I am what I eat!
If you ask Google for information on “healthy eating” or “natural food,” you’ll find over 25 million links. No wonder many people find these concepts hard to grasp, and even harder to put into practice. But the good news is that all it takes is stepping away from current trends to understand that the real key to “eating well” is simply doing what is right and good for yourself. Beyond making things easier, this approach is also far more beneficial and effective than trying to get the most likes on a picture of your quinoa plate.
1. Eating well means being honest with yourself
Scientific research, studies, and investigations in recent years now give us a fairly clear picture of the benefits, or the harmful effects, of certain types of farming and livestock. It’s therefore relatively easy to make the right choices when we shop, for instance, avoiding farmed salmon from Norway.
But while that choice is easy, others are not. Even though it’s proven that cow’s milk is the least healthy of animal milks—since it’s the farthest from human milk—that doesn’t exactly make donkey milk more appealing, even if it’s healthier. That’s where we must make a real decision: should we prioritize pleasure, or our health and principles?
For me, the choice is clear. Knowing that sugar addiction works exactly like cocaine addiction, and can even be stronger, I’d much rather not be a slave to my cravings, even if it means losing a bit of pleasure! Thankfully, more and more farmers and breeders are testing new approaches that encourage local and sustainable agriculture—with excellent results. And these projects are even happening in the heart of Paris! For example, a 1,000m² vegetable garden has sprung up on the roof of Galeries Lafayette. Strawberries, red berries, herbs, and edible flowers are grown there and sold to partner restaurants. Parisian rooftops also host beehives!
2. I Am what I eat
When we start paying attention to what we eat, it’s often to “get back in shape.” We want results, so we naturally turn to methods that worked for others. But that’s often a big mistake. Why?
First, because three-quarters of the advice you’ll find online about what is or isn’t healthy is based on pseudoscience—and completely wrong. Steve Jobs showed this tragically: no, a diet of dried fruit does not cure cancer!
Second, because what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for another. A recent Israeli study showed that a diet effective for one person could actually make another gain weight. Eating well, therefore, means paying attention to what is good for you, not what your Facebook feed or a magazine says is good. It’s about developing a new awareness of your body, learning to perceive and listen to the signals it sends when you eat different foods.
My advice for changing your diet easily: don’t try to quit everything at once. If your morning ritual is a big bowl of milk with toast, cutting out both gluten and lactose overnight is unlikely to work, it will disrupt your habits too drastically and leave you frustrated. Personally, I remove, reduce, or add just one food at a time to my diet, every two or three months at most. I give my body time to adjust and send me all the signals I need before moving on to the next change.
3. Changing your diet means growing!
To change my diet effectively, I started with a food intolerance test, which led me to cut out certain foods I used to eat, and replace them with new flavors. Changing your diet pushes you to develop curiosity and take risks, even though I haven’t yet managed to convince myself to try insects!
Eating better also means cooking meals yourself instead of buying ready-made food. And building this habit improves both family and social life. It can even help balance your time between work and personal life. For instance, if you’ve planned to cook dinner after work, you’ll be more likely to leave earlier and spend time with family or friends, instead of working until 11 p.m. and ordering something on the way home.
By cooking, we’ll obviously learn more about ourselves than just what we like and dislike. As we get to know ourselves better, understanding what is good for us and what isn’t, we learn to accept ourselves more fully and make choices that truly suit us. At least, it worked very well for Jason Mraz, who explained in an interview how eating better helped him win a Grammy Award!