What Is the Best Diet For Our Health?
Fad diets are always popping up and tend to always tote the greatest success with each one. But we all know that none of them are really successful long term. With social media it’s even easier to get overwhelmed with trendy diets promising big results only to leave us empty handed.
Is there really any good diet advice out there or is really just everything in moderation and common sense? If you haven’t already read my blog on moderation, you can read more on this topic here.
The Standard American Diet (SAD)
Unfortunately, as great a country as the US is, our reputation for healthy eating is a bit sad. In fact, it’s so bad that they even termed our typical diet the SAD diet (standard American diet).
Our diet even has the ability to completely upturn the health of people in countries that adapt our Western lifestyle.
Take for instance Okinawa Japan, an area known for its high percentage of centenarians. Since adapting to a more Western diet or SAD they younger generations are only living to the more common American age of ~80 years old.
That alone should be the greatest indicator of the impact of our American diet on our health and body.
Whole Food Plant Focused
So, what exactly is the right diet or the healthiest diet? A quick search online typically will have the Mediterranean diet, DASH diet, whole food plant based diet, vegan diet and flexitarian diet.
But how do you know which one to pick? They all promise to improve your health and increase your health span long term.
The answer is simple, let’s take a look at what these top diets all have in common.
At the root of all of these is a focus on consuming more plants. In fact, plants are the main food of every single meal. Compare that to plants being a mere side dish or a garnish in our American diet.
Vegetables, tubers, fruit, beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds are all the primary base for all meals. Packed with nutrients and phytochemicals that protect our body it’s no wonder why plants are a main focus.
In addition to being plant focused, they are all composed primarily of whole food. Heavily processed foods are almost non-existent in these diets.
Besides the vegan diet, meat is kept to a minimum and primarily composed of lean meats and fish. Fatty meats and red meats are consumed sparingly or for special occasions only.
Start making the switch today
Whole food plant focused diets have been around for centuries and health benefits of them have been well studied. The industrialization of the food industry along with a focus on corporate profits has led our society into a very unhealthy era.
It’s never too late to make changes in your diet and lifestyle and reap the benefits long term. Even if you already have been diagnosed with one of the many American lifestyle diseases such as metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes, changing your lifestyle and diet can make significant improvements to your health and health span.
Follow these steps to start making the switch to a diet proven to promote your health and increase your health span.
Increase your portion of plants at every meal.
Vegetables, tubers, fruit, beans, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
Replace half of your animal meat with plant proteins such as beans, legumes, and quinoa.
Limit red and fatty meat consumption to special events such as family gatherings, birthdays, celebrations, etc.
Choose whole foods over heavily processed foods.
Use the ingredients as a guide. If the list of ingredients is longer than 1 sentence, then it’s best to avoid it.
If you want help changing your lifestyle and learning which foods to avoid or increase, email me at dietitian2go@gmail.com or schedule an appointment with me!
Written by: Adam Skowyra MPPD, RDN, LD
