We are taught from a young age that through science, education, and experience the human race is becoming wiser, more thoughtful and educated about the world and ourselves. We are led to believe that history has seen a gradual improvement in all that we touch, and that our lifestyles today are infinitely superior to all that came before us. However, despite that supposed reality we have seen the obesity and diabetes rates soar these past few decades. How is that possible? What is going on, and why is our national health decreasing despite our increase in knowledge? In today’s article we are going to look at the modern challenges in good nutrition, and offer some tips in how to offset them.
First, modern food companies are no longer interested in serving us the most nutritious food possible. Instead, it has become clear that their primary objective and sole agenda lies with selling more products, as many products as possible. This has become dangerously easy for them with the discovery of how we are hard wired to crave salt, sugar, and fat. Substances that were previously hard to acquire have now become mass produced, resulting in a dangerous ease in eating products that our brains absolutely love.
The result is that rather than eat the relatively bland and boring vegetables that our mothers told us to consume, we now eat instead loads of candy, sugar, and fast food. These are loaded with salt, sugar and fat, and are engineered through hormones, pesticides, artificial sweeteners and preservatives to hit all our chemical buttons to light up our brains with pleasure. Nowhere in all this do the companies consider what is ‘good’ for us, but rather what they can get us to eat the most of.
What this means is that any visit to the supermarket is fraught with peril as our senses are bombarded with temptation and offers to plug our desires for fat and salt and sugar.
When we were primitive hunter gatherers, such substances were rare and good for us in small doses. Now that we can create them at will, we are far more likely to abuse them, eating them happily instead of pursuing balanced diets that are rich with nutritious food.
When you enter the supermarket try and follow this simple rule of thumb: anything that is not advertised is probably natural and good for you. Avoid anything that is trying to make you buy it, and eat only what your grandmother would have served at her table.