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What does Eating Well even mean?
- KW
- Jun 1, 2023
- 5 min read
For many (me included!) life can feel incredible messy and chaotic at times. Even the most mindful and thoughtful person can get wobbled at times by the modern world. For me it's kids, school, nursery, work and life. On paper it doesn't sound like much but with conflicting demands on time, being there emotionally for my kids, my family, friends and myself and trying to feel like I'm doing a good job at work, it can be tough. Where it takes a village to raise children, I sometimes feel that I'm trying to be that whole village in this world where, yes we have friends, but no family members on the doorstep and no one to really help with the day to day- offering practical but also the much needed emotional support children and us are so desperately need so much of. I know this is a common experience for many others too. This is by no means a sob story; we are so fortunate in so many ways and have a great life. But that pressure at times can still feel crushing.
When we talk about eating well, this is something that can be transformative in our ability to not only maintain better health, but also manage our own resilience to stress. Our gut microbes are crucial to making us feel calm, collected and better able to control and regulate our own emotions and therefore how we deal with life in general (1). There is also evidence emerging that this might go as far as determining the likelihood of developing symptoms of PTSD following a stressful event (2). If we're not giving ourselves and therefore our microbes the right food, they can't thrive and do their job of keeping us calm and healthy. Food can be really powerful to how we think and feel. I've seen it in myself and I see it in my kids all the time.
But what actually is eating well? There's so much conflicting information out there from marketing, but also the traffic light system here in the UK; high fat foods marked as red, highly processed low salt, sugar and fat foods marked as green. This is no indication of health and my advice would be to always read the ingredients. If it's got a cocktail of stuff in that you don't understand, it's probably no good for you. If it has to market the fact that it's good for you, it's probably not good for you. Aim for whole foods which look the same as they did when they were picked or dug up, with few or no added ingredients.
When we think about eating well, what we're actually doing is trying to move back in line with how we evolved. Humans have a history covering millions of years of evolution before the last several thousand years of agriculture and civilisations and the more recent few hundred years of industrialisation and increasing amounts of food processing over the past 70 years. Living and eating well is about moving more inline with our basic and primal needs. We evolved synergistically with the natural world around us. We've become increasingly disconnected from this to the point now that we barely even speak to those around us without staring at a screen, removing so much emotional information that is relayed through facial expressions, body language and just that feeling of being with someone in person. This is being reflected in our health; both physical health and mental health with our modern culture and society causing huge amounts of trauma and chronic stress which becomes manifested as (for example) diabetes, IBS, depression, anxiety, arthritis, reproductive issues, psoriasis, cardiovascular disease etc etc. The way this stress is manifested is individual, but the causes and general solutions to tackle the root cause are not. However how we each adjust to a more simplistic way of nurturing ourselves can be incredibly individual. Our ability to change our behaviours is tied up in a lifetime of experience and emotion, and there may be some biological needs around allergies or tolerance of certain foods that have manifested over time. But with the right support and guidance, these individualities can be overcome.
By living more inline with our basic needs, we reconnect to the world around us; through food, the natural world, our sense of community, our sense of purpose, our ability to move, and our ability to listen to our own selves and allow time to restore when we need to. This is not easy, but once we take a few steps to move in this direction, you actually realise how simple life actually is. How simple it is to find pleasure and contentment without feeling that you should always have and be doing more.
In terms of food, for millions of years we would have been eating the food available through the seasons within a few miles of where we were, working together to hunt and gather and share food together as a community. The process of sourcing food and eating would have fulfilled many of our basic needs; Purpose (wanting to get food) movement (getting the food), freshness, variety, minimal processing, enjoying food together and having that sense of community. Convenience food makes calories easier to obtain, but it obliterates many of our basic needs.
Of course we can never go back to a hunter gather lifestyle (and I probably wouldn't want to!) but by becoming aware of this, we can take steps to reconnect and reset ourselves as best we can. It can take time, but starting with small steps to eat well and begin those connections with the world around us can be very powerful. Eating seasonably is a great way to reconnect with the natural world. It could be something as simple as growing (or buying) your own herb pots, and adding some of your own fresh herbs to a meal you've made. The process of growing, nurturing, picking and eating can give you that sense of mindfulness, purpose, gratitude as to the effort needed to produce an edible plant, and eating something so fresh gives you so many more bioactive chemicals within the plant that are lost over time, and certainly lost through intense processing. It could be some raspberry or strawberry plants in your garden or in a pot which grow up every year, tomatoes, potatoes or anything you fancy trying. It could just be trying a buy one or two different seasonable items each month. It could even be as simple as swapping your bag of crisps for nuts, or going half and half and having fewer crisps with some nuts until your tastes adjust. It could be adding in another portion of veg or having a few veg sticks alongside a meal.
Make changes slowly and introduce things that will work for you and you will find enjoyable. Change takes time. Be kind to yourself, notice how certain foods make you feel and gently nudge yourself towards more whole foods. Many of us crave a bag of crisps or pack of cookies some of the time, it's just important not to make it all of the time.
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