Simply Real: The Big Three

Over the past few weeks, I’ve discussed health and what makes food healthy in general terms. Remember, in trying to keep things simple, we’re going to define “healthy food” as the least processed and closest to natural food you can find, with the best natural nutritional value (the most vitamins and minerals!). It’s nothing fancy or super-special, and it’s not (at least it shouldn’t be) exclusive. Today, we’ll take it a step farther and look at the three “parts” of food we need to keep us going – and yes, we do need all three of them, despite whatever the fad diet of the moment says.

In nutrition science, carbohydrates, fats, and proteins are all clumped together under a group called “macronutrients”, which pretty much means “large nutrients”. These three nutrients are responsible for providing us with calories (energy so we can live and breathe and do other amazing things) and building materials to help us grow, heal, and thrive. 

In the next post, I'll discuss micronutrients - vitamins and minerals, which participate in thousands of processes in our bodies every second of the day. How amazing is that???

Carbohydrates (Carbs)!

Sweet, sweet carbs (literally, they’re chemically made of sugars). My favorite food group of all, and what also seem to be the most evil of the food groups according to many popular diets. Many people believe that carbs are "bad" for you because of the misconception that carbs = potatoes, bread, and pasta. While it's true that those are all carbohydrate-rich foods, carbs as a nutrient group include way more than that! Take a look:

 

The problem with carbs in the American diet is that most of the carbs a lot of people eat are either super- processed, added to processed foods in the form of extra sugar and syrups. We also tend to cook and prepare carbs at home with a lot of extra stuff they don’t really need like oil, fat, and more fat. You’ll notice in the picture that carbs are also in fruits, vegetables, and grains; all foods that you’ve probably been told are healthy. And they are (even potatoes)! These forms of carbs all come with an extra health-kick, fiber. Fiber has all sorts of magical (science-y) benefits, like slowing down the rate your body takes in the sugar from the food you’ve eaten, and making you feel full faster so you don’t over eat.

Carbs also have great benefits of their own – they help proteins repair your muscles after working out, they help your brain function clearly, and they provide fast energy. The types of foods that carbs are in, like fruits and vegetables, also have high naturally occurring vitamin and mineral contents.

Proteins

Protein and I have a weird relationship. I appreciate it, but I’m not the protein super-fan that many Americans are. Don’t get me wrong, protein is extremely important for a healthy body, just like carbs and fats are: you can’t grow and thrive if you’re not getting enough protein regularly. It also has a role in more science-y stuff like building and activating enzymes (for digestion and many, many other things that happen in the body) and hormones. Thankfully, it’s actually quite easy to get enough protein.

 

The amount of protein you need depends on a lot of different things: if you’re growing (like a baby – they need lots of protein!), pregnant, sick, or an athlete, you might need more or less, but that’s a bit more advanced than we’ll go today. Generally, though, most Americans get more than enough protein every day.

Since you don’t actually need to eat an entire chicken to get enough protein every day, this also means that it’s totally realistic and actually very easy to eat enough protein without needing to eat meat. If you’re on a tight budget and can’t afford meat all the time (or if you don't eat meat for any other reasons), this is great news for you, and your family and friends who may question you dietary choices.

Fat

For some reason, protein tends to get all the love as a nutrient while carbs and fats have been turned into some kind of villains. The truth is that, yes, we need fat, too. The way we treat fat in our diets is very similar to how we treat carbs – we think they’re all “bad” because the types of fat we’re exposed to tends to be processed and not very nutritious. Think dairy products, shortening and oils, and fried foods. Fats, like carbs, are a beautifully misunderstood food group that offer many benefits for health: fats help our cells function, insulate the little telephone wires in our brains that help us think and move and feel, and even help us absorb certain vitamins!

There’s a lot of debate on what fats are “good” and what are “bad”. As usual, I personally prefer more plant-based like oils, nuts, seeds, and vegetables since they typically carry more nutritional value than animal-based fats do. I like to get the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to nutrients, so if I can get fat, protein, carbs, and some vitamins and minerals in one ‘lil nut butter, I’m all for it.

 

In each of the pictures, I’ve shown a few examples of different types of foods that I consider to be healthy with these three nutrients. Simply knowing which foods contain which nutrients is a huge help in planning healthy meals. Try creating a meal plan based off of the examples I’ve given, and don’t be afraid to try something new!

