Do you really know what’s inside your food?
At this time of the year, our digital spheres are overpopulated with health gurus and Instagram goddesses-all seemingly in perpetual smoothie making motion. They look fabulous, photogenic, and sometimes droolworthy enough that you immediately take to googling vegan recipes just to make yourself feel better. The result of watching a défilé of increasingly attractive, organic everything smoothies (and their owners)? We’ve finally come to acknowledge the importance of filling our bodies with healthy food.
But realising it’s better to be healthy doesn’t automatically make you a walking, talking, Kayla-practising green juicer. You might click site and get all the necessary information, but the change begins after you start practicing. Changing life habits is tricky, particularly when a cheeky burger tastes so good and ‘doesn’t count’ because you just walked to the restaurant instead of taking the bus or simply gliding there.This is a problem we all face. It’s far easier to think about being healthy (imagining yourself having a six pack is basically like having a six pack, right?) than actually take the steps to be healthy.
Remember that time you made a optimistically packed a salad and croutons, only to completely break and hit up the nearest Subway, ordering a mayo-filled 12 incher, a rainbow cookie and a large cup of Coke? Remember the sadness and pity in the cashier’s eyes as they witnessed what could only be described as a physical manifestation of the cookie monster?
Temptation is all around us, and this ‘go hard or go home to your quinoa’ mentality that has invaded our minds is doing nothing to help our predicament. With every person you see tucking into a Mars Bar, a little voice inside your head goes “WHY? Why not ME?”. But what that little voice doesn’t say is “what would that Mars bar have really cost me? WHAT would I be putting into my body?”. So, dearest well-meaning healthy-tarian, it’s time to find out:
Thankfully, Fysiqal Nutrition (those lovely angels) have made this task way less boring and time-consuming, by creating an infographic:
The Conclusion:
As suspected, this infographic confirms that salmon quinoa salad (that trusty old friend) is far healthier than its panic and buy me counterpart, the cheese and ham panini (with industrialised white bread, of all sins).
The cheese and ham panini is to quinoa salad what a St Emilion Bordeaux is to a bottle of £5 Blossom Hill. You’ll eat the panini because it’s there, and you kinda, sorta, maybe like the idea of it. But once you’ve finished? You’re left with a bitter aftertaste and the red-stained tinge of regret.
Interesting facts from the infographic:
1. We all knew that salmon was packed with Omega 3, but processed ham rotting inside your intestine for 2-3 days? It’s time to stop this folly.
2. In addition to carrying a high-status in modern society (“oh darling, I will have none of that tuna and bread. I’m lunching on quinoa!”) and being fluffy as a dreamboat, quinoa decreases the risk of chronic illnesses and diseases. It’s equivalent, the white panini bread, is a whopping 283 calories. For a piece of bread. Do you know what 283 calories mean? I went to the gym this morning, and as part of my training routine I hit up the crosstrainer for half an hour. I worked hard, harder, I’m sure, than a lot of the other people who were somehow on level zero (level zero? what were they even pushing?), and yet all I burned was a modest 250 calories. So when you tuck into that white-breaded devil, remember that. Half an hour of blood, sweat, and tears.
3. I’m as much of a cheese monster as the next person, but where and how you procure your cheese is important. 200 calories for 4 slices of processed cheese? Say what? Also, I’m quite confused about the colourant in processed cheese causing blurry vision. Is this normal? Why has nobody stopped this atrocity?
In short, of course a doughnut from time to time won’t kill you. But please, watch out for those overprocessed foods which are slowly but surely trampling your chances of living a healthy and instagram-worthy life.
Infographic provided by Fysiqal Nutrition
