Educated eating

Eating is a human need. I believe eating is a part of education. Or it should be. Although we are all culturally bound, that should not be an obstacle or excuse to not eat healthily. Some people grow up being educated that eating is only a necessary part of life and don't put any effort into tailoring it to their more specific needs, others are educated to just enjoy their food.

Because of that, eating "well" can have different meanings for people. For some, it can mean eating until feeling full, and eating should be fulfilling but ideally, it should be a combination of both. In reality, eating until feeling full should actually mean until satisfied. But most people seem to miss the satisfaction peak window when they are enjoying their eating because they can enjoy it so much that it becomes hard to stop. Our bodies communicate with our brains all the time. Many times we give in to sensorial pleasures in such depth that we don't give the brain the time to tell our body that we're already satisfied. In time it gets easier to resist greediness.

Educated Eating should have a place in our most basic education curricula. It can become a worthwhile investment with a lifelong return. I say too often that I'd rather invest in eating well now than later in medical expenses. It also comes with the added bonus that it could save us from having to rely on the ever-increasing stress of the Government’s national health service.

I’m a firm believer that we can (re)train our bodies to eat healthily. But it doesn’t happen overnight. We just need to wean our bodies off certain ingredients, replace them with healthier equivalents and gradually adjust our meal portions. It is however very important that this decision takes into consideration any pre-existing conditions, gender, age, lifestyle and daily routine.

The balance of calorie intake and expenditure is very straightforward. We should let ourselves be guided by our body’s needs. That’s why it is important to take all the factors into account, as with everything else, there is no magic “one fits all” formula. It requires tailoring to each individual's needs. In a nutshell, and as we already know, to not get overweight we should only be consuming the necessary calories that we are going to use during the day. And it's really not that hard.

The lonely pea

Having an academic discipline early in life that covers eating can take us a long way to live a long healthy life. Just bringing in a deeper knowledge about the nutrients' role and their influence on our bodily functions, calorie intake and usage, to convey a good notion of deficiency and excess will open a whole new world into what well-being looks like for children. I know, it may be sensible to support this with the psychological view and the impact the nutrients have in our minds too. I know I would have valued it if I had been offered it.

It is clear that educated eating can help gauge our eating choices made based on our cultural environment. We can train our bodies to enjoy eating healthily and prevent fussy eating from even setting in. Children start by copying their parents and if even one parent is a fussy eater, that can influence our children to be one as a result. And can you blame them? They’ll be thinking: “If daddy doesn’t like it it must be because it’s not good for me”. How do you explain to a child why you don’t like a certain food or ingredient in a way that won’t put them off from eating it too?