Eating food is essential for human survival. I bet you already knew that! Food is the most powerful resource we have to keep our bodies healthy and provide fuel to maintain the high demands we put on it throughout the day and work week.
Even though we are aware that eating is essential for our survival, we as humans often take eating for granted and feel if we can put it in our mouth and eat it then it must be good for us. This however is far from the truth. The billions of dollars spent each year on unhealthy processed food by Americans is proof of this fact. Even here in the healthy town of Bozeman we have our fair share of fast food restaurants. Due to our busy schedules we often think of how fast we can feed our selves and our families rather than thinking about the health quality of the food we are eating.

The more food becomes processed and changed from its original form the less nutritional value it has. How many dinners do you eat that have some packaging associated with it? Did it come out of a box? Was it wrapped in plastic? Did you just have to add water? These are all keys that you are eating processed food. The list of ingredients and preservatives would be the next clue as to how much processing went into it.

Because of all the consumption of these preservatives and foods that are found in abundance around us, it leads to many health issues, inflammation, digestive troubles, and sugar handling problems. The solution to these problems comes from awareness and education about the choices you are making about the food you are eating.

The most difficult time to make healthy choices is when your blood sugar has crashed and you are already hungry. Once that happens your brain goes into survival mode and wants you to consume sugar to bring up your blood sugar as fast as possible. The trick is to be ready to grab a snack before you get to the desperation point. This will take a little bit of knowing your body, some preparation, and some planning so you don’t let your body crash.

The reason I am bring snacks up is because we tend to grab sugar filled, sweets, or already packaged foods to curb that sugar crash in the middle of the afternoon. This is one place where we start to sabotage our good healthy diet if we are doing well with healthy breakfasts and dinners. Those little packaged goodies day after day really add up. What we need to do is think healthy before we get hungry.

Of course the best thing we can do is plan our menu and have the snacks close by that we know will satisfy us and prevent us from grabbing the first thing we see. Protein is the best food source to help regulate blood sugar. The trouble is we probably don’t have time to fire up the barbeque at 3:30 and throw a steak on. However, there are some really easy high protein snacks that you can keep in the fridge at work or a little cooler in your car and eat quickly. I like to keep a chicken salad or tuna or sardine salad ready (sardines are a smaller more sustainable fish with fewer heavy metals and toxins) to eat. The high protein from the meat and the nutrition of the vegetables make for a great combination. If you put a little organic mayonnaise on it or an oil and vinegar dressing you will be getting some good fat, which is also a great energy source that is much better then carbohydrates.

Yes fats are good for you! Fat actually doesn’t cause you to be fat, excess carbohydrates cause you to be fat. Fat has 36 times more energy then carbohydrates. That’s a big return on investment. Of course you need to eat the right kinds of fats, as not all fats are created equal. Fats from animal and plant sources are what you want; not hydrogenated fats, which are trans fats. Trans fats are vegetable fats that are molecularly changed to be solid at room temperature like margarine or Crisco. These fats are found in many processed foods because of their very long shelf life due to the fact they do not go rancid. They do not go rancid because they are very similar to a plastic and even your body does not know how to break them down and eliminate them, which cause them to gunk up the works and affect many physiological processes in your body. Good fats like avocado’s and olive oil are great to include in your afternoon snack.  Guacamole and hummus are excellent, easy to grab snacks with a very high return on investment to keep your blood sugar balanced.

There are so many good healthy options out there to choose from and with a little preparation and creativity you will be eating lots of delicious foods that your co-workers will be jealous of and will have you feeling better and have more energy! Then you can encourage them to stay away from the sugar filled snacks too!.

Dr. Phil Cameron DC is the owner of the Bozeman Wellness Center. He is a Chiropractic Physician and Professional Applied Kinesiologist. He treats every patient based on their individual health care needs and strives to help each patient Live Healthy, Live Naturally, and Live Optimally. Visit www.bozemanwellnesscenter.com for more information.