A Word About Nutrition

If there is one thing I have learned a whole lot about from many of Noah's struggles, it is nutrition, and what nutrition really means. And while I don't always make perfect nutritional choices, I do make a real effort to choose the majority of the foods I eat for their nutritional content and to get a lot of those foods in my kid's diets -- one way or another.

Let me give you this warning, however: Once you starting eating a lot of highly nutritious foods, it is difficult to go back to eating junk. It just makes you feel too bad.

I will say this, however. You know all those books that tell you how many grams of this you need and how many grams of that you need? They tell you that "this certain food" is a miracle that will make you thin and heal all your diseases? Or a miracle supplement? Throw them away!!!

The truth is that most of those books complicate something that is not complicated. Even a lot of the really good books about eating healthy (and I've read 30 or 40) complicate the issue. "Oh, no!" you've been conditioned to believe, "eating healthy is very complicated."

No, it's not. In all those nutrition books I've read, there are some things on which they all agree. I'm going to give it to you here in a nut shell. Over the coming weeks I'll make some suggestions for how to do this and ways you can get your kids to do it, but for now, here it is in simple terms.

Eat a lot of vegetables - especially those with lots of color. Eat a lot of fruit -- any fruit!! Eat beans and legumes every day (lentils, black beans, pinto beans, there are lots). Eat whole grains in moderation. Eat a small handful of raw nuts or seeds every day. Cut your red meat consumption. Don't eat sweets every day (when you're craving them, grab some raisins or your favorite fresh fruit). Stay away from processed foods. Minimize servings of bread.

And the number one thing you have to do -- get the idea that you don't like those foods out of your head. Eat them anyway. After a while you'll find you start to like them in spite of yourself. Remember that most everyone with obesity will one day have one of the dreaded diseases with which so many are suffering in this country, and remember that a good many people who are not obese will suffer from them as well.