When it comes to managing diseases of civilization, such as diabetes or heart disease, diet is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal. By focusing on a real foods lifestyle many symptoms and issues in the body naturally resolve themselves. The removal of blood sugar disrupting foods, toxic additives, and inflammatory fats is that a real food diet will achieve. So I’m sharing the real food diet guide in this blog post.
In all my programs and work one on one, I teach about the real food guide. The results have been simply outstanding with all my clients and my patients.
Using a healing diet such as a real food diet in the short term and then transitioning to a broader, real food based diet is the key to healing your body messages aka symptoms. Not only achieving your health goals and also maintaining health long into our golden years.
The Real Food Diet Guide: What are Real Foods?
First off, it’s important to define what constitutes a real foods diet or lifestyle (both words are used in this article). This way of eating focus on foods that are eaten as closest as possible to their natural state as possible. It includes fresh fruits and vegetables, animals protein, whole grains, and beans. Real food diet also includes nuts and seeds, cold-pressed oils and healthy fats.
Where Do We Get Our Protein?
Great source of protein on a real food plan is: beef, chicken, pork, fish, shellfish, eggs or any animal source protein. Hemp seeds are also a complete source of protein along with dairy products.
When it comes to choosing our protein sources when possible prefer purchasing animal products that have been raised sustainably and ethically and are fed their natural diets.
Consider also that non-organic animals are often given hormones to help them grow bigger, and sometimes are given antibiotics to counteract the illnesses that are rampant due to their living conditions. When we eat this meat we are essentially eating a toxic food.
Healthy amounts of anti-inflammatory fats and plant-based protein such as legumes, beans, nuts, and seeds including hemp hearts, almonds, walnuts, macadamia nuts, brazil nuts, pecans, pumpkin & sunflower seeds are also sources of protein in a real food plan.
Which Fats Are Best?
Focusing on healthy fats and oils such as coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, butter, or ghee on our real food lifestyle will help induce a healthy inflammatory response in the body. There are certain fats that, when eaten in excess, promote an inflammatory state in the body and we want to avoid using them as our primary fat sources on a whole foods diet.
The most important fats to avoid include vegetable oils such as canola, peanut, soy, corn, safflower, sunflower, and cottonseed and any oil that has been hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated.
They have been so over-processed that they are often rancid by the time they get to your table, which promotes inflammation and exacerbates underlying health conditions. Promoting an anti-inflammatory state in the body is one of the major benefits of a real food plan, which is why we eliminate these oils.
Brightly Coloured Veggies: Your Healing Superheroes!
One of the most important aspects of any real food diet is getting an adequate vegetable intake. We recommend getting at least 6 cups of fresh, optimally organic produce. Vegetables are a vehicle for many micronutrients such as antioxidants that help fight inflammation and many other compounds that promote healthy detoxification.
Vegetables are also a great source or the healthy fiber will that help stabilizes blood sugar and reduce your food cravings. Fiber is also the main component in making a healthy bowel movement. Bowel movement is one of the means for your body has to detox on a daily basis.
Organic produce are always the best option possible. If budget is a concern for you can refer to my guide on eating organic on a budget here .
What about Carbohydrate?
The #1 source of carbohydrate should be in the form of vegetables. As we stated earlier 6 cups a day we should be aiming for… an average of 2 cups per meal. In truth, our nutrition needs should be mostly made of plants… in volume.
Fruits are also a source of carbohydrate that should be prioritized. When it comes to fruit, we should aim to 1-2 serving per day.
The last source of carbohydrate in our diet should be focused on grains and legumes. Gluten-free grains such as millet, buckwheat, teff, quinoa or wild rice are preferable. You can also look at reintroducing some beans such as black, kidney, aduki, navy, pinto, and garbanzo beans
It is important to soak your beans overnight before cooking them as this can help deactivate some of the phytates and lectins that bind to minerals in the body. If you find that beans make you gassy, cooking them with a strip of kombu. Kombu can help absorb the problematic fibers that cause the issue.
Be aware that some health conditions such as diabetes or metabolic syndrome may not thrive when with a large number of grains and legume. Grains and legume are higher in carbohydrate then fruits and vegetables which may not be tolerated well by certains individual.
Dairy is ok but not necessary…
Consumption of dairy is totally optional. Dairy isn’t needed to the human body rather just another form of protein, fat or carbohydrate-like any other food.
Note that onsuming a ¼ cup of kefir or yogurt can provide you with lots of beneficial probiotic bacteria. Healthy bacteria or probiotic can help boost immune function and improve digestion.
It is important to keep track of how dairy makes you feel. Some people cannot tolerate any form of dairy even after their underlying health conditions have been resolved or managed.
Regain Your Complete Health with the Real Food Plan
Following a real foods lifestyle is one of the best ways to help bring your body back into balance. The real food diet will be giving your body the nutrients it needs to thrive.
Share your thoughts: Has a change in diet help you in the past? How did you change your diet? What is the biggest contributor to your health?