A comprehensive collection of 50 food facts you should know

9 minutes ago7 min read

I've read a handful of books discussing nutrition in smaller and greater details and here's an extremely condensed snippet of what I've understood. List of book recommendations by the end of the post! I'll make elaborate posts on a few of those points as required. The bullet points are not in any particular order but how my brain remembers them:

Sugar is literally poison. White sugar is the most brutal one followed by other artificial sweeteners (Stevia included) and then the natural ones ( Honey it's an exception but of course never beyond a limit).
Gut microbiome contains about 100 trillion microbes, determining our actions and emotions in big ways, bigger than we can think of.
The connection between brain and gut is intricate and too direct and established, so food is more than just the nourishment for the body.
It's not just about what you eat but how you cook it and at what temperatures, determine the amount of nutrients we take in.
It's also equally important to pay attention to the time lapse between cooking and consuming. The longer the gap, less effective the food operates within our bodies.
Ideally steaming, and quick stir fries with little oil and some water are the best modes of cooking. Foods that can be consumed raw is best when done so. All fruits, and most vegetables retain their vitamins and phytonutrient contents intact when consumed with very little to no heat damage through the process of cooking.
Tomatoes release a carotenoid called Lycopenes when processed. So consuming tomatoes after say canning or crushing or cooking rather than raw is beneficial.
The food is loaded with nutrients when it's closer to the original edible form. For example, white rice is edible even when it was brown.
The finer you process the food items more nutrition you lose. So, whole wheat grain when cooked and consumed is more nutritious than flat bread with the ground flour. Fruits are less nutritious when or in smoothies than when consumed in its naturally occurring state.
Retaining the nutrition in foods we eat usually involves losing as less water content as possible during the processing.
Added salt usually isn't really necessary as a nutrition in our diet since the daily Sodium intake is met with the nuts and seeds in the diet.
Consuming foods loaded with added salt and sugars would increase our tolerance to these tastes, so we unknowingly consume more salt and sugar to make the foods palatable.
Roasting or barbecues that we enjoy guilt free since it's not fried isn't a healthy alternative because the charred portions contain a toxin called Acrylamide which is identified as a Carcinogen.
Seed oils should be avoided for cooking because they contain high levels of omega 6 fatty acids and when heated can become inflammatory and may release transfats which are detrimental to our health.
Cold pressed, extra virgin coconut and olive oils can be a better alternative. In fact they have anti cancerous properties and rich in antioxidants.
Speaking of antioxidants, blueberries is the best antioxidant there is, which in terms of benefit minimizes the cellular aging.
You don't need expensive produce cleaning products to ensure the cleanliness. Washing in running water for about a minute takes care of most of the impurities.
Organic produce are definitely worth the price. If your pocket only allows non organic items, it's still worth choosing to eat fruits and vegetables non organic than no produce at all.
Stick to organic as much as possible for fruits and veggies where the skin is consumed. Also, always get organic animal products including milk, milk products, meat, and eggs.
Steering clear of meat is the best way to keep optimum gut health. If you choose to, keep the non gmo, organic, and don't pair them with milk products or other carbs as they increase the time taken for digestion thereby leading to putrefaction in the stomach and intestines.
Animal milk isn't the best food to consume, given reduced lactose tolerance as we age. Choosing fortified organic plant based milk can still give the necessary nutrition, without disrupting the gutbiome.
Including a wide variety of plant products can enrich the microbiome. For instance, making sure every day we consume at least 21 different plant products can nourish your gut. Ingredient can be as small as mustard seeds, or as large as watermelon, they still count.
Fibers is complex Carbohydrates which should be an irreplaceable part of the diet. It's
Processed foods includes polishing, grinding, cooking, and industrial methods. Anything that isn't straight from plants to plates has gone through processing, so keeping it as minimum as possible is essential. The least processed the foods we eat, the healthier we can be. So, eating potato chips is worse than mashed potatoes which is worse than baked potatoes.
Phytonutrients are derived from plants and they have antioxidant, anti inflammatory, and anti cancerous properties. So think twice before ordering a side of fries rather than a salad.
Water is an extremely important element in our body and the ideal amount of water for you would probably be obtained by this formula. Your daily water intake is ideally half your body weight in pounds, in ounces.
