Healthy eating is a fairly general aspect when you think about it. You can try out the over 100 diets out there and ritually follow the healthiest eating habit, but healthy eating all boils down to one thing – eating real food. The concept of real food a rather vast subject. It all has to be real, physical food, from fleshy pink poultry, to bright collard greens. Real food are grown for taste, grown by people who care for the land and hope to provide the best nutritious product they can offer.
Asians are accustomed to using the freshest ingredients to produce a delicious wholesome meal, but we’ve expanded to using highly-processed, preserved foods that hardly even consist of the real thing you hoped it would consist of. Perhaps American fast food culture is to blame. The multi-billion dollar empire that depends on the steady production of processed foods in order to cater to millions of people who demand the same quality everywhere they go.
Malaysians purchase processed foods in the form of snacks, ice cream, candies, beverages, even to the bread we survive on everyday – and this unhealthy habit contributes to the shocking fact that Malaysia has one of the highest adult obesity rate in Asia.
Food marketers do a pretty fine job tricking consumers into believing that their fast food and junk food are made of “real” ingredients. But take a hamburger for example. It may say it’s made of 100% beef, but what part of the cow did the meat come from?
When it comes to buying fresh, there’s also another dilemma – ethically-produced vs mass produced foods. The organic food industry is a booming empire because products are grown without the use of pesticides and animals are fed properly without growth hormones, offering the freshest and chemical-free produce.
So, does this mean you have to buy organic? Not necessarily. It’s a matter about being smart about who and where you buy your produces from – as long as it’s bought from sustainable sources, you’re on a good path to real food consumption!
Real food should have the following characteristics:
They’re grown
They spoil or rot fast
Requires preparation
Authentically flavorful
Pose a strong connection to land and sometimes culture
Canned, processed, and frozen foods need to be avoided or at least cut down as they contain lots of preservatives that do a lot of harm to your body. Do your body a favor and choose to eat fresh today, and cut down you fast food and processed food consumption to once or twice a week and most.
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