Naturally easy and simply delicious
HELPING people learn about how to live and eat for optimum health depending on their age and stage of life is the aim of New Zealanders Dr Catherine Stone and Jessica GiljamBrown.
The pair have pooled their knowledge, Dr Stone’s in nonsurgical ‘‘cosmedicine’’ and GiljamBrown’s in holistic nutrition, to create Grow Younger with Great Food.
The book has a range of nutritional information as well as fascinating life hacks about how to improve your hormones, energy, digestion, mood, sleep and libido as well as recipes.
In this extract, they cover the importance of good nutrition.
As humans, it’s becoming clear that we need to simplify. Go back to basics and make things easier for ourselves. Our overcomplication of food and the use of technology in food production has ultimately been our undoing. We have complicated food with processing, preservatives, stabilisers and artificial colours and flavours, all in an effort to make food production and feeding ourselves tastier, faster, easier and cheaper. In reality, all that’s been achieved is the excessive consumption of nonfood ingredients and refined food devoid of nutrients. This has resulted in a populationwide increase in lifestyle diseases and a generation of people who are disconnected from real food.
We have lost the innate knowledge of how to nourish ourselves.
It’s time to return to this. Humans have evolved to thrive on a varied diet, rich in plants and enhanced with animal foods. Plant foods offer us a huge range of nutrients, as well as fibre to keep our gut healthy and gut microbes happy. Numerous studies have linked high plant consumption with longevity and lower rates of disease. While fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes and whole grains are a vital part of a nutrientrich diet, animal foods also provide us with rich nourishment and nutrients which are not found in plant foods.
Food is made up of fat, protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. By understanding how different types of food are comprised and what role these components play in your health you can better decide how to nourish yourself.