Daily diet must include Micronutrients are water soluble vitamins, fat soluble vitamins, macrominerals, and trace minerals. This can be attained by including a variety of vegetables, whole fruits, legumes, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and healthy oils. If you choose, you can also take dairy and poultry products to maximize the intake.
Seeds can be Superfoods because they are a good source of healthy fats, proteins, macrominerals, trace minerals, fiber, lignans, and antioxidant polyphenols. Take pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds, poppy seeds, and sesame seeds, on a regular basis to maximize their nutritional benefits.
Taking soaked and peeled nuts are found to be more effective and better utilized by the body.
A few Superfoods according to Sara Gottfried are avocados, MCT oil, beets, turmeric, green tea, matcha, and Fermented foods.
Added colors both natural and artificial is not the best thing to have in one's diet. Preservatives, modified sugars in a non sweet ingredient or end product to enhance the taste, texture, shelf life, thereby leading to desensitization of our taste receptors, and instant gratification at the blood glucose levels, being two of the myriad reasons why we should strictly steer clear of packaged goods away from the produce.
Acetaminophen is truly a gut microbiome destroyer, it kills a host of good gut bacteria thereby leading you less healthy than when you got the illness. If it's necessary, it's essential to balance the gut bacteria levels again.
Trans fats which are Omega 6 Saturated fatty acids, are banned in several countries due to it's harmful direct and side effects in affecting cardiovascular health significantly and cancer causing agents. However several cooking oils currently in use, including a few seed oils produce transfats when heated. Boiling and reusing make it worse.
Shoplocal isn't an insta slogan but a healthier choice. Choosing local produce than the exotic fruits and vegetables from the opposite side of the world would work best within you for the weather and soil conditions where you live in.
Excess salt in diet can be unconsciously introduced by our preferences to binge eat packaged goods like chips. Our taste senses then become immune to the regular salt intake and requires more and more to sense it.
Cutting fruits and vegetables whenever you're planning to consume retains more nutrients. Lesser the exposure to air the better.
No soaking the produce in water for a longer period since the nutrients can begin to dissolve.
Eating the rainbow is essential to ensure we get the whole range of macronutrients, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients in our diet.
Prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics are the important combinations in the gut. Prebiotics are the fibers and the rainbows you include in the diet, probiotics are the bacteria that feed on the Prebiotic foods you've ingested to produce postbiotics. Postbiotics determine the overall gut health.
Leaky gut syndrome is a health condition where the small intestine lining is punctured thereby leaking the processed wastes to enter into the blood stream that often go undiagnosed. Chronic bloating, gas, abdominal issues, mood imbalances, and poorly functioning immune system are usually brushed under the carpet as probably nothing or misdiagnosed into something else. Leaky gut can be fixed by a gut friendly variety rich nourishing diet.
Fermented foods supply probiotics that work on prebiotics to produce postbiotics. The caveat here is choosing the right Fermented food items. Pickled with vinegar is not the right one. Good source of probiotics are: Kombucha, Kimchi, kefir, homemade yogurt, idly, dosa, or any fermentation based south Indian breakfast staples, sauerkraut, any salt Fermented vegetables would work.
Animal milk should be a very small portion of the diet, fermented if possible. Swapping animal milk with a plant based milk which is fortified with proteins, calcium, vitamins, with reduced fat content than that of the animal milk should be considered. Our ability to fully easily digest lactose reduces as we age, thereby straining our gut when consumed.
Intermittent fasting and sticking to only 2 meals a day keeps our overall health in a better state.
Finishing the last calorie intake for the day 3-4 hours before bed puts less strain on the stomach allowing proper detox and functioning of other organs.
Supplement your diet as needed- Vitamin D, B12, zinc, maybe DHA and EPA are a few things you should look into.
Daily diet for optimal health should include leafy Greens, beans, onions, mushrooms, berries, and seeds.
Cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, brocolli, cabbage, kale, bok choy, Swiss chard, Brussel sprouts etc contain sulforaphane a potent phytochemical that are anti cancerous and anti inflammatory in nature, can even reverse aging due to antioxidants and vitamin K.
Refined flours are empty carbs with close to zero fiber content hence damaging your gut health. Think twice before choosing regular crust on the Domino's app.
The gut health can be fully revived. It's never too late to chooss to eat right. Conscious choices of nutrition rich foods for a few weeks just until it becomes embedded into your gut that naturally then prefers gut friendly foods.
Nutritarian diet as advised by Dr. Joel Fuhrman in his book Eat for life is the diet I no longer believe but know works best for me and my family. I stick to this diet as much as possible.