Diet - Die with a 'T'
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Yep, most people I know dread the word "diet".
I remember what I read somewhere, a long time ago - "Whatever tastes good, is bad for you!". To some extent, it's true.
Let me clarify. First, we harken back to the ancient days of early prehistoric Man. Back then we had no processed food, no sweets, no manufactured food items. Everything Man ate was only available in nature. In some cases, Man's food fought back. Try eating a live chicken, or a pig :) You can bet the fella will struggle like hell...
So in this scenario, "whatever tastes good is bad for you" is usually not true. Fruits that aren't ripe taste awful. Man was gifted with colour vision for the purpose of telling which fruits were ripe, and which weren't. Poisonous plants generally don't taste good. The taste tells early Man to stop eating it, and eat something else that tastes good.
Plants propogate themselves by producing seeds. In order to sow the seeds further away than a few feet, plants produce fruits which have the seeds inside them. That will entice animals to eat the fruit and then perhaps, discard the seed(s) some distance away.
So, back in prehistoric times, Man only had frutis, plants, and hunted animals for meat. They had no seasonings, no mustard, no mayonaise, etc. They don't even cook their meat with cooking oil - just roast 'em over an open fire.
Fast forward 3 million years later. Here we are today. We have sweets, candies, cakes etc etc ... things that "taste good". When we dine, we have to have a generous helping of condiments, like salt, pepper, mustard and so on. All these are MANUFACTURED. When humans manufacture things, the intent is to SELL the products. To sell food products, they must TASTE GOOD. In this day and age, tasting good involves adding chemicals (which generally aren't good for the body) into the product, to make it taste good. If it tastes good, it sells. Companies don't really care about the health of the consumers in general.
So, whatever tastes good, generally is bad for you. That is true for the situation we have today in the modern society.
My point?
My point being, we need to start eating food without all the processed junk again. Stop using chilli, pepper and so on. If you need to use salt, use it sparingly. Cook your meat without using oil. Roast it over an open flame like our ancestors did. Or, what I do is to dump the meat into the toaster/microwave and cook it... yes, just like that, no oil, no marinating.
How does it taste? Same as always. The thing about me is, I normally don't use condiments with my meals. I'm strange I know. I get teased about being "scared of chilli" cos I normally don't put chilli on anything I eat, unlike all my typical Singaporean friends who apply gobs of it on their food. Even when I eat burgers, and they ask me "Chilli or ketchup?", my reply is always "nothing, thanks". Yup, I eat french fries WITHOUT chilli or ketchup! You need to try it yourself.
So when I "roast the meat over an open flame", the meat tasted almost the same as when it's cooked in oil, except minus all the unhealthy oil.
To many people, "dieting" means eating less, and the food tastes bland. The reason is - you're all too dependent on condiments. Give 'em up. It's the first step you can take to a healthy diet.
Disclaimer - I am not a nutritionist. I am not a doctor. Whatever I'm writing here is knowledge I learnt from various sources. Use of information presented here is at your own risk.
I remember what I read somewhere, a long time ago - "Whatever tastes good, is bad for you!". To some extent, it's true.
Let me clarify. First, we harken back to the ancient days of early prehistoric Man. Back then we had no processed food, no sweets, no manufactured food items. Everything Man ate was only available in nature. In some cases, Man's food fought back. Try eating a live chicken, or a pig :) You can bet the fella will struggle like hell...
So in this scenario, "whatever tastes good is bad for you" is usually not true. Fruits that aren't ripe taste awful. Man was gifted with colour vision for the purpose of telling which fruits were ripe, and which weren't. Poisonous plants generally don't taste good. The taste tells early Man to stop eating it, and eat something else that tastes good.
Plants propogate themselves by producing seeds. In order to sow the seeds further away than a few feet, plants produce fruits which have the seeds inside them. That will entice animals to eat the fruit and then perhaps, discard the seed(s) some distance away.
So, back in prehistoric times, Man only had frutis, plants, and hunted animals for meat. They had no seasonings, no mustard, no mayonaise, etc. They don't even cook their meat with cooking oil - just roast 'em over an open fire.
Fast forward 3 million years later. Here we are today. We have sweets, candies, cakes etc etc ... things that "taste good". When we dine, we have to have a generous helping of condiments, like salt, pepper, mustard and so on. All these are MANUFACTURED. When humans manufacture things, the intent is to SELL the products. To sell food products, they must TASTE GOOD. In this day and age, tasting good involves adding chemicals (which generally aren't good for the body) into the product, to make it taste good. If it tastes good, it sells. Companies don't really care about the health of the consumers in general.
So, whatever tastes good, generally is bad for you. That is true for the situation we have today in the modern society.
My point?
My point being, we need to start eating food without all the processed junk again. Stop using chilli, pepper and so on. If you need to use salt, use it sparingly. Cook your meat without using oil. Roast it over an open flame like our ancestors did. Or, what I do is to dump the meat into the toaster/microwave and cook it... yes, just like that, no oil, no marinating.
How does it taste? Same as always. The thing about me is, I normally don't use condiments with my meals. I'm strange I know. I get teased about being "scared of chilli" cos I normally don't put chilli on anything I eat, unlike all my typical Singaporean friends who apply gobs of it on their food. Even when I eat burgers, and they ask me "Chilli or ketchup?", my reply is always "nothing, thanks". Yup, I eat french fries WITHOUT chilli or ketchup! You need to try it yourself.
So when I "roast the meat over an open flame", the meat tasted almost the same as when it's cooked in oil, except minus all the unhealthy oil.
To many people, "dieting" means eating less, and the food tastes bland. The reason is - you're all too dependent on condiments. Give 'em up. It's the first step you can take to a healthy diet.
Disclaimer - I am not a nutritionist. I am not a doctor. Whatever I'm writing here is knowledge I learnt from various sources. Use of information presented here is at your own risk.
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Labels: dieting, food, healthy diet
