Seasonal lifestyle eating plan

Modern convenience food and supermarket buying policies are causing a radical change in what we eat.  It is important to understand that this is exposing us to some damaging trends:

• Bad carbs – refined carbohydrates especially sugar

• Trans fats

• High levels of processing

• High salt content

• Lack of freshness

• The same foods available, and eaten, all year round

And a growing list of problems:

• Obesity

• Diabetes

• Attention deficit

• Behavioural problems

• Excessive transportation – with consequent costs and pollution

You only need to go back a couple of generations and diet was very different:

• Very little processed food beyond simple cooking

• Fresh food grown/ reared/ caught locally – veg, meat, game, fish

• Natural fats consumed

• High degree of seasonal variation

Couple this with regular exercise and people were demonstrably leaner, fitter and healthier.  Ask your Gran! So how do we get back on track and avoid these pitfalls? The modern, balanced, nutritionally aware, low-carb diet helps here as it forces you to:

• Avoid bad carbs, causes of hyperglycaemic response leading to cravings and lack of satiety, obesity, diabetes, and accelerating the ageing process.
• Avoid trans fats from hydrogenated oils, causes of cancer and diabetes www.BanTransFats.com
• Avoid industrially processed foods, so often nutritionally poor and the source of excess salt content and high levels of artificial preservatives

But we don’t think this goes far enough.

We understand that you are unlikely to want to completely cut out supermarkets and processed foods.  So how can you best navigate your way through all the information and achieve a truly balanced diet, not just meal to meal, but throughout the year in line with the natural rhythms of nature and your body?

We are keen to add a couple of our own theories to the debate and would welcome your comments.  What we are saying is that on top of sticking to Atkins, South Beach or whichever low carb diet works for you, you should also

• Eat seasonally

• Understand the principle of cumulative processing

This is the SkinGenesis Seasonal Approach to Healthy Eating

Eat seasonally

If you take the time to read the country of origin labels on ‘fresh’ produce in the supermarket you will be amazed how far some of it has travelled.  We curse the supermarkets when we can’t find what we are looking for to complete the ingredients for that special recipe we are trying, and as a result they go to extreme lengths to make sure that we can eat strawberries at Christmas, or mussels in the summer.  But if we stop to think about it for a moment, the whole idea is crazy and probably not helpful to our bodies which have evolved to thrive on a diet that changes with the seasons.

“If you eat with the seasons rather than eating the same 15 things all year round, the variety will mean you end up with a greater range of nutrients in the body,” argues Maria Griffiths, spokesperson for the Institute for Optimum Nutrition. “You get a completely changeable diet that is so much more beneficial than sticking to the same things again and again.

“Food allergies and intolerances are also less likely because you are not eating the same thing day after day.”

Because of the efficiency of the supermarkets, it's easy to get out of touch with what food is seasonal. For a quick guide to which fresh foods are best when in Britain, click here

Cumulative processing

Cooking food is a simple process that takes the raw food away from its natural state but we do it to make it more digestible and appealing even though we know we are probably destroying useful vitamins along the way.  However some convenience foods have been subjected to multiple industrial processes which can cause some serious problems.

The best course is to avoid too much processing and, in particular, foods where multiple processes have been carried out or ingredients added to aid processing.  Let’s consider home cooked pastry with convenience meal pastry:

We know which one we would prefer!

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