A balanced diet

As I have previously mentioned,  over the past few months I have read a LOT and learned a lot about food, and how our bodies react to it.

Take High Fructose Corn Syrup. It was introduced in 1982 - the year I was born - and since then the occurence of obesity and type II diabetes has sky rocketed. HFCS occurs in most non-diet sodas, in tomato ketchup, in certain crackers, many cookies, and even in things you wouldn't necessarily think of, such as pasta sauce.

Mark and I shop as carefully as possible to avoid buying products with HFCS. All it takes is some label reading. Also, we tend to buy a LOT of fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables, fresh meat, wholegrain rice and pasta and organic dairy...these leave little opportunity to wind up with nasty additives!

And what is my standpoint on organics? Well, Jillian Michaels wrote about this in one of her books, saying that you should buy what you can afford. And that is the policy that we have adopted - we buy organic when possible.

We also avoid any kind of hydrogenated oil or tans fats. Hydrogenated oil is oil that is blasted with hydrogen, to extend it's shelf life and to change the consistency in the fat. Increasing research is showing that hydrogenation of oils is contributing to the increase of degenerative diseases.

There are continually food scares, with everything from eggs to potatoes to various meats being put under the spotlight. Yes, I believe that there are times when, because of certain outbreaks of disease, we should use caution when choosing our foods. For example, when the UK had it's BSE / Mad Cow crisis, would I buy beef? Well, no.

Like Michael Pollan insists, eat what your grandmother would recognize as a food. Would she recognize a Twinkie that would probably outlive most of us? NO! Would she recognize a piece of chicken, with carrots and green beans? YES!

So what is my usual food intake? It varies day by day, often with the weather, and whether I have worked out that day. Today I worked 8.30-6.30, and ate the following meals:

Breakfast: 8am, breakfast smoothie

Snack 11.30am, carrots, half a sliced bell pepper and 2 tbsp hummus

Lunch: 2.30pm - Three slices of turkey (50cals) on two slices of fiber wheat bread, with a 1oz serving of extra sharp white cheddar cheese

Dinner 7pm - 1/4 cup barley, 1 extra lean chicken thigh, 1 sliced bell pepper, 4 large mushrooms, sliced, the juice of 1 lime and lots of garlic!

Calorie wise it isn't a very high day, but I didn't do any exercise, and my job was quite sedentary today.