Friends, you know my mantra: “Food is medicine.” I say it all the time because it’s literally true.
When you choose to eat quality foods, you gain a whole host of benefits. For one, your body gets the nutrients it actually needs to function well. You’ll get more energy, your mood and mind will improve, and you will overall just feel better.
It’s also the case that the more you eat real, actual food, the more you’ll enjoy it—and the worse junk food will taste. Your taste buds will be retrained to enjoy the complex flavors of fruits and veggies, and you’ll start to wonder how you could ever have drunk that soda you used to love. You’ll find yourself on a virtuous health-promoting cycle instead of a vicious cycle of dysfunction and dis-ease.
Moreover, the specific medical benefits of quality food are undeniable. I’ve seen autoimmune diseases disappear, depressions vanish, migraines evaporate, psoriasis and eczema clear up, Alzheimer’s patients’ memories improve, and type 2 diabetes disappears in just a few weeks simply by changing eating habits.
This should not be news to anyone, but it is always good to be reminded of these facts. But knowing which foods contribute to a healthy lifestyle and which ones don’t can be a bit harder to unpack. What should you actually buy at the store, and what should you pass on by? That’s what I want to discuss with you today—the practical aspects of choosing quality food.
Calories Matter, but Not in the Way You Think
Before we get into the hands-on application, I want to bring you up to speed regarding the role calories play in our health.
For many years, the prevailing narrative in nutrition and medicine was simple: when it comes to food choices, staying healthy was as simple as matching calories in with calories out. Likewise, working toward a goal like weight loss was nothing more than a math equation.
While it is true that overeating is problematic when it comes to your health (and it certainly doesn’t help with weight loss!), in recent years science has begun to tell us that there is more to the picture than just the total number of calories consumed.
The research shows that when it comes to food, quality is as important as quantity. Let’s go back to weight management, for instance. In a 20-year study of over 120,000 men and women, researchers found a strong correlation between eating poor-quality food such as potato chips, sugary beverages, and refined grains and weight gain. Vegetables, fruits, nuts, and yogurt, by contrast, were correlated with weight loss. The results of this study suggest that what you eat is as important to your weight management goals as how much you eat.
Simply put, when it comes to health and wellness, the type of calories you consume is as important as how many of those calories you consume.
Characteristics of Poor-Quality Food
Unfortunately, poor-quality food is all around us—which should come as a surprise to no one—and this makes finding good, high-quality food much more difficult. Worse yet, our junk-food-laden supermarkets have contributed to the adverse health outcomes in our society that are now epidemic in proportion.
It’s important to be able to spot and avoid poor-quality food as well as identify healthy foods (which we’ll talk about below). Some of the key characteristics to look for when rooting out poor-quality food include:
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They have lots of added sugar.
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They contain ingredients you can’t pronounce.
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They are loaded with excessive hormones and other unhealthy chemicals.
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Anything that comes in a box with tons of ingredients on the label.
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Anything people from a hundred years ago or more wouldn’t recognize as food.
Of course, this list is not exhaustive, and there may be an occasional exception. But it should help you recognize the kinds of food that are doing you no favors when it comes to health and longevity.
Characteristics of Good-Quality Food
So now that you know what kinds of food to avoid, what characteristics should you look for to find nutritious, quality foods instead?
Here are some of the big ones:
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Look for whole, real food and not food-like substances. The less processed it is, the better.
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Gravitate toward foods that are free from excessive chemicals and hormones. Read food labels; if there are ingredients you can’t pronounce, it’s probably not high-quality food. Purchasing organic foods, especially from the EWG’s Dirty Dozen list, can help here (although just because a food is labeled organic doesn’t guarantee it’s a healthy option).
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Buy local. Visit your local farmer’s market. Not only will you be getting fresh, local, and minimally processed foods, but you’ll be supporting your community as well.
Again, this list is not meant to be exhaustive or ironclad. But it can help you narrow down those foods that will benefit your healthspan, not shorten it.
A Philosophy of Eating Well for the Long-Term
When we think and talk about healthy eating, it’s always best to do it in terms of lifestyle change. In other words, please don’t construe anything I’ve written in this newsletter to be a short-term fix.
Short-term thinking around choosing and eating quality foods, for example, might involve creating a list of do’s and don’ts—a rigid set of rules that cannot be broken (and if you do, you’ve somehow failed). And it could also include setting the bar ridiculously high right out of the gate (think quitting your three-coffee-a-day habit cold turkey).
Or, if you are a results-focused person, you may despair when it’s been a week into a change in your eating habits and you still haven’t lost a pound or fixed all of your gut issues.
Approaching your diet and food choices in this way is only going to rob you of joy and lead to discouragement and burnout, which is no way to live.
Instead, think of growing in your ability to recognize and consume quality, healthy foods as a gradual progression. Perfection is not the goal—growth is. And instead of completely eliminating the “bad” foods you enjoy, understand that you can treat yourself to them occasionally and still be a healthy person.
There’s no need to enact draconian rules for your diet either. Rather, think about what foods you want to eat more of, and which things you’d like to consume less. Find small ways to make food choices that are just a little bit better than before. Small, sustained progress can have a truly exponential effect.
I’m finishing this newsletter in the same way I started—with a reminder that food is medicine. I encourage you to start or continue to develop good lifestyle choices when it comes to the food you consume. Your body and your mind will thank you.
Wishing you health and happiness,
Mark Hyman, MD