You know that mindfulness is an obsession of ours, and you also know how important we consider it to take care of the three pillars of good athletic preparation: training, nutrition, and recovery. In this series of articles we want to talk about what we put on our tables and, then, in our bodies.
How aware and informed are we about what we eat? How much are our food choices guided by food knowledge and how much by instinct, hunger, and the little time we devote to something as important as feeding ourselves?
In five weekly appointments we will explore a particular type of food: ultra-processed foods. Why focus only on those? Because they are now the most popular, the cheapest, the most practical, and often the tastiest. They would look perfect, wouldn’t they? Unfortunately, they are not. We say “perfect” because being able to feed oneself while spending little and without consequence to the body would seem the perfect solution to feed the whole world. The problem is that these foods are not nutritious or not as much as you might think. And the consequences they have on the bodies of those who take them are still unexplored.
Where does the food come from?
When you meet a new person, after asking his or her name, you generally ask where they are from. It is a way to connect and understand who you are dealing with. Food is not a person, but its origin is no less important for that, also because with food we have a very intimate relationship that lasts a lifetime and is never interrupted.
We need it to live and we also “use” it in many different ways:
- Social, when we are with other people
- Cultural, when it allows us to learn about other cultures and traditions and tell our own
- Psychological, when it helps us compensate for unpleasant moods or when we reject it, highlighting an existential malaise.
This is not surprising: as it was said, the relationship we have with food is very long-standing and has been with us forever. And it is also extremely intimate, so much so that it unconsciously highlights our state of mind: when we eat nervously and without limit we show restlessness and anxiety, when we refuse food we manifest inner discomfort and inability to accept ourselves. And so on.
The history of our food
As they said, to know food-such an intimate thing-we should know where it comes from, or have at least a vague idea of it. Yet it is not so simple. After all, the industrialization of the food industry is relatively recent but has already had obvious consequences: mankind had been accustomed for millennia to deriving food from agriculture, hunting and animal husbandry. It used to be that we knew the origin of the food we ate: it was local and it was normal to know the farmer or rancher who sold it to us.
Today the origin of the food we eat is far from our table. It may seem like a marginal aspect, but food is something we put inside of us, and knowing where it comes from and especially how it is made should interest us. They say, “You are what you eat,” and it is not just a figure of speech but a great truth, not least because it is biologically proven: our bodies turn the food we give them into muscles, tissues, energy, and thus into ourselves.
However, we are not suggesting that you grow your own carrots and raise a pig at home: it is obvious that it is no longer possible to think in these terms. What we can do, however, is to give you some insight into what you buy at the supermarket and what you consume at home. Mindfulness also sets one free (along with knowledge, on which it is based) to decide what to eat and why. However, knowing first exactly what it is. We do not want to-a similar attitude does not really belong to us-tell you what is right and what is wrong to eat or, worse, condemn anyone for eating particularly harmful things. We ourselves sometimes indulge and allow ourselves to “deviate,” eating or drinking things that we know are unhealthy. The difference is in quantity and awareness. It is okay to indulge in forbidden pleasures, while it is problematic to make them into habits.
The types of food
After this lengthy introduction, let us get into the substance of the topics that we will develop more fully in the coming weeks. We will be very brief: these are kind of like the actors in the play you are about to see. Here they are:
- whole food, or fresh, food
- processed food
- ultra-processed food.
There are three, and they are also easy to keep in mind. What you may be surprised to know is that the second type also includes foods that are rightly considered healthy. An example? Mozzarella cheese is a processed food, yet no one would dream of saying it is bad for you. If you are not lactose intolerant it is perfectly safe to eat it, yet the fact remains that it is a processed food. Milk and canned tomatoes are also processed foods because they have undergone processes to allow them to be stored longer. What we mean is that the fact that it is processed does not in itself mean anything, especially with respect to its quality and nutritional characteristics. It is in fact a definition about how it is made, not what it is made of. This is true for processed food because when talking about ultra-processed food we will also and especially have to refer to how and with what it is made.
To sum up, the three types of foods you can find for sale are:
- Fresh/whole foods: such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, legumes, and minimally processed meats and dairy products. In short, anything that is as close to its natural state as possible.
- Processed foods: foods that have been altered in some way but still retain many of their original nutrients.
- Ultra-processed foods: usually composed of multiple ingredients, many of which are additives, preservatives, and flavorings. They are often so processed that they bear little resemblance to their original food sources.
We conclude with the grandmother. Why her? Because one way to tell if a food is ultra-processed is to read the ingredients right to her: they say that if she doesn’t understand most of those used to make it then it is ultra-processed. Another way is to read the same list and, beyond figuring out what ingredients it is or not, check to see if you have them in your kitchen. Shall we bet? You don’t have them, as neither do we and probably no one else. In fact, it is easier to find them in a chemical laboratory than in a kitchen. But we’ll get there.
One last note before we leave (for now): much of what you will read is taken from the work of Dr. Chris van Tulleken, author of“Ultra-Processed People”
See you next week!