Mondays are about building your grocery list with one food, focusing on this month’s main topic, balancing them blood sugars.
What’s next on the grocery list?
REAL FOOD.
All of it. Allow me to explain.
I’ll give you three reasons why reaching for the real foods will be of utmost importance, when it comes to balancing blood sugars.
EAT AS THOSE BEFORE YOU DID
Oh sure, some will think this means you need to go Paleo. And in some instances, for certain folks, that will be of tremendous support. But it’s not for everyone.
What I mean here is, eat as those before you did. Eat more like your ancestors would. The way those 100+ years ago ate was pretty much the same from one generation to the next, when looking towards the past. Those are the foods that fed the bodies and cells of our ancestors. Those are the foods that fuelled the expression of their cells + fed them through their days. Their bodies were designed to digest that type of diet.
Out-sourcing the making of our meals has taken us one more degree away from the natural world. It’s leaving an important piece of being human to someone else. Making your own meals, simply, at home, from scratch as much as possible, you know what goes in to it. You inherently bring on the Slow Food movement in to your own home. What fed our ancestors for so many millenia before the advent of fast food + quick pre-made meals from companies — using the cheapest ingredients - otherwise you wouldn’t buy it and they wouldn’t have a business! — well this food is inherently Slow Food.
You are a product of those before you. You were dreamed on a foundation of Slow Food. And that is what will nourish you the best, what your body was made to digest
So start in-sourcing, and start with simple meals. If it’s one more meal a week you’re making at home, then that is the direction you want to aim for!
FOR THE VARIETY + DIVERSITY
Why do we eat? Give it a think for a second.
We eat to give our body those ingredients she needs to get jobs done in the body. We eat to give those macronutrients like fats, protein and carbohydrates to help fuel our bodies in doing the work of Being Human. Would you agree?
It takes a wide variety of nutrients to do the job of Being Human. So what’s the best way to think about this, when it comes to making meals in your home? Bring in as much variety of foods as you can, ensure as much diversity on the plate as will work. This doesn’t mean 22 ingredients in your Celery Root Gratin. (Although that does sound amazing.)
It can be as simple as choosing 5 vegetables in your meals this week: think carrots, celery, peppers, peas and tomatoes. Next week, it can be a different 5 veggies: like cucumber, sweet potatoes, broccoli, salad and radishes. Different colours of foods, different types of meat and/fish cuts, different fats, they all end up giving us a bigger diversity and variety of nutrients we need to work well.
Tips on how to think of this: switch it up every week / go with what’s in season / make a double batch of one thing to freeze for an easy meal down the line that will add diversity to that week’s meals.
The more pre-made a food is by machines in a company somewhere, the less the nutrients are in the end product. Making this real food a thing in your very own kitchen is quite possibly the most radical act you can take on in order to ensure Keeping Well. Not only for yourself, but for all the humans sitting at your table.
FOR THE GUT LOVE PIECE
Part of why you want to bring in the real foods is to support a healthy gut. (The gut really is Ground Zero for all things in the body. Free Master Class on the subject available here.) Real food helps support all layers at the gut lining - the intestinal cell wall itself, as well as the mucosal lining and the microbiome that lives within.
When your gut works well, you are reducing that internal burden of stress. Doing this work actually helps get you off the roller coaster of blood sugar imbalances. Heck yeah!
Additives, preservatives, emulsifiers, pesticides and food-like ingredients wreak havoc at the gut lining. They have the potential of wreaking havoc at the gut lining and promoting permeability at the gut lining. That’s code for leaky gut. And that leaky gut has the potential of driving blood sugar imbalances.
The solution? Switch to real food. One meal at a time.
See, the idea behind including REAL FOOD on the daily is to bring in variety, diversity, and provide your body with loads of nutrients you need to do the work of balancing blood sugars, and nourishing those organs that work hard in this work. Real food is the best and most nourishing thing for your pancreas, your liver and your brain sugar pie.
it’s also about reducing what doesn’t help in balancing those blood sugars - namely additives, refined ingredients that are missing some of those important nutrients.
New to the concept of Real Food? I have a few spots to get you started.
I have a variety of on-demand classes designed to get you in the kitchen. From a series of Scratch Skills, to recipe-driven programs, there’s something for everyone.
Click on the image to the left here for a full exploration.
Aiming to Keep Well? Looking to start working on your blood sugar balancing prowess? Need some help in feeling real good?
Get in touch by clicking here. Let’s meet up to start drawing up your road map to support you in both quantity and quality of life.
*This is not medical advice.