Guidelines To Healthy Eating

The Standard American Diet: A formula for chronic disease.

In American public schools, the USDA allows pizza with two tablespoons of tomato paste to qualify as a vegetable.

Even at an early age, – based on convenience, cheapness, or advertising – many Americans are given a misleading perception of the foods we should eat and what our bodies need.

Americans are not getting the nutrients needed from food and this ultimately results in chronic inflammation and disease.  We are plant deprived! Our bodies are adapting to this lifestyle and this adaptation is called “disease.”

Our clinic offers nutritional counseling and supplementation to help modify your diet based on your current health.

Guidelines to Healthy Eating: Beginner

The Standard American Diet (aka “SAD Diet”) is the diet that the majority of Americans have conformed to. Because of our lifestyles, occupations, habits, marketing, and food options, we have developed a very inefficient way to provide our body the nutrients it needs.

Here is a representation of Americans who, unknowingly, are on the SAD Diet:

– 92% do not eat enough vegetables

– 93% do not eat enough legumes

– 96% do not eat enough whole grains

– Over 90% over-consume solid fats, added sugars, and alcoholic beverages

– 45% do not eat ANY fruit or fruit juice

– 22% do not eat ANY vegetables

– 25% eat fast food daily and 70% of America eats McDonald’s at least once per week

In American school lunches, ketchup, french fries, and pasta sauce are all considered “vegetables.” Americans are not getting the nutrients needed through their food and this ultimately results in chronic inflammation and disease.  We are plant deprived! Our bodies are adapting to this lifestyle and this adaptation is called “disease.”

Getting On The Right Path:Supplementation

Supplementation is a MUST as we change our lifestyle habits to get back on track.  Imagine that you’re $50,000 in debt and choose to make only the minimum payments, there is no way you are ever going to break the surface and beat that debt. We owe the same “nutritional debt” to our bodies when we follow the USDA’s “Recommended Daily Allowances” (RDA).  We need to take more than the RDA recommends to get ourselves out of that ‘debt’ and back on track.

Over 37% of people in the Midwest are morbidly obese. We can do something about this! An adequate diet recommended by the USDA prevents gross nutritional deficiency, but again, we need to get ourselves out of the hole of debt.  An optimal diet improves performance and promotes health and longevity.

Once we begin this journey into healthy eating and lifestyle changes, we will begin to change the “I should” into “I choose to.”  To obtain “optimal health,” it is truly up to the individual to decide to make a change.  Most of our clinic’s recommendations for supplementation are not covered by insurance companies, so this forces the individual to take control of their health and do what is needed to get better. By following some simple rules and changing out nutritional habits, we can extend the quality and quantity of life.

“We live too short and die too long.”

We have one body and one life. Don’t you want to feel the best you can during this short time on this earth?  Statistics show that by 2030, nearly 150 million Americans will have at least 1 chronic disease. Think about that. One in two Americans will have a chronic disease by 2030 and this includes children, adults, and the elderly.  Already 1 in 10 Adults and 1 in 15 children have an activity-limiting chronic disease. This is a true result of our “SAD” diet. Obesity doesn’t just hurt, it limits a lifespan by 8-30 years. Body fat is an ‘organ of inflammation’ and is the common denominator of all chronic disease.

We, as Americans, are overfed and undernourished.  Atherosclerosis is already found in children aged 2-15, and in 30% of young adults! Diabetes in children is rising at an exponential rate! I want you to think of our bodies as a fish tank.  If you slow down the filtration system, put too much fish food in the tank and stop treating the water, what will that fish tank look like and how long do you think those fish will survive in that quality of water?  Again, we need to change our internal environment to heal and thrive in this world.  

The "ABCDs" to Eating Healthy