Food for thought: Diets and health

By Lisa Fuchs

“A raw foodie, a vegetarian and a Paleo dieter, walked into a bar.” Will we see those jokes coming soon? I can already think of a few comic puns that could come out of this. Food influences us. A lot!

We don’t just talk about our nationality, our religion or our jobs anymore. These days we also tend to talk a lot about what we eat, and even more so about what we don’t eat.

And what a diversity! 10 % of the population in UK, Germany and Sweden are vegetarians – meaning they don’t eat meat. Meanwhile LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) and Paleo – both rather new and trendy diets, gaining more followers every year, allows you to eat plenty meat but no grains or sugar. There are low fat diets and high fat diets. Then you have the partially fasting ones who generally allow any food but only on certain weekdays. How do you choose?

A diet can be a political statement or an environmental one, but increasingly we see people follow diets simply to gain health.

No surprise really, when you think of that it is estimated that today, 10% of the world’s adult population (9% in Europe) have diabetes (WHO report 2013).

And that an unhealthy lifestyle is behind 60% of all cancer cases in Europe. Let me repeat that number: 60%! Could these cases have been avoided?

More and more, diets have gone from being the 3-week fix-it-all, to get into your bikini – to a long-term change of our lifestyle. We want health – more than the perfect body. Food is the main part but when and how much we move our bodies affects us as well.

The primal (Paleo style) diet and lifestyle for example, that my family pretty much follows, often talks about 3-5 short 15 minutes workouts a week plus a lot of moving around at a slow pace. All this is doable even without joining a gym. Use your own body as weight for your workouts and take advantage of the beautiful Luxembourg nature for plenty of walking.

In the end, you have an abundance of health recommendations to choose from. Which diet and exercise being optimal for you – no one, except you, can tell.

But, if there are two tips which I believe can be beneficial to all of us to have better health then I suggest you walk more and stop drinking sodas.

Don’t be fooled by the name “diet soda” either. No matter how you look at it, there is nothing healthy about them.

Instead, I suggest you switch to homemade ice tea.

 

Recipe for ice tea

Brew strong tea, pour over ice and squeeze a bit of lemon in there. No excuses – let 2014 be a year of health!

Lisa Fuchs is the author of “Delicious grain free baking” . She also writes about healthy and creative baking, under the name Liesel on her blog: lieselathome.com

You will never find sugar or gluten in any of her recipes and most of them are also lactose free.

Credits:

Article and Food photography by Liesel Fuchs:  lieselathome.com  & @liesel_at_home

This post first appeared in the Luxembourg Wort English – luxtimes.lu