The Ideal Diet

What is the ideal diet? What is the best anti aging, health promoting diet? With all the conflicting information available it can be confusing!

The Mediterranean diet has been researched for many years and is believed to be one of the healthiest diets in the world. Other diets such as the Okinawa diet from Japan has also been noted to be an extremely healthy diet.

Cultures with these types of diets are known to have minimal illnesses and to live long, healthy lives.

What Is The Ideal Diet?

These diets all have the same things in common:

Little or no processed foods
Most of the diet is made up of fresh vegetables and some fruits
Healthy fats (such as: avocados, butter, coconut oil, nuts and eggs)
Limited whole grains (may be best to eliminate wheat altogether)
Organic free range poultry/eggs, grass fed beef and/or wild
caught fish
Fermented foods
Raw dairy

In other words, whole unprocessed foods!

The healthiest diets in the world are generally made up of these foods in varying ratios. The types of fruits and vegetables may vary from culture to culture, the type of animal products may vary (ie. fish vs. chicken), but the diets are generally very similar.

It is only when we introduce processed foods such as wheat, processed fats and sugar into our diet, that health issues and illnesses occur.

Cultures that eat a traditional diet with no processed foods have little disease and illness. It is only in countries that have a more "modern" diet of wheat, sugar, processed fats, processed foods, and factory farmed animal products that illnesses increase dramatically. In fact, research has shown that children who grow up eating a traditional Mediterranean or Japanese diet and then move away and eat a more modern diet, develop health issues previously unknown in their parents generation.

Benefits

Eating a whole foods diet will:

Ensure healthy levels of nutrients
Minimize toxins and chemicals in the diet
Help to normalize insulin levels (high insulin levels contribute to aging and poor health)
Improve the immune system
Promote an anti aging effect

A whole food diet filled with fresh fruits and vegetables is an ideal diet. While everyone is different, as a general rule, eating a whole food diet will promote better health and have an anti aging effect.

Eating a diet of 80% vegetables (and some fruits) and 20% healthy protein and fats (and some whole grains) is a good place to start. See how you feel. You may need to increase the vegetables and decrease the protein. Or, you may need to increase your protein and fats and decrease the vegetables slightly. Experiment and find out what works best for you.

At the very least, eliminating processed foods and increasing the amount of vegetables in your diet will have a positive effect. You will feel better and look better! Try it!