Tuesday, 19 October 2010 13:38
Musings on food and nutrition
If you've been involved with sports for any length of time, you'll be acutely aware of balance.
Too much (or too little) can have unpleasant side-effects.
There's:
too much mileage => staleness, injury
too much travelling => burnout
too much food => overweight, constipation
too much bad fat => potential of heart disease
too little fluid => reduced performance, headaches, disease
too little sleep => poor performance, illness, mood swings
too little training => being trounced by your rivals
too little rest => nearly all of the above
The conclusion?
Sometimes, you can do more with less.
That includes our eating habits too.
Witness a group of 50 somethings guzzling biltong, peanuts and chips non-stop while quaffing large quantities of beer. They're 40kg overweight. Are we really surprised they're in such bad shape?
How about:
Eating less junk but feeling fuller and satiated for longer? (Know the GI rating of your foods)
Eating less flamboyantly but becoming a more sophisticated omnivore? (Is a R300 meal really more nutritious than a can of baked beans?)
Eating closer to nature rather than further away. (Why re-invent the wheel? It's already perfect.)
Eating high-quality mackerel (canned) instead of hideously over-priced sushi of unknown origin? (The sushi seems more sophisticated, but is it really?)
Seeing through the marketing ploys of companies that turn R1 in raw materials into R40 in fat-saturated, salt-laced snacks that a dietitian wouldn't feed to their own dogs? (And nor will the manufacturer)
Growing your own spinach instead of hoping the farm didn't spray a concoction of who knows what all over it? (Because you know that they did!)
Planting a fruit tree in your own garden and enjoying fruit from them next year instead of still being totally dependent? (Eating your own homegrown fruit is very cool)
We live in a world of excess, where 20% of humans consume 80% of the resources. It's not easy to change that in a generation. No point in being guilt-ridden if you are one of the fortunates, just as long as it's not you killing yourself with too much you don't need.
Deon Braun
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