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Someone asked me this question the other night and it's been on my mind ever since. So I thought I'd ask you all:
Do you eat to live -- OR do you live to eat?
What's your practice on this?
(I've given it thought and realize when I was younger I lived to eat and my eating habits were not very healthful. Now that I'm older (perhaps a tad wiser??) I now try my best to eat to live. Eating whole foods seems to aid my well-being...)
What about you??
I only WISH I ate to live. My waistline shows which camp I am in.
Post-holiday eating rampage, I feel much the same. Just hopped back on the healthful eating wagon.
I've a favorite pair of back jeans. When they become painfully snug, I change my evil eating ways...damn jeans!! Nag, nag, nag.
I probably am in the "live to eat" camp, but am in the process of trying to re-adjust my attitude and get into the "eat to live" camp.
Over the past few months, I have been in the eat to live category. I am watching carbs, salt and sugar and note that over time, things I used to like taste too sweet or too salty now. Once your taste buds and preferences change, seems to me one can be in both camps as you will begin to seek out and enjoy healthier options. The old options no longer appeal at all.
Definitely the eat to live camp. Unlike DH, I'm not a foodie. I like simple, functional food. My personal philosophy of good eating (I certainly am very hit and miss on the practice of it) is Michael Pollan's advice: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." I would eat healthier if DH didn't cook becase he never met a fat he didn't like, but of course, I'm grateful he does.
I'm pretty much in your camp -- except my DH does not cook. So I'm our full-time chef--and I enjoy cooking--90% of the time. The other times, my fingers call the nearby and pretty good Chinese restaurant for pick-up.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
Most fats are pretty good for us...
The evil culprit causing us so much grief seems to be the foods with processed carbs and sugar...I try, and am experimenting, with some of the ancient grains such as quinoa and such Avoiding wheat--which is everywhere these days--along with added sugars....
When I want to drop some weight or feel better, I find limiting the white, empty carbs is the way to go...
Trying to make the "live to eat" directive more healthful as I do really enjoy my grub. Spices are fun to experiment with...
It's an ongoing battle to cook wisely given our processed foods these days...aisles of it at the grocery store to avoid...
I'm definitely stealing this to use as my new food mantra! Thanks!Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I like Pollan's writing and philosophy. I've read several of his books. When he says, "Eat food..." he's referring to "real food"--whole foods-- rather than what he called "food-like substances" of the highly processed variety.Quote:
Originally Posted by happystuff
I try to keep that in mind. Eat a baked potato but not potato chips, for example.
Don't know Pollan said it, but I like the quote, "Eat food that's made on a plant (of the growing variety)-- not food that's made in a plant.
There is kind of a fun app called Yuka that reads the bar codes of packaged foods and cosmetics. It shows you if too much sugar, carbs, additives etc. I went through my pantry looking at various items and almost all said too much sodium. Even the "healthy" ones.
How interesting! Wonder what the app's criteria is for deciding if there's too much salt? I'd rather add my own to taste if I have a choice. Most soups, canned or served in restaurants, seem to taste over-salted to us.Quote:
Originally Posted by pinkytoe
Seems very hard to find any processed foods that have little or no added sugar, salt, dyes or other additives that contribute to our healthy eating. And avoiding wheat is another issue.
We're trying our best to stick to "one-ingredient" whole foods. Not always easy...
I no longer buy certain dairy products like ice cream, cream cheese as they are full of stabilizers (gums) which seem to mess with my digestion. I don't think these things used to be so prevalent but corporations continue to mess with food to increase profits.
You're so right. When I read labels, I get very concerned when I can't even pronounce a lot of what's in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by pinkytoe
When our food starts to sound like supplies for a chem lab, count me out.
No wonder a goodly number of our manufactured food products are banned from other nations. Maybe they care more about the well-being of their citizens??
People over profits?
Hmmm, I like that idea, how about you?
I imagine I fall into the eat to live category. I've surfed the border between vegan and vegetarian for several years. It's a change that requires some getting used to. I think we have inherited some omnivore tendencies from our hunter gatherer ancestors to desire animal fats, sugars, and salt as a survival mechanism. Those tend to be the things we crave in a live to eat pattern. I look forward to my meals and cooking, but I'm always experimenting and not everything tastes good.
