Living a healthier lifestyle can take years to refine and to be satisfied with. You can’t be blamed if you feel switching to a healthier diet is like being at the foot of a huge mountain that you need to climb. As you know, every climb begins with a single step, and I have compiled 5 single tips you can take that are so easy you may not even notice them!
- Swap vegetable oils for traditional fats
This means to reduce or eradicate your consumption of oils like sunflower, rapeseed/canola, soybean, palm oil, corn oil and replace them with olive oil, coconut oil, lard, ghee, butter and duck fat.
Vegetable oils were introduced into our food system around the early 1900’s unlike traditional fats which have been around for thousands of years, if not more. The main difference lies in the levels in omega 6 contained in vegetable oils which far surpass traditional fats.
Omega 3 is a natural fatty acid which lies in perfect ratio with omega 3 in a natural whole food diet. However with the inclusion of vegetable oils, the levels of omega 6 are elevated more than they should be.
So why is this a problem?
Studies have shown time and time again that the anti-inflammatory benefits of omega 3 are blunted when omega 6 is too high (1) This could mean that vegetable oils promote inflammation and its becoming more common knowledge that inflammation contributes to most if not all disease.
Not to say a splash of canola oil to cook your veggies is going to cause disease. But it’s more a case of quantity. Is your diet high in processed foods which are usually high in vegetable oils? Do you consume deep fried food regularly at home or at a restaurant? If so then replacing these oils in your home would be a huge benefit to you.
2. Reduce sugar wherever you can
This tip might be easier than you think. Although sugar brings a delightful sweetness to our foods that may be hard to pass up, there are ways you can reduce the amount you eat in ways you may not even notice.
The average adult consumes around 22 teaspoons of sugar per day (2). This is not hard to reach if you consider the added sugar to your teas, coffees, cereals, pre-made sauces, bread and sweet snacks.
Think of where you could painlessly knock off a few teaspoons. Begin with your hot drinks, could you take no sugar in your coffee? Make checking ingredients labels a habit and avoid buying those with unnecessary added sugar. Buy sugar free alternatives. Classic examples include peanut butter, pasta sauces and even loaves of bread.
Sugar has been linked to high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, PCOS and Alzheimer’s (3) and so reducing the amount you eat has never been more important.
3. Swap table sugar for unrefined sea salt
Unrefined Sea Salt is composed of sodium chloride and around 80 other health boosting minerals (4). Retaining the nutrients from the ocean it contains elements such as magnesium, potassium and calcium and often retains its natural colour which ranges from pink, grey and white. This salt is essential for your health and for maintaining a healthy water balance within your body.
Table salt on the other hand is a different creature. You just have to check the ingredients list to see that it contains a few other alien-looking constituents. Where you’d expect the ingredients of salt to just be – you guessed it – salt, table salt contains a host of other additives that you may have not even heard of. Some contain sugar in the form of dextrose and various anti-caking agents such as calcium silicate which is also used in the structures of bricks and cement!
Iodine is often added to table salt which is an essential nutrient for thyroid health. However iodine is easily obtained in natural foods from seafood to dairy and so your trusty table salt isn’t needed in this case.
4. Choose full fat over low fat dairy
Contrary to popular belief, many studies have found that eating a diet containing full fat dairy is not related to cardiovascular diseases or obesity (5)
It’s also been shown to not be related to diabetes which you may know is highly related to sugar consumption. Where would you find added sugar? In low fat dairy options!
Full fat dairy is higher in saturated fat which is essential for absorption of vitamins A,D, E and K. Low fat dairy is stripped of these vital fats which are not only good for you but give the product its rich creamy flavour. In order to bring flavour back to low fat products they often introduce sugar to make it more palatable.
Whether you eat full or low fat diary the same rule applies, always check the ingredients and avoid those containing sugar and ingredients you don’t understand.
5. Choose Organic produce where possible
There are over 1000 chemicals sprayed on our food supply across the world including herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and fertilisers. The World Health Organisation states that pesticides could be ‘toxic to human health’ which is worrying to say the least.
There’ve also been various studies linking pesticides to obesity and Parkinson’s disease (6,7).
Buying organic is a personal decision and you most certainly don’t have to buy 100% organic food to gain the benefit of a reduced chemical load in your system. In fact chemicals can stay in your body for years after eating them if they’re not excreted, but switching to organic has shown a reduced amount of chemical metabolites in urine samples (8).
The key is to consume foods as close to as nature intended. A great way to do this is to buy from your local farm where you can discuss the way they grow their crops and gain confidence in the foods you take home to your family. There’s also the benefit of greater nutrient levels due to shorter farm to table times.
I hope you found these 5 tips helpful. Even if you choose just one to begin with it’s a win. Remember, every journey begins with a single step.
References
1. DiNicolantonio, J., O’Keefe, J. (2018). ‘Importance of maintaining a low omega 6/omega 3 ratio for reducing inflammation’, Open Heart, 5.
2. Moss, M. (2013). ‘Salt, sugar, fat’. 1st ed. Random House Publishing Group, New York.
3. Castellano, C. Et al. (2015). ‘Regional brain glucose hypo metabolism in young women with PCOS: Possible link to mild insulin resistance’, PLOS one, 10(12).
4. Batmanghelidj, F. (2007). ‘Water and salt’ 4th ed. Tagman Press. Cambridgeshire.
5. O’Sullivan, T.A. et al. (2020). ‘Whole fat or reduced fat dairy intake, adiposity and cardiometabloic health in children: A systematic review’, Advances in nutrition, 11(4), pp. 928-950.
6. Holtcamp, W. (2012). ‘Obesogens: An environmental link to obesity’, Environmental Health Perspective, 120(2), pp.62-68.
7. Kamel, F. (2004). ‘Association of pesticide exposure with neurologic disfunction and disease’, Environ Health Perspec, 112(9), pp.950-958.
8. Vigar, V. et al. (2020). ‘A systematic review of organic versus conventional food consumption: is there a measureable benefit on human health?’, Nutrients, 12(1), pp.7.
