Understanding Real Food Diets

Although real food diets have been gaining in popularity, exactly what a "real food diet" involves depends a bit on who you ask. That said -- I'll give you the simple definition that I use for my own diet.

Only a hundred years ago, the need to define a real food diet wouldn't have made much sense to anyone. "Real food" was all there was. But now? Well...now it's a bit more complicated.

Eating an unprocessed diet today isn't nearly a common as it once was. In the U.S., anyway, our food supply is very much different from what it was a hundred years ago. While you can debate the pros and cons of this, our health seems to show this as a change for the worse.

The bulk of what we eat now comes in a package, has a lot of interesting food science behind it, and is processed in multiple ways before we consume it. Most foods in the average grocery cart have loads of ingredients -- many of which we can't identify or pronounce, and would never cook with ourselves. Most of our meat, dairy, and eggs come from somewhere more like a factory than a farm.

The result has been a cheap, abundant food supply - unfortunately, much of it isn't very healthy for us...or very real. Switching back to a real food diet really just means eating fewer of these industrially-produced foods.

To be more specific, a real food diet is one based on foods that humans have eaten for thousands of years; that were raised, processed, and prepared in traditional ways; and that are produced and distributed in a sustainable manner. Basically, eating this sort of diet can include almost any type of food -- as long as it's the "real" version. Here are more tips:

Meat, poultry, eggs, and dairy are all fine, but they should come from animals that are pasture-fed, not confined and fed on grain. These items should be hormone-free and antibiotic-free, and organic, ideally. Fish should be wild-caught, preferably from a sustainable fishery.

Grains, legumes, fruits, and vegetables are all an important part of a real, whole foods diet. They shouldn't be highly processed, and should be organic.

Fats and oils should be traditional choices like butter, coconut oil, and olive oil, and should also be lightly processed.

While there are definitely more things to know about real food, that should give you a good start. Just using these few guidelines to include more of these foods in your diet can have a huge positive effect on your health. Give it a try for a month or so and see what it can do for you!

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