
So just why is eating natural so important?
Natural is normal
Natural foods is what we humans have always eaten - until now. Today in many developed countries we have access to clean water, proper sanitation and quality medical care. However, despite all this we have all sorts of health problems because we also have access to an abundance of abnormal food. In the staff lunch room, I have gotten a lot of teasing over the years about the weird food I eat. When did a chicken breast, baked yams and steam vegetables become abnormal to eat and a frosted doughnut with blue and pink sprinkles become normal?
Natural = increased nutrients
Natural foods contain not just calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates for high-performance energy and recovery, but also essential vitamins and minerals. Many natural foods (e.g. fruits and vegetables) are also loaded with antioxidants and phyochemicals which have some wonderful anti-cancer, health-promoting properties. Food processing removes this goodness and often leaves us just with the carbs. As a result, we have people who are both overweight and malnourished at the same time.
Synergistic components

Portion control
Natural foods have a way of being satisfying without causing you to over-indulge. When was the last time you heard someone say, "you know, I was sitting down with a bag of apples, watching a movie and before I knew it, the whole bag was gone!"
Re-training of taste-buds
Our taste-buds have an amazing ability to adapt. For example, there are many people who actually enjoy the taste of black coffee. How can that be? I don't know of anyone who loved black coffee from the first sip, but you can learn to like it if you have it enough. People who eat mainly processed food (and thus have adapted their taste-buds to it) turn their noses up at whole, natural food because they claim it tastes bad. However, if you gradually and consistently remove processed food from your diet and replace it with whole, natural foods, your taste-buds will get used to it and you will actually enjoy the food you eat. Then, once they have adapted, the junk food often tastes too sweet, too salty or just too rich. The result is you eat more of what improves your health, body composition and performance and less of what hurts it.
Science is still behind

Man's pathetic track record of food intervention
It seems that every time man tries to mess with natural food, we get ourselves in trouble. For example, when food manufactures first started processing grain to make it last longer, large numbers of people became mal-nourished because essential vitamins & minerals were removed. However, instead of leaving the grain alone, they "enriched" it by adding back a few synthetic vitamins. While this preventing the malnutrition it did not prevent the obesity epidemic.
We see the same thing with fat. Again for manufacturing, cost and shelf-life reasons, companies started adding hydrogen ions to polyunsaturated fats to make them like saturated fat. They ended up creating a frankenfat that your body has no idea what to do with. As a result it a contributor to cancer and heart disease. Ops.
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White bread |
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Hydrogenated margarine |

The Application: This Week's Habit
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Way too many steps |
In case you have missed any of the previous weeks in this series, check out the links below:
Week 21: Eat Like an Adult
Week 20: Eat Blueberries
Week 21: Eat Like an Adult
Week 20: Eat Blueberries
Week 19: Personalizing Carb Intake
Week 18: Olive Oil
Week 17: Spinach
Week 16: Meal Preparation
Week 15: Post-Workout Nutrition
Week 14: Sweet Potatoes
Week 13: 24 Food Log
Week 12: Adding Fish Oil
Week 11: Calculating Your Optimal Protein Intake
Week 10: Adding Even More Veggies
Week 9: When to Stop Eating
Week 8: Psychological vs. Physiological Hunger
Week 18: Olive Oil
Week 17: Spinach
Week 16: Meal Preparation
Week 15: Post-Workout Nutrition
Week 14: Sweet Potatoes
Week 13: 24 Food Log
Week 12: Adding Fish Oil
Week 11: Calculating Your Optimal Protein Intake
Week 10: Adding Even More Veggies
Week 9: When to Stop Eating
Week 8: Psychological vs. Physiological Hunger
Week 1: Kitchen Cleanout (at the end of the introduction to this series)
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