Inspiration and Cacti

Let’s keep the momentum going! This isn’t a Simple Real post, but I’ve been feeling so motivated to create and inspire, and really turn this blog into something that can make an impact on my community that I’m updating twice this week! I really want this blog to be on fire and keep it consistent, so last weekend, I decided to get serious and treat it like a job: I sat down and created a schedule for myself based on some goals that I want to achieve each week.

One of the goals I set was to write for at least 30 minutes every day. I thought it would be something realistic and doable, even on days where I’m gone from home all day. Having a writing goal in the back of my head all day gets me thinking about things to write about all day. It’s becoming easier and easier every day to write more and even go over my 30 minute time slot. I’m learning that inspiration and motivation doesn’t necessarily have to be something that I wait for to come around after seeing something beautiful (although that’s a huge source of my inspiration) or because of some new success. I recall a quote from artist Chuck Close I saw floating around Facebook one day:

"The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case."

That’s some creative truth right there.

So besides all of these goings-on, the inspiration I created today came from the bag of nopales (prickly pear cactus pads) I bought at the farmer’s market last week. The first time I tried eating cactus was at a local taco shop here in Phoenix called La Santisima. It’s in their vegan taco and oh my gato it’s delicious. Seriously, if you’re in Glendale or Phoenix, take the time to try it sometime! They have an incredible salsa bar, too.

Cactus pads are tangy and a similar texture to a pepper when cooked. They go great with other vegetables like onions, peppers, potatoes (the base of today’s recipe), and mushrooms. They can also be pickled or used raw for salsa. Just be sure to cut or burn off the dots of tiny spines called glochids that freckle the pads before cooking or eating! It would totally ruin the amazing-ness of these breakfast tacos if you were to get spines in your tongue eating them! The combination of southwest  vegetables and eggs with tortillas is a tasty twist on chilaquiles to make for a (soon-to-be) classic breakfast or brunch.

Cactus Breakfast Tacos

2 small nopales pads

½ bell pepper, diced

¼ onion, chopped

1 medium-sized potato

2 eggs, or 2/3 cup crumbled, extra-firm tofu

2 tbsp oil

1 clove garlic

1/8 tsp Paprika

1/8 tsp Chile powder

1/8 tsp Cumin

Sprinkle of allspice

Chili flakes to preference

Salt to taste

Prep the pads by shaking them around in a bowl of water and splash of vinegar for a few seconds. This will not only clean the pads, but remove some of the spines. Drain and rinse one more time, pat dry with a towel, and grill over a very hot flame til browned and blistering. The fire from grilling will burn off the spines. If you don’t have a grill, carefully chop off the spines before cutting into cubes and sauteeing with the rest of the vegetables.

In a pan, add the oil, spices, potatoes, and onions and cook until the onions are transparent and the potatoes start to become soft, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic, bell peppers, and diced cactus and cook until just heated through. Make a well with the vegetables in the pan, and add the eggs or tofu to the space created. Sautee everything together until the tofu is incorporated and hot, or the eggs are set. You can add cheese at this step if you want; fold it in just before putting everything on a plate. Serve with steamed tortillas and salsa or avocado.

In Arizona, fresh nopales are pretty easy to find – check the farmer’s markets or specialty “international” grocery stores. If you can’t find them fresh, they are also available canned, usually in the Mexican foods aisles pretty much anywhere. You can also harvest your own if you happen to have a plant growing in your own yard or have a generous friend or neighbor who will let you use some of theirs. J As scary as this vegetable might be, don’t be afraid to try something new!

Simply Real: What is Health Food?

Health food is a touchy subject. I’m sure you’ve seen or heard of, or maybe even tried the different recommendations from different doctors, nutrition “experts”, and health gurus, and wondered what exactly it all meant, and if you really had to stick to eating cardboard to be healthy.

                As I wrote this, I overheard a girl around college age telling her friends about a brand of snacks she had found, and she insisted that they were good. I heard a lot of health buzzwords: gluten-free, fat-free, sugar-free, low-carb… you get the idea. Finally, one of them chimed in, “so, basically, they’re joy free!” Seriously, as much as I agreed with this girl in this particular situation (it turns out the snack being discussed was rice cakes) this is one of the worst myths about healthy food – that it has to be boring!

