I understand that if something happens and you are no longer as healthy as you used to be you can get treatment and get cured, brought back to health. I do NOT understand avoiding all sorts of “unhealthy” foods. What is the point? Avoiding sugar will not keep me from breaking my leg.
But how does one define healthy? If you know what healthy is, if you have an exhaustive list it is relatively simple to achieve health. But lacking such a list we are reduced to referring to a simple lack of maladies. If you are not sick you are healthy. Without a better definition of health we cannot be more specific.
When it comes to being healthy it seems to me many of us are not capable of critical thinking, and are being sidetracked by diverse and sometimes contradictory claims. Just because some of us are convinced that, for example, white flour and white sugar have nutritional properties that some of us with health problems should avoid does NOT mean white flour and white sugar are poisons. All foods have qualities that may be appropriate for maintaining the health of everyone at different times in their lives
There is no proof that flour and sugar are worse than, say, broccoli or arugula. If you got all your nutrition from green vegetables you will still have health problems as frequently as everyone else (or at least there has never been a study or rationale to prove a healthy benefit of such a diet). There is no evidence to suggest you will be healthier if you only ate broccoli or avoided broccoli altogether. These claims are not made, and we should try to understand why. This is not an argument for moderation, this as an illustration of faulty thinking.
The problem seems to be critical thinking. Studies suggest that diets rich in red meats increase the incidence of colon cancer. That does not mean if you avoid red meats you will not get colon cancer. Studies also suggest that if you eat lots of fruits and vegetables you have less likelihood of colon cancer. That does not mean that if you avoid fruits and vegetables you will get colon cancer. But many believe it is a truism that you are healthier if you avoid red meats and eat lots of fruits and vegetables. This truism does not follow from the evidence. However it is true that if your diet contains little red meat and lots of fruits and vegetables you have less chance of getting colon cancer than the general population. This does not mean you will be more “healthy” unless your personal definition of health includes a lower than normal chance of getting colon cancer.
Reducing our intake of flour and sugar generally will help us lose weight. Losing weight is generally healthier. That does not mean avoiding flour and sugar is necessarily healthy, although obesity is generally recognized as unhealthy. If weight loss is your aim then avoiding flour and sugar is a good idea, but not essential, and will help you achieve a reasonable response to your efforts to lose weight.
Another reason people say avoiding flour and sugar is healthy is Otto Warburg’s work showing that cancer cells use non-oxygenated or fermented sugar to grow while non-cancerous cells use oxygen. There is no credible claim that sugar and flour cause cancer, however.
Literally trillions of people alive and dead throughout history have eaten flour and water with no evident ill-effects, and lived relatively healthy lives compared to those who have eschewed all flour and sugar. I can find no claim that anyone who does not eat flour and sugar has any powers or faculties or proclivities or “health” that others who eat flour and sugar do not have.
Studies suggest that if you have cancer that cancer will grow more rapidly on a sugar and flour diet. Also we are told that its properties are such that eating some flour and sugar will give you quick energy, often the comparison seems to be like a drug, but leaves you depleted shortly thereafter. If that is true that sugar and flour have those properties then eating some sugar along with something that has a longer lasting nutritional effect would be a good thing. But that is not the claim.
If you ride your bike and break your leg it does NOT mean that riding a bike is unhealthy. Maybe it is unhealthy for YOU, but even that cannot be said for sure. Perhaps at this time in your life it is good for your health to avoid flour and sugar and bicycles. Only you can make that choice. It is certainly not true that if you need to avoid such things others should as well.
No diet can be proscribed as healthy for everyone. If you have diabetes you should not eat large quantities of sugar, but if you don’t have diabetes is there a reason to avoid sugar? I can find only those I have listed above. If you have a blood condition, hemochromatosis, one should avoid iron rich foods like spinach and red meat, and vitamin C which helps one absorb such food borne iron called ferratin. Some people should avoid dairy products or nut products because it does damage to their digestive systems. But there is no diet that is good for everyone.
In most cases one should probably avoid a eating large meal before heavy exercise or sleep for some reasons I can name, but a cognizant person very well might have reason to eat such a meal. Knowing one’s own body and taking into account many factors people need to think critically and not accept the proposition that any common food is unhealthy or poison. Such a proposition is patently absurd, depending on your definitions of “health” and “poison”.
There are reasons to avoid some foods. But under different circumstances those same foods can be beneficial. Certainly if you are an athlete or ill or have some other reason to need quick energy and nutrition sugar and flour are the best choices. One should be wary and test claims like you will get quick energy then crash. Perhaps your metabolism is not one that crashes so easily. The claims are not backed up by credible studies. The point is to think critically.
Trillions of people are psychotic addicts demented by sugar intake 100 times higher than it was 200 years ago when sugar was very expensive. Equating sugar to drugs may very well be a good comparison. It tastes sweet, we like it, it makes us feel energetic and satisfied. Shall we eschew everything we like just because we like it? Or are we perhaps being judgmental in our not wanting others to do things we have decided we ourselves shouldn’t do?
Do we really want to save the world from white flour and white sugar? If so, let’s please state the reasons clearly: it tastes too good, saps our energy after a while, might help some of us become obese, cause cancers to grow a bit faster. The claim that it changes our mood and behavior and ties to dementia might be stretching a bit.
And is it healthier to eat only natural foods raw than to cook foods that have been raised with non toxic (by a standard definition of toxic) chemicals? Is raw honey more healthy than a prepared honey or sugar? Why is that?
I have lots to say on the subject that is not predictable. In short, it is up to you personally what is healthy. Going against your own beliefs can be hazardous to your health. But to enforce your beliefs on others without a clear definition or aim is more religion than nutrition.
Start with a definition that you can live with, like, being healthy means living your life according to personal standards that values nature and purity and other values that, to the rest of us, don’t seem to have much to do with health.
