Healthelicious Foods |
| where the aim is to deliver restorative nutrition |
| (Restorative: An agent that helps to restore health, strength, or consciousness. Nutrition: the study or science of the dietary requirements for proper health and development.) |
As A Society, We Are Off The Rails Health Wise
The Situation - Most people today do not maintain optimal health and die 20-80 years earlier than they need to. It is gotten so bad that people in their twenties are having heart attacks!
The Cause - We are not educated on the 12 Pillars of Optimal Health so do not work on maintaining them.
The Remedy - Enlighten people on what it takes to operate a body in optimum condition and make it easier for them to do so by providing solutions to their challenges.
Calorie/Nutrient Parity
The definition of Calorie/Nutrient Parity is “Nutrient intake and absorption adequate to maintain optimal health and calorie intake adequate to satisfy energy needs without gaining weight.”
Most people these days are calorie rich and nutrient poor! We need to restore parity between these two.
Better than parity is when you are taking in sufficient nutrients to satisfy current requirements as well as those nutrients necessary to correct a sub-optimal condition or undo past damage.
I arrived at this concept as a result of wondering how I could better communicate a summary of what I have learned over the last 4 years since I started Healthelicious Foods.
I wanted a short, simple way to encompass, encapsulate and communicate the essence of the many thousands of bits of information, the hundreds of research projects and tests into one idea that was accurate, comprehensive, impactful and memorable. But most importantly, actionable.
So Calorie/Nutrient Parity is the concept, the distillation of four years of nutritional research. From what I can tell it is best attained by adhering to the four principles of Nutritional Diversity, Nutritional Density, Nutritional Purity and Calorie Restriction. Apply those four principles and you will attain Calorie/Nutrient Parity - Nutrient absorbtion adequate to maintain optimal health and weight.
Diet is only one of the 12 pillars of optimal health but it is a major one. It has, I believe, 4 components.
The 4 Components of Optimal Diet Summarised
When I review the last four years of nutritional research, the four principles that encapsulate all the data are Diversity, Density, Purity and Restriction. Practice those four and you will attain Calorie/Nutrient Parity - Nutrient absorbtion adequate to maintain optimal health and calorie intake adequate to satisfy energy needs and maintain ideal weight.
I believe you should target improvement in your diet by focusing on them in that order.
The reason I say that is that by far the majority of people today are malnourished - they are below Calorie/Nutrient Parity. They are not taking in the variety, quality or quantity of nutrients their body needs to maintain optimal health. And they are taking in too many toxins and too many empty calories. As a result they lack energy, get sick and die earlier than necessary.
Part of the reason for this is because society focuses on calories and not nutrients.
Calories measure energy, not nutrition. One calorie is the amount of energy that it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. Water does not need nutrition to be heated! A body needs calories for energy and nutrients to maintain optimal health. You can get calories without nutrients but you can’t get nutrients without calories. So, needing both, on which whould you focus? That’s right! Nutrients! Only by focusing on nutrients will you attain Calorie/Nutrient Parity.
There are hundreds and hundreds of different nutrients. They don’t just number amongst them the dozen odd vitamins and 70 odd minerals. If most of us have difficulty tracking calories then there are way too many different nutrients for you and I to track daily. That’s why people promote counting calories. It is nutritional folly, but it is easy to communicate. As a society we are off-track by focusing on calories over nutrition.
There is an old money management saying, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.” Based on the weight loss experiences of some of my bar eaters I believe it could also be true to say, “Look after the nutrients and the calories will look after themselves.”
Nutritional Diversity
Your body is not simple. It is extremely complex. As an example, your pancreas produces enzymes for digestion as well as 5,000 other chemical reactions in the body! To properly nourish it and keep it well, your nutrition needs to be as diverse as your body is complex!
Feed your body too narrow a range of foods and you will miss out on essentiual nutrients. You are below Nutritonal Parity. This will result in disease and an early demise.
Comparative example 1: The ancient Aztecs cultivated 229 different crops. Today, 66% of Americans get two thirds of their calories from 4 - wheat, rice, corn and soy and their derivatives!
I believe this lack of nutritional diversity is part of the reason for the modern epidemic in degenerative disease.
Comparative example 2: Researchers recently tested 150 exhumed Egyptian mummies for cancer. Only 1 tested positive. Today, more than a third of people will die from cancer.
My research points to a wider range of nutrients as being essential to attaining Calorie/Nutrient Parity and optimal health.
Practice Nutritional Diversity - eat a wider variety of foods!
Nutritional Density
One of my theories is that a big part of the weight gain most people experience is due to their body receiving too little nutrition from the calories they consume.
Nutrient densiity comes from foods with nutrient\calorie parity - where the calories are nutrient dense. Most processed food is empty calories - the calories are majorly devoid of nutrients. On a normal diet you get some energy from the calories but too few nutrients. If you eat only enough calories to maintain your weight, you are malnourished because the calories do not contain all the nutrients the body requires. You are below Nutritional Parity.
So, feeling the lack of nutrients, the body says, “I didn’t get what I need, feed me some more!” and you are damned if you do, damned if you don’t! If you don’t eat more you do not nourish the body adequately. If you do eat more, you stack on the weight and if you eat more of the same you still don’t get the nourishment the body needs. You are still below Nutritional Parity.
Cooking food destroys enzymes and some vitamins so raw food is more nutrient dense. Some food needs to be cooked but most people eat way too big a percentage of their diet cooked. Eat more raw food to increase enzyme and vitamin intake.
In order to attain and maintain optiomal health and weight, a body needs most calories from nutrient dense foods. Only nutrient dense foods deliver Calorie/Nutrient Parity.
Practice Nutritional Density - eat nutrient dense foods!
Purity From Toxins
I have read of a strong link between environmental toxins and cancer. Good health does not live in a toxic waste dump.
Major food companies employ food chemists to design and add chemicals to your food to increase your desire to eat more. There is a reason these chemicals are called excitotoxins! They are toxins that excite your appetite!
The liver is responsible for processing toxins out of your blood and processing fats. If you are suffering from toxic overload, do you think your liver will focus on vital toxin removal or on discretionary fat processing?
The absorption and retention of some nutrients is adversely affected by toxins. Calorie/Nutrient Parity is not attained by eating toxin laden food.
Practice Food Purity - get rid of artificial flavours, colours, preservatives, pesticides, fertilisers and other additives from your foods!
Calorie Restriction
Calorie restriction is a proven strategy to extend healthy and maximum life span. Some animal studies have shown up to a 40% increase in maximum life span by restricting calorie intake.
Calorie restriction also provides a greatly lowered risk for most degenerative conditions of aging, and improved measures of general health.
If you practice calorie restriction with calories devoid of nutrients you will very quickly suffer from ailments stemming from nutrient deficiencies.
Calorie/Nutrient Parity does not include eating more calories than the body needs.
Practice Calorie Restriction to live healthier and longer!
Calorie/Nutrient Parity is how to get your health back on the rails. Make a start on restoring your parity today.
And what I DON’T put in my products is as important as what I do include:
| No artificial colours |  | |
| No artificial fragrances | | |
| No artificial sweeteners | | |
| No cane sugar | | |
| No excitotoxins | | |
| No fillers | | |
| No flavour enhancers | | |
| No detectable gluten | | |
| No added preservatives | | |
| No high fructose corn syrup | | |
| No trans-fats | |