It Doesn’t Take a Miracle to Achieve Health and Nutrition on This Changing Planet

Believe in Miracles? We live on a blue planet with a perfect atmosphere circling just the right distance around a star with a moon that moves the seas. That’s enough to make me a believer.

Call it the Cinderella complex, but I think things are “just right” here at home. We should be filled with gratitude for our place in the universe.

We live and eat from the sun’s abundant energy and the Earth’s fertile soils. We’ve grown healthy and brainy, strong enough to be the dominant species on the planet.

Yet, evidence now points to a decline in the nutritional quality of modern food, due to poor soil quality and rising carbon dioxide levels. Read conventional farming practices and climate change.

Staying healthy during this time of change requires a strategy to increase the nutrients we consume.

Eat a variety of foods like our ancestors did.

I’m no expert on what the first sapiens ate, but I do know that they didn’t entertain fad diets. They hunted and foraged and eventually planted a wide range of foods to access as many nutrients as they could to fuel those big brains.

It’s no different today. A varied diet that fuels your body can help protect you against chronic diseases such as heart disease or cancer, improve your ability to fight off illnesses and it can also help boost your mental health and happiness.

Eat across as many food groups as you can. Load up on fruits and vegetables, legumes, cereals, and the occasional meat, fish, and dairy.

Smoothies are a great way to mix a variety of vitamins and minerals into your daily regime. The smoothie king menu has a variety of options that you can choose from, that enhance the taste and provide your body with everything it needs to meet its goals.

Lastly, you can research different recipes on the internet that will provide you with new ways to cook and new vegetables that you may not have thought of before, to try. 

Diet for a well-rounded human doesn’t mean deprivation. It requires eating many plant-based foods while tossing in proteins and fats to stay healthy. 

Fruits and veggies are your edible rainbow

The plant kingdom serves forth a colorful diversity of fruits and vegetables. Filling your plate with a kaleidoscope of yellow, green, orange and blue provides radiant sources of vitamin C, calcium, iron and folate and fiber.

All the stuff we need to stay healthy and less prone to disease and lighter in body mass.

Eat what’s in season where you live

Most of us are used to eating raspberries and asparagus all year long. But if you really want to get healthy and eat sustainably, a seasonal diet is one to pursue.

Grow your own vegetables; find a local farm stand or a market that carries local products. They taste fresher and more delectable. You’ll probably save money and avoid eating food that has a carbon footprint from traveling halfway across the globe

Unless you eat your vegetables within 72 hours of harvesting them, you could lose between 15-60% of their nutritional value.

If you live in a cold climate, pickled, dried, frozen, and canned local food will provide good homegrown nutrition with lots of tasty treats.

If you eat meat, find a local rancher or livestock farmer to support. Make sure your fish and seafood are sustainably caught from as local a source as your geography allows.

Eating in season supports your local community, lowers your own carbon footprint and places nutritious healthy food on your platter.

Choose an organic diet for the health of your family and the planet.

Eating organic food lowers your exposure to pesticides, antibiotics, and growth hormones.

The Organic Center highlights a study published in the journal Nutrients that compared the health of consumers who regularly ate organic to those who ate mostly conventional food. It found the organic eaters experienced better health, increased fertility reduced inflammation, and less risk of illnesses like cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Organic diets can significantly reduce pesticide exposure during pregnancy that can lead to lead to reproductive and behavioral issues in children.

Organic means nutrition with fewer chemicals and healthier ecosystems.

Organic farming practices works with nature to lessen the effects of climate change and foster healthier ecosystems. Generating fewer greenhouse gas emissions and building healthy soil that sequester carbon fight climate change. Organic farming reduces the chemical burden in our streams and oceans and helps preserve natures biodiversity. 

Eating a nutritious healthy diet isn’t miraculous or even complicated. It’s simple.

Eat well and wise, always organic.

We’re going to need all the vigor we can muster to heal ourselves on this miraculous planet.