Eat with Your Brains 用腦吃飯

Biologically our mouths and tongues decide what we like to eat. Our stomach decides when to eat and when to stop.

Ideally we should all eat with our brains - Use our brains to overpower the mouth and stomach so that we can choose what to eat, when to eat, and how much to eat wisely.

What to Eat?

Not all foods are good to our health, especially the long-term well being of our body. Our taste buds like sweet, salty, fat, and fried food – all bad to our health. Don't let them dictate what you eat. Do some reading to gain nutritional knowledge. Choose the right kinds of food with your brains.

Increase the amount of vegetables, nuts, whole grains, mushrooms, roots (potatoes, carrots, turnips, radish, etc.), beans, and fruits. Reduce the amount of fish, sugar, white bread and other refined carbohydrates. Remove all animal products - meat, poultry, eggs, and diary products including milk, cheese, and yogurt from your regular diet.

Recent studies show strong links between animal products and breast cancer, prostate cancer, colon cancer, heart attacks, vascular problems, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and other diseases. Animal products do not provide any nutritional ingredients our body needs any better than the vegetables and fruits. Vegetables and fruits actually offer much more nutritional ingredients such as fiber, antioxidants, and vitamins, and yet do not have any of the side effects of the animal products.

Most of us think a meal is not a meal unless there is meat. Because we were raised that way, we assume we get tired easily if we don’t eat meat. In reality, cows eat only grass and yet are very strong. So there is no direct correlation between meat intake and our strength.

To be convenient you do not have to avoid animal products religiously. As long as you do not intentionally seek to eat them, having a small amount of them when they are mixed with other food in a party is fine.

You may cite someone who was a big-time meat eater but lived to 95 as the evidence against this approach to food. Keep in mind that there are smokers who live to 95, too. Does that mean smoking is okay? One can’t cite individual cases against a statistical conclusion based on analysis from thousands or even millions of cases.

Of course quit smoking and heavy drinking if you have such a habit. Whenever you feel the urge, use your index finger to tap on your head. That is a universal sign for: Use your brain!

There is no need for spending money on dietary supplement if you choose the food carefully. Plants and fruits provide plenty vitamins, minerals, and other nutrition our body needs. The only exception is vitamin B12 and D for people who spend most of their time indoors.

The following food is designed to pleasure our tongue but they do harm to our health: donut, sweetened cakes, ice creams, and sweetened soft drinks. Sweetened soda is one of the worst invention human has ever made. Its sugar contents are bad to our teeth, too high on calorie, and of no nutritional value. The cooling effect of cold soda suppresses our feeling of being full and makes us to eat more than necessary.

When to Eat?

If you let your stomach control when you eat, you often do not eat until when you are hungry. By then it is already too late. As a result you often eat too fast and too much because it takes a while for your stomach to tell you when to stop after enough food is already in it. When you are hungry and in a hurry you don't choose your food wisely either.

Human’s tradition of three meals of a day was developed when human was depending on farming and hunting for living and when food is scarce. It's obsolete for our modern lifestyle. It's time for us to change that.

Eat at least four small meals a day, each at a fix time even if you are not hungry. Strike hunger before it strikes you. Do not extend the gap between meals more than four hours. Some people skip breakfast. That is a very bad habit. Most people eat lunch at 12 noon and do not eat dinner until 7pm. That is too long a gap. If it is inconvenient to eat a meal in the afternoon, take some healthy snacks.

How Much to Eat?

Our stomach is like a rubber bag. The more food you stuff it, the bigger it gets. The habit of repeated overeating over time is one of the reasons you see so many regular-sized people with bulging tummy.

Limit the amount of each meal. Make sure you physically eat only a small portion each time. "Small portion" has different meaning to different sizes of people. Use your own judgment. Stop eating when you are 70 to 80% full. If you keep eating until you are really full, you are overeating. If you have to eat in a buffet restaurant, make it a habit of never going through the food line more than once.

Besides the physical quantity, pay attention to total calories, too. Small portion shouldn't be large calories. The amount of energy intake converted to fat in our body equals the amount of food energy intake minus the amount of energy consumed by exercise and daily work. Animal products and refined carbohydrates often have very high calorie density which can be too much for our bodies even in small quantities. Unless you exercise excessively throughout the day, chances are your intake exceeds the consumption. Extra energy is then left inside you to be stored as fat.

In labs overeating mice live shorter life. We are smarter than mice. Don't let your mouth and stomach control your brains. Use your brains to control them.

Well, you may say, “I don’t care how long I live as long as I can enjoy life.” The idea behind this article is not entirely based on longevity. The main purpose is for us to try to change our life style to avoid diseases and thus the suffering from the diseases.

For more reading on this topic, I recommend “The China Study,” by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II. First BenBella Books, 2006.

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Originally published in 2007 on:

http://www.directron.com/eatwithbrains.html