Perhaps a better introduction to teaching you what health food is, is to look at what it isn’t:

Healthy food isn’t boring.

Healthy food isn’t hard to cook.

Healthy food isn’t Lucky Charms.

Healthy food isn’t hot dogs.

Healthy food isn’t quinoa.

Healthy food isn’t smoothie bowls.

This is what you might be thinking right now: “Woah, woah, woah wait Emily. You just put quinoa and hot dogs in the same list of “not healthy foods”. Your ASU degree is  totally showing.”

Now hold up.

First of all, ASU’s school of nutrition is actually a great program. But I’m not here to advertise for them. Second of all, I wanted to set a theme. Each of those points falls under a bigger idea:

Healthy food isn’t boring. Healthy food isn’t hard.

What health bloggers don’t want you to know is that health food doesn’t have to be complicated. You don’t have to make a roasted butternut squash stuffed with quinoa, porcini mushrooms, and tri-colored lentils with a drizzle of cashew pesto to eat healthy. The more complicated and fancy a recipe sounds doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy. In fact, the healthiest food in my opinion is the simplest: steamed, baked, roasted, with some spices to make it interesting, because healthy doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice flavor. Companies like to market “health” foods according to what’s popular in the majority of “health” culture: think of the girls from earlier. Gluten-free, low-carb/paleo, fat-free; all of those are buzzwords. They sound great, but in the grand scheme of what health is, they mean very little. In future posts, we’ll look at how to use spices and different ingredients to cheaply and easily make flavorful, deceptively fancy-looking-but-simple meals.

Healthy food isn’t Lucky Charms. Healthy food isn’t hot dogs.

Long story short, this blog is called “Keeping it Real” for a reason. The “real” in the title doesn’t just refer to portraying myself in a realistic manner as opposed to the fitness model culture that is health blogging. Healthy food is real food. Sure, hot dogs are made of real meat scraps – but there’s a lot of stuff added to those meat scraps that turns it from meat to mystery meat in a tube. Healthy food is simple. It’s fresh, or just a little processed (frozen, fermented, and some canned fruits and vegetables are an example of ''good" processing).  It doesn’t come from a box on a shelf with sugar and salt and vitamins added to it because it has those things in it already.  During this series, we’ll also look at some examples of “healthy” grocery lists, and how to make eating healthy truly affordable.

Healthy food isn’t quinoa. Healthy food isn’t smoothie bowls.

Yes, both of these have their respective places in health food. I love both of them, when I can afford them, because these two items are also notoriously expensive. Who would spend $12 for a smoothie bowl when you could get a coiplr burgers for $3? It’s fad foods and expensive “alternatives” that give healthful eating a bad reputation for being unaffordable, unrealistic, and exclusive. Guess what? There’s no rule that says you have to make quinoa pilaf to be healthy. Steam some brown rice to go with your meal instead. Just because something is common and accessible doesn’t mean it’s bad for you.

What I want you to learn from this is those three main, over-arching points:

·         Health food ISN’T complicated. Health food IS simple.

·         Health food ISN’T highly processed. Health food IS fresh, or minimally processed

·         Health food ISN’T expensive. Health food IS affordable.

Keeping these three points in mind, my definition of a healthy food is one that is closest to its natural form as possible, with the highest quality in nutrition available to you.

The name and overall theme of this blog is Keeping it Real, and in our reality, not everyone has access to fresh fruits and vegetables and unprocessed food. For some, the only food they have access to is frozen, dried, or canned. If that’s you, don’t feel that it’s impossible for you to be healthy because of what is available for you. It’s wildly unfair and tragic that in the United States and many other first-world nations, people still go hungry and malnourished because of where they happen to live. I want to maintain this perspective in this series, because I want it to benefit more than just those of us who are fortunate enough to have access to fresh fruits and vegetables. We can live in an ideal world in our minds where everyone can go to the grocery store and buy the best quality food, or we can acknowledge that there is a problem with our food system and make an effort to change it. Part of my vision for this series is to begin to make that effort, starting with education.

Next week, I’ll introduce you to some basic nutrition science that explains what gives nutritional quality to foods.