another heart attack. But it has got to be just by a simple change to what I choose to put in my mouth rather than adopting any fancy new dieting fashion. But isn’t that what dieting is all about. Changing and reducing what you put in your mouth. So simple really!! So what is my proposed change of eating habit based upon? Maybe just changed thinking processes?

So what am I doing different? As the hand, fork or spoon comes up to deliver the food to my mouth I am looking at the food itself and thinking about it. Where was it sourced, where was it cooked and what is its content? The humble brussels sprout is the ideal first on the fork. Thanks to the Sainsbury’s packaging it was sourced from East Lothian, United Kingdom and grown by Fergus McKerracher. It was cooked in our kitchen after peeling off the dirty outer leaves and then boiled in unsalted water. Along with the sprouts is a cottage pie. The cottage pie has a mash with butter only potato topping with the meat base layer which was produced separately by boiling a stew like mixture of low fat beef with an added bag of mixed vegetables. It will be served with a cheese topping and a gravy made from factory created gravy pellets that are mixed with boiling water to make a liquid gravy. So is this a healthy meal?

It sounds like home cooking which is a good start. So firstly the sprouts. How were they cultivated? Consider the use of artificial fertiliser, pesticides and herbicides. Is it what could be termed an organic sprout or is it man manipulated by the addition of various treatments? The potatoes can be analysed in a similar way along with the the mixed vegetables. The lean beef becomes another story in terms of what have the beef cows been feed and more significantly what animal pharmaceutical drugs have they been bulk administered or individually administered through their lives. Agricultural animal pharmaceuticals is a big essentially hidden industry. Think of your vets bills and the cost of drugs within them. We then come possibly to the most industrially manufactured part of the meal the instant gravy pellets. It achieve their purpose they have to withstand long storage in the cupboard and then instantly, with the addition of boiling water, they have to become a tasty gravy. The gravy has to have a taste similar to the meat they accompany on the plate. (eg beef, chicken etc). With over 20 ingredients some just listed as flavourings it is easy to categorise this as a product of true industrial based food production with complex chemical components and associated processes to create it. Gravy is no longer made by the simple addition of flour and boiled potato water added to the cooked meat juices in the meat cooking tin which are then directly heated over the hob to produce what we call in our house a real gravy. Now we will not even analyse the pudding on a spoon to follow since fat and sugar will no doubt be the key ingredients to produce a comforting sweet treat.

So as you can see just by analysing what you are putting into your mouth by individual fork or spoon you can get an insight into your dietary behaviour. Now because you are using cutlery this is a good sign because it indicates at least this is loading your mouth with food at an allocated meal time. The biggest dietary problems arise when you are filling your mouth using your hand. The take away foods, snack bars, biscuits, drink cans and fridge snacks all being consumed in an uncontrolled way. The constant snacking and treating. These are certainly all the food types that have been industrially manufactured for mass consumption. All the marketing and merchandising are focussed on getting it into your mouth in every setting and situation. As you move from setting to setting each offering visual arrays and marketing posters of fast food you are encouraged to continually put in your mouth. You are captured inside various marketing traps each able to trigger your taste buds into believing you need to eat to reduce this urge telling you to take on that new taste. Or more likely to re-experience that taste that you have become addicted to by constantly feeding your mouth with it. You are now encouraged to repeat the experience. Nothing to do with being hungry or needing it. Just a repetitive cycle of pleasure seeking by way of the act of eating.

Also importantly do you focus on the negatives of being overweight and dying an early death from conditions you can easily avoid. Probably not when you are feeling well. You need to focus on the increased pleasure that a delay in feeding can bring by eating later at an allotted meal time. You think about the pleasure that eating later will bring and that eating now will instantly destroy this pleasure. Eating now just does not generate this type of satisfaction. You need to substitute other activities into the dreaming of food time frame. Like focussing on a hobby or undertaking exercise. You can substitute other none food related goals. Weeding a patch of garden, washing a car down or preparing a healthy home cooked meal for later. Preparing your own food is important.

Just like you can analyse the food on fork or spoon about to enter your mouth the food preparation cycle allows you a long time to give this full consideration. Firstly select your retailers carefully and enjoy a slow shopping experience. It is difficult to say avoid supermarkets because in many places they are your only choice. But try to use local vegetable shops and butchers. Farm shops are developing their niche in “low delivery mile” products sourced as locally as possible. Read all food packaging carefully ideally looking for very low lists of ingredients. A low ingredient list indicating it is nearer to the natural product. Take an interest in a variety of cooking recipes. Make an effort to consider having foreign foods. In many cases they can be tastier and a more healthy option. Their use of herbs and spices is likely to be much higher than those in our normal English foods.

Without a doubt all health experts recommend adopting the Mediterranean diet which instinctively we all know about but we don’t choose to apply being too tempted by what is being marketed at us by all the media. So vegetables especially green leafy ones, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry,olive oil and surprisingly wine. So avoid red and processed meats, butter, cheese, sweet foods like pastries and cakes and fried fast food. But the single most important dietary change is to reduce sugar. Don’t substitute the older generation artificial sweeteners because they upset your gut bacteria which is linked to the brain. Try the newer natural sweeteners that have zero calories like stevia, allulose and monk fruit. You must slash your salt input which causes high blood pressure which in turn raises the risk of cardiovascular disease with heart attacks and strokes. Remember salt is hidden in processed and restaurant foods. Drinking water rather than eating is another strong recommendation. Although this one I have particular difficulty achieving. Not a water drinker!!

But everybody will tell you that changing diet alone will not improve your health. It has to be undertaken in parallel with some exercise regime along with a focus upon breathing exercises. There is a good reason that the medical profession always groups the heart and lungs together organisationally. They are very closely dependent upon each other. The lungs getting the oxygen into the blood that the heart then pumps around the body and brain to feed all your cells. But don’t think all exercise has to be strenuous to be effective. Yoga practice and meditation can be just as effective. Two other important areas to focus upon are getting enough sleep and keeping your teeth in a good condition. Yes your teeth are very important.

So what habits will I be changing? Have you the reader been encouraged to change your diet? Don’t wait for that heart attack or stroke to change your thinking. Do it now.