With a plethora of information available on the web and in the bookstores today, it is rarely difficult to find a healthy diet plan that you might find interesting or would like to try. However, there are some factors which a lot of diets neglect to include, or fail to explain. For instance, why do they recommend or dismiss particular foods?
When you are trying to lose weight with a healthy diet, it is important to not only eat the proper foods, but to know why you are eating that way. This will help you develop long-term healthy eating habits that will allow you to maintain your weight loss for a lifetime.
Here we look at salt, wheat, seeds and nuts, to help you understand the role they play in a healthy diet.
Salt, now often referred to as “sodium”
There’s been a great deal of publicity lately about the “evils” of salt – how too much salt contributes to high blood pressure and severe water retention. Many big food brands are now producing “low sodium” alternatives. That’s all well and good but there are dangers associated with consuming too little salt.
Salt is essential to the proper working of our bodies but the body is not capable of producing salt. The only way the body can get it is through what we eat.
So, if you are committed to reducing your salt intake, be sure not to take it too far – a healthy diet must include some salt.
You can also think about switching regular table salt for unrefined sea salt. Sea salt does not have the same damaging effects that table salt does, and eating it in moderation is actually good for you.
The Truth About Whole Wheat
Whole wheat bread has achieved a reputation as a healthy choice that is far better for you than plain white bread. Actually, this is far from the truth – the two breads have essentially the same effects. They load your body up with sugars, raise your blood sugar, and make you hang onto fat longer.
Whole wheat flour is actually a highly processed product, which means that many of the nutrients that it originally contained are no longer present by the time you are eating your whole wheat toast.
Sprouted bread is a much better alternative. When the grain is sprouted the nutrient levels are raised, phytic acid is broken down (you never want phytic acid in your bread since it prevents essential nutrient absorption), and the toxins are eliminated.
Nuts and Seeds
Many of the most effective healthy diets recommend raw sprouted nuts and seeds as snacks and supplements to dishes such as salads. Here’s why they recommend “sprouted” rather than regular versions.
Regular nuts and seeds are usually roasted. When they are roasted, the oil they contains quickly goes rancid. This sharply raises the level of free radicals they contain. Free radical molecules are extremely damaging to your body and have been linked to premature aging and certain types of cancer.
Raw sprouted nuts and seeds do not have the dangerous free radicals. They are also far more nutritious, making an excellent contribution to a healthy diet with no damaging downside.
