What foods should we adopt? – Dr. Bhupesh Vashisht
You must have heard your elders telling you their elders were living longer with total health. This totality of health was not merely the absence of any bodily diseases but health around them for they never chose any artificial means to get the best of their health.
If there is any best time to get back to our roots, perhaps this is the right time. For how long, we keep on settling with foods loaded with synthetic fertilizers, chemicals promote the growth of eatables but not atrophies your physical and mental development? If we can abrogate this practice, this will be the first step towards a healthy with choosing foods devoid of fertilizers.
Being an Ayurveda practitioner, I had witnessed the direct positive impact on the health of my health seekers and patients when they chose natural over artificial. Our nature nourishes us like a mother while allowing all ingredients should come in the food in their natural form and complete the full duration of gestation. Moreover, a mother never tries to use any artificial means for its womb.
The second point to remember is to eat the foods grown locally with more emphasis on local and seasonal meals unless your health needs some specific type of meal advised by your dietician or doctor. With globalization, our food platters have easily become global. While we do love Thai, Mexican, Burmese and all sort of imported meals, this globalization of food is making us eating even non-seasonal food items which mostly have grown either with the help of chemicals or imported from abroad with a direct threat to the local production. The concept of seasonal and regional food holds great importance in today’s scenario, where we all are getting back to our old roots.
The third point is the form of the foods we should have? Well, what do we eat daily? The majority choose milk, grains, fruits, vegetables, and juices to get healthy carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. In all our senses, we eat healthy food but do you know what is working for you, and what not? Take an example of a diabetic patient who chooses to eat simple carbohydrates in the form of loaves of bread, biscuits over pulp of fruits would never be able to beat raised sugar levels in the blood.
To get healthy carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, one should choose their healthy sources. For example- choosing sugar from the pulp of fruits like mangoes, sweet potato, banana, and grapes is always better than selecting it from simple carbohydrates like bread, biscuits, and refined sugars. Similarly, the healthy fats coming from avocado, dry fruits, and seeds like flax, chia are better options than choosing eggs, dairy, and poultry.
It would be good if you are taking the guidance of a nutritionist or dietitian in planning your daily, weekly, monthly seasonal, or regional regimen. The vital step in your daily health journey is to choose meals that are light on your gut and this includes taking enough roughage during the day. You will be astonished to know that we are eating 30 times more sugar what we have been eating 30 years back. The refined sugar in the form of bread, biscuits, and other processed eatables gradually snatch health from you and leave you with extra flabs, fats, and raised blood sugar and lipids in the body. You can get rid of this excess sugar, salt and fat provided you choose the natural source to get the sugar which goes light on the gut and keep your veins, arteries clean and does not form any plaque to clog them.
Follow your health pyramid daily, eat less as you progress during the day, most benefiting way to end the day is often to have healthy carbohydrates, proteins from the sources like beans, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms raised naturally and organically.
I could advise you to have certain food items that can be eaten every day, but just like the ambit of colors is vast, similar is the case with foods. To summarize the points, we discussed and If you give your health a priority, especially in the current scenario, your immediate healthy impetus should be of choosing food items-
- Grown in the best natural and organic way.
- Having natural sugars and nutrients in them.
- Grown locally and seasonally.
- Reach to you from farms, not from factories as processed meals.
- Stay light on your gut for easy digestion and building long term immunity.
Thankyou.
By
Dr. Bhupesh Vashisht
Dr. Bhupesh Vashisht is a management professional and a key driver behind the genesis of ‘AAS Ayurveda’. https://aasayurveda.com/
His healthcare management background gives him a deep understanding of Indian healthcare systems, challenges it faces, and how these gaps can be filled with the help of the indigenous system of medicine which remained neglected until the last decade. He has worked with reputed Indian and international organizations like FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry), GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation) and ILO (International Labour Organization) and the exposure of various healthcare projects helped him to possess the knowledge in the domains of Pharmaceutical Management, Micro Insurance, Healthcare Financing, Healthcare IT and Project Management. Dr. Bhupesh is an avid reader, diet consultant, fitness enthusiast, and writes blogs for EarthyTales. He is our in-house Expert Consultant ( Nutrition, Ayurveda)