Can we really solve the national health care crisis with these two simple words: Real Food? I don't believe I'm oversimplifying things to say that we can make a huge dent in improving public health by supporting and encouraging a return to eating real food. By real food I mean identifiable, beautiful, natural, unadulterated and easy to pronounce food. It's almost hard to find it anymore, but it's out there and it's making a comeback. Do you know the difference when you see it? Is eating whole grain bread the same as eating whole grains? Does your body tell the difference between taking Vitamin C and eating a grapefruit? I'll answer these questions so you can navigate through all the nutritional health information coming at you in the media and make choices that benefit your health and public health policy.

What is Real Food?

Wheat berries are a real food. They grow and are harvested and end up in the bulk aisle at the natural foods store still looking like wheat berries. Apples are real food. Spinach is real food. Whole grain crackers are real food, but are not to be mistaken for a whole grain. The grain has been split open (not whole anymore, right?) and processed and has thereby lost some vitality. Not the worst food in the world, but technically not a whole food. Genetically modified food is not real food. It's frankenstein food. Genetically engineered chickens are not real food. Tomatoes are real food, ketchup is not. Oranges are real food, while a orange-flavored chewable Vitamin C is not.

Real Food is the Best Preventative Medicine

While a wholesome diet of unprocessed, fresh foods won't keep you out of the emergency room with a broken arm, it is one of the most important measures you can take to prevent illness and reduce medical expenses.  While we need a national health care plan that covers all people for all medical conditions,  a solid awareness on the personal and political level of the importance of a real food diet is what will really change public health.

There is a trend in scientific nutrition research to isolate the active ingredient in a fruit or vegetable and then attribute all of the benefits of that food to that one specific component. This unfortunately ignores the synergy created in nature in plant foods. It gives consumers the impression that they don't need to eat the fruit that is high in Vitamin C, they can just take the pill.  More and more, people are coming to realize, and science is starting to confirm, that you can't isolate the nutrients from the food and retain all of the benefits of the whole food. For example, there are enzymes built into a plant that make the nutrients more assimilable. The isolated, active nutrient may be harder for the body to recognize when it's on its own, separated from the complex living organism from which it came.

Ketchup Doesn't Make the Health Food List in My Book

I recently read an article in Prevention magazine online titled "Food Cures That Add Up: Make Easy Meals that Heal with These Simple Additions." I was going along with it for a while until I got to #14: Lower Cancer Risk with a burger and ketchup. I had to read that a few times to believe it. Here's the quote:

A tablespoon of this condiment supplies you a healthful dose of lycopene, an antioxidant that guards against various forms of cancer by blocking cell-damaging free radicals. Eating processed tomatoes (such as those in ketchup and tomato sauce) is best; cooking releases lycopene inside the plant cells, making it easier to digest and absorb.

Prevention magazine is obviously following the trend of mainstream research and media that encourages a focus on one small part of the picture while totally ignoring everything else. It seems crazy to me to recommend that people eat a burger and ketchup simply to get the minute benefit of the lycopene that used to be in that tomato. The fat, sugar and preservatives in that meal hardly help to lower cancer risk. How about suggesting a nice fresh tomato salad? Or cooking some tomatoes at home instead of "processed" tomatoes from a toxic aluminum can?  What's so hard about that, Prevention?

Are We Teaching Our Bodies Not To Recognize Real Food?

It's kind of strange at the grocery store, even at Whole Foods, that there is a fresh produce section, and then there is the "nutrition" section. That's where you find all of the natural remedies, skin care products, and vitamins and herbs. Why do we need a separate aisle for nutrition? Shouldn't it be in our food? I understand that there are environmental degradations that have reduced the nutritional quality of our food -- lack of minerals in the depleted soil, dirty water, polluted air, GMO's cross contaminating traditional crops, etc. So I'm not totally against supplementation, just against substitution. I need to stress that we should try our best to get our optimal nutritional requirements from our food, not from a pill. I'm suspecting, and I'm not the only one, that by taking lots of vitamins and isolated active constituents, we are teaching our bodies to recognize that as nutrition, and thereby making it harder to assimilate the synergy of nutrition in whole foods when we get them. If we're only taking a multi-vitamin and rarely eating fresh fruits and veggies, what do our bodies think when confronted with a real carrot? What are we creating for ourselves and our children by keeping food and nutrition separate?

Eat Real Food For the Planet and Society

There are an appaling number of poor urban communities that have zero access to real food. These populations have high rates of diabetes and many other diseases. The corner mini-marts have soft drinks and junk food, hardly an apple or milk. No wonder they eat fast food. They have no choices. For those of us that do have the luxury of choosing, it is our responsibility to vote with our dollars for real food to change the industry and benefit the environment. We can affect change with our voting dollars that benefits all of society.

In the film Food, Inc., there is a segment about how Wal-Mart is carrying Stonyfield Farms organic yogurt and milk products. They do this not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because consumers want that. And they can make money selling it. How amazing and not surprising that when we say we're willing to pay for something, the corporations find a way to get it and sell it to us!

What if the American public was asking for real food? You can bet the stores and restaurants would sell it. Think of the reduction in packaging and garbage creation. If people were eating real food, they wouldn't have to destroy agricultural land by mono-cropping corn for corn syrup. They wouldn't have to pollute landfills and waterways with plastic bottles, bags, and packages. The benefits are endless for the environment and for people. We would have a healthier population that would be less in need of health care spending. This whole national health care issue would actually carry an extremely lower price tag if people had access to real food and weren't talked out of eating it.

So ignore that commercial that says the Frosted Flakes now improve immunity. Or the magazine article that says that grape soda contains all of the benefits of red grapes.  Eat the real thing, wherever and whenever you can find it, and enjoy real health.

Bodhimed is a proud participant in the Prevention Not Prescriptions blog carnival.