Are you wondering why it is so difficult to eat healthy these days? Eating healthy is a challenge because the marketing around healthy has become so confusing–-low fat, low sodium, low sugar, fat-free, low-carb diet, high-protein diet, paleo-diet, macrobiotic, South Beach diet, Atkins diet, etc. There seems to be a diet for everything. Doctors, scientists, dieticians, public policy people, the media all seem to over-complicate things.
But, it’s not just all the marketing around food that that makes you just want to scream, or worse give up. It is food itself.
Food has changed. The way it is grown and processed. Food can now be grown a number of different ways—in soil, in water, outdoors, indoors, with chemicals, without chemicals, genetically modified, traditional breeding. How do all of these different methods impact what is being called food? Today, most people are completely disconnected from food and food production that many believe that food comes from a supermarket, a box or a can. The reality is that most of the food people buy is actually made in a factory with all sorts of additives.
The problem is that food has become so processed, genetically modified, manipulated, and poisoned with chemicals that it is no longer an appropriate term to use to describe what we should be consuming to be healthy.
Food is defined as any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, or promote growth. To nourish is defined as to sustain with food or nutriment. Nutriment is defined as something that nourishes; food. These are all circular terms. Neither food, nutriment, or nourish effectively describe what we should be eating to be healthy. By these definitions a candy bar qualifies as food–it will sustain you, give you an energy boost, and may even allow you to grow; but it won’t make you healthy.
What you eat positively or negatively impacts your health, yet by definition food has nothing to do with health. Health is defined as freedom from illness or disease.
So what is a person to do in a world where food has become meaningless? There has been a lot of progress made to change the conversation around food, with new terms and philosophies, which includes organic, non-GMO, real-food, slow-food, clean food. Most of these are process oriented. They still do not link food with health. To build on all of these efforts that have brought more awareness to the failures of industrialized food production, we need a new word.
We need a word that people can easily relate to, easily use to distinguish what is presented on a menu, plate, or in the grocery store, and change their understanding of food and what to eat for optimum health.
The new word is nouri. Nouri is whole, unprocessed, non-chemically treated, and non-GMO. How nouri is prepared –whether it is raw, slow-cooked, fermented, baked or fried will determine whether nouri is still nouri (its nouriness) when it winds up on your plate.
For those of you who think in terms of proteins, carbs and fats, here’s the long definition:
Nouri is any plant or animal based protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamin, mineral, or phytonutrient, that is ingested in liquid or solid form, that improves the cellular functions of the body to strengthen the immune system, promotes energy, and reduces the risk of illness or disease. Nouri is food that has high nutrient value that benefits the body.
Nouri is really simple, but it’s a lot of responsibility bound into one little word. It packs power and a punch.
Nouri should inspire you! Nouri should taste delicious and awaken your taste buds and all your cells. Finding nouri should be an everyday quest–personal, cultural, culinary, healthy.
Check out what is considered to be nouri, whether you are eating it, how to find it, and how to eat healthy at home and on the road in Travel Healthy: A Road Warrior’s Guide to Eating Healthy. The Healthy Food Spectrum, along with the Quick Food Choice Calculator, and menu examples will inspire you to think differently about food… oops nouri. Get the book now!