Food is Fuel – What Constitutes Healthy Eating?

‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food’ is one of the most famous sayings of Hippocrates. The Greek physician considered healthy eating an important tool in medicine and recognised its healing properties. But what exactly is healthy nutrition? If you ask ten people what 'healthy food' is, you will likely receive ten different answers. It is clear that healthy eating is different for everyone. After reading this article, you will have a good understanding of what is considered a healthy dietary routine according to orthomolecular medicine, and we will provide tips on how you can optimise your diet where necessary.

The Basics of Healthy Eating

In short, the foundation of a healthy diet – and you might have guessed this – is a varied diet rich in unprocessed foods. A dietary pattern that does not focus so much on calorie count, but on obtaining the right balance of macro and micronutrients from a variety of wholesome, fresh sources.

What are Macro and Micronutrients?

Macronutrients

Macronutrients are nutrients that our body needs in large amounts for energy, growth, repair, and regulation of bodily processes. There are three main macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.

Micronutrients

Micronutrients are nutrients that our body needs in small amounts. The main types of micronutrients are vitamins, minerals, and trace elements.

How Varied is Your Diet Really?

When we talk about a varied diet, we mean a diet that includes sufficient variety within the different food groups. No single food contains all the nutrients we need. This means we must vary to provide our body with a good balance of macro and micronutrients.

The Western diet is generally not very varied. A typical dietary routine might consist of a bowl of oatmeal or yoghurt with muesli for breakfast, a few brown sandwiches with cheese or chicken fillet for lunch, and potatoes or rice with some vegetables and a piece of chicken fillet, fish, or a meat substitute for dinner.

When you add this up, you end up with about 20 different foods per week on average. Something to consider is that you cannot count bread, crackers, pasta, and muesli as different foods because they all contain wheat as a base ingredient.

Ready to truly introduce variety into your diet? Then try to include 30 different plant-based products (vegetables, fruits, fresh herbs, mushrooms, (pseudo)grains, nuts, seeds) and 10 different sources of complete proteins (meat, poultry, free-range eggs, tofu, fish, legumes) in your diet each week. Does this sound like a lot? Then plan your meals two weeks in advance, trying to incorporate as much variety as possible. You might discover some delicious (forgotten) vegetable and herb combinations.

Did you know that our distant ancestors ate about 3000 different foods per year? That amounts to over 60 different products per week. As hunter-gatherers, we depended on what was available in our environment. This varied greatly by week and season, leading to this high food variety.

Nutrition on a Cellular Level

From the perspective of orthomolecular medicine, healthy nutrition is the foundation of a healthy body. Food not only provides our body with energy, but it also supplies all the nutrients that contribute to the proper alignment of molecules in our body. When all molecules, cells, and tissues are well-nourished, our body can function optimally.

What is Orthomolecular Medicine?

The term ‘orthomolecular’ was introduced in 1968 by professor and Nobel laureate Linus Pauling, the founder of orthomolecular medicine. The word orthomolecular comes from the Greek word orthos, meaning ‘correct’ or ‘right’, and molecular refers to the molecules from which all substances are composed. In orthomolecular medicine, we aim to provide the body with the right substances (molecules) in the optimal amount to maintain or restore health.

Upgrade Your Dietary Routine According to Orthomolecular Medicine

• Eat as pure, unprocessed, and varied as possible and avoid pre-packaged and ready-made products.
• Eat seasonally and try to shop as locally as possible.
• Aim for a maximum of 3 to 4 eating moments per day, including snacks and calorie-containing drinks like a cappuccino or smoothie. Preferably drink your cappuccino directly after a meal or snack to combine eating moments smartly. This limits the number of blood sugar spikes and does not unnecessarily burden your digestion.
• Try to eat at least 400-500 grams of vegetables and 2 servings of fruit per day.
• Eat your fruit in its original form, so where possible with skin and not as juice. This way, you get the fibres and are forced to chew well, supporting your digestion. Preferably buy organic (biodynamic) fruit to avoid unnecessary pesticides.
• Ensure you get enough complete proteins and vegetables with every meal. We call proteins complete when they contain enough of all nine essential amino acids. Sources of complete proteins include free-range eggs, legumes, tempeh, hemp seeds, chia seeds, organic raw or fermented dairy, fish, poultry, and grass-fed meat of organic origin.
• Try to consume about 2 tablespoons of good fats daily. You can find healthy fats in avocados, raw nuts and seeds, smaller fatty fish, ghee (clarified butter), cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, free-range eggs, meat, and full-fat (raw) dairy from organic and grass-fed animals.
• Do not cook your meals on high heat. Preferably bake and fry in a fat type with a high smoke point like coconut oil, ghee, or beef tallow (kidney fat).
• Where possible, buy organic (biodynamic) groceries. A good guideline is the annual 'Dirty Dozen & Clean Fifteen' overview from the Environmental Working Group (EWG). The clean fifteen is clean enough to buy conventionally, while the dirty dozen is best bought organic.

For a balanced meal, you can use the following guideline: 1/2 plate of vegetables, 1/4 plate of complete proteins, 1/4 plate of complex carbohydrates, 0.5 tablespoon of healthy fats.

Why Grass-Fed Animal Products?

The same applies to animals: you are what you eat. When that is a one-sided diet of grains, soy, and corn, it affects the composition of the meat, dairy, and eggs. For example, what a cow eats significantly influences the fatty acid composition of the beef. Grass-fed meat contains up to five times more omega-3 than meat from grain-fed cattle in the bio-industry. Additionally, grass-fed animal meat is richer in vitamins A and E.

Optimise Your Routines with Vitamins

Supplements certainly fit within a healthy diet and can absolutely support and perhaps even optimise your health and healthy routines. At the end of the day, we are all human and everyone experiences periods where we could use a little more support. For instance, during stressful periods, we have a higher need for magnesium, B vitamins, and vitamin C. Moreover, so many people have different preferences and not everyone likes fish or feels comfortable eating animal products. In those cases, supplementing with omega-3 and vitamin B12 is wise.

We hope that after reading this article you are inspired to optimise your dietary routine – where necessary – and further support your health. Prefer to consult or need personal advice? Our health coaches are ready for you in our stores or ask your question via the online chat on this website.

Sources

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2. Daley, C. A., Abbott, A., Doyle, P. S., Nader, G. A., & Larson, S. (2010). A review of fatty acid profiles and antioxidant content in grass-fed and grain-fed beef. Nutrition journal, 9, 10. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-9-10
3. Descalzo, A. M., Rossetti, L., Grigioni, G., Irurueta, M., Sancho, A. M., Carrete, J., & Pensel, N. A. (2007). Antioxidant status and odour profile in fresh beef from pasture or grain-fed cattle. Meat Science, 75(2), 299-307.
4. Lopresti A. L. (2020). The Effects of Psychological and Environmental Stress on Micronutrient Concentrations in the Body: A Review of the Evidence. Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.), 11(1), 103–112.