Interesting observations! The two of us have also flirted with vegetarianism, too. We go for a period and then one or both of us gets a strong urge for something "meaty" of an animal nature that won't be satisfied until we fulfill it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rogar
That happens even with plentiful soy protein, lots of beans, nuts and seeds. So I don't think we're lacking adequate protein.
So, we give into it..and I'll make stuffed cabbage with ground turkey and quinoa--or we'll go to our favorite neighborhood pub and split a very good burger. Then we're good to go for another few weeks.
One other guilty pleasure that I can resist most of the year is for bacon. I lust for bacon. And so I satisfy the lust maybe twice a year.
But we're good with sugar, salt, and processed foods 95% so we don't beat ourselves up over our few transgressions...so, yes, I agree we do, most of us, harbor some omnivore inclinations...
I think for most people the Pollen recommendations are a good enough effort for a healthy diet. There are some non health issues around industrial animal husbandry and environmental impact that you don't get around, though. I have a few excursions into carnivore land during the year. I buy a few strips of bacon to make BLTs with the first garden tomatoes of the year and have no qualms about turkey at Thanksgiving. I recall a saying from some corporate training session in my working days, "that which we resist persists". I truly dislike most fish but try to eat some variety of fish once a week at my doctors recommendations.Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyHiker
The other night we made Sheperd's Pie with lamb broth and lamb mixed with veg and topped with mashed potatos. I slept like a baby. Something about the cold makes me crave meat and fat so I give in now and then. I have been making all sorts of beans in the crockpot and then freezing jars of them. They taste so much better than canned.
Oh absolutely! We crave stick-to-your-ribs foods during the colder months. Just like the bears before they hibernate--maybe we need to put on an extra layer of fat to keep warm?? This was discussed in a popular alternative doctor's book I have (first printed 1981) by integrative physician Elson Haas, M.D. It's called Staying Healthy with the Seasons. Our best food choices reflect the seasons.Quote:
Originally Posted by pinkytoe
I could almost live on salads and cool foods in the summer. But come winter? I'm with you! Bring on the carbs and the heartiness. I, too, am making stews, chili, bean soups and such. That's what my body craves and I tend to listen....
Whole food plant based. No dairy, no oils. No alcohol, no sugar, no processed food. Vegetables of all kinds. Berries and small amounts of other fruits. As much as I can find are organic, no preservatives and non gmo.
I eat the rainbow every day. Beans, seeds, nuts, lentils, wild rice, steel cut oats. Tofu, Lots of spices.
in my mid seventies.
no medications, ton of energy, sleep great.
That's great. You're a testimonial to eating the good life!Quote:
Originally Posted by flowerseverywhere
Rogar: So from my own biased worldview, I always assumed you included some fish in your diet because it is so delicious and irresistible, lol.
Flowers: You are absolutely exemplary!
I suspect we are like most folks, falling somewhere in the middle, and trying to move more towards a healthier diet.
I 'eat to live', but I interpret that to mean that to mean that eating is not one of my main priorities/focuses in life (NOT that my diet is particularly healthy/nutritious). I will indulge in a restaurant meal every week or two (and that is a highlight/luxury to me, not taken for granted), but the staple of my diet right now is eggs on some type of bread (english muffins at the moment). I'll usually have that once per day. My second meal varies a little. And I supplement with sweet snacks.
I would like to have a more nutritious, healthy, and varied diet but for now this is working (keeping me fed, fueled, and out of the fast food joints). And for me it avoids a lot of food waste -- sometimes I have gotten inspired and bought different ingredients that I don't normally use and then I'll try the new dish once, not make it again and have to throw out the ingredient two weeks later!
Yep, I hear ya! Hate food waste, too--it's too expensive to waste, isn't it? I try to keep certain pantry/frig essentials in stock that I can use them to create lots of simple & nutritious meals from. Everyone has their own essentials. Once I've developed about a dozen or so dishes in our rotation, it's become easier to shop and have less waste...Quote:
Originally Posted by just_a_yak
I like exotic dishes but not when they require too many pricey or wasteful items...