The human body is amazing. It has survived and prospered in almost every part of this world, however hot or cold. Its digestive system can handle an incredible variety of foods.
It is also very clever at adjusting its metabolism to cope with times when food is scarce or abundant. In times of famine (or crash dieting), the metabolism slows down to enable us to survive on fewer calories. We feel tired and find it hard to concentrate, so we sleep more and conserve energy that way.
When there is plenty of food (which in most parts of the world happens in the fall and early winter), we naturally eat more and store the extra as fat. If we are living on natural, unprocessed foods, then in the late spring our appetite will diminish and we use up those stores, even if there is still plenty of food in our environment.
It is only when we start eating highly processed and refined foods that we start to have a problem. Then we eat and eat, constantly increasing our stores of fat and never calling on them for energy.
If you take a good look at food advertising in the USA today, you might begin to think there was a conspiracy to keep us fat, sick and sedated.
Take a pen and note down how many ads you see in one week for fresh fruits, vegetables or raw meat. And how many do you see for chocolate, pizza or burgers?
I guess the second category will probably win ...
Of course, it's not really because the stores or food producers want to harm us. It's just because their profit margins are higher on processed foods, and they want to make more money.
But we don't have to fall for the advertising. We can stay healthy, if we keep focused on that.
