I Guess There Really Is Something To This Whole Eating “Real” Food Thing

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First off, I need to take care of a minor housekeeping issue concerning the RSS feed.   In the past week I’ve received numerous messages informing me that the RSS feed was acting funny.

In a nutshell, for all of you who used to subscribe to the old site via Google Reader, Feedburner, or JackedStrengthCoaches.com, you’ve probably noticed that you haven’t been getting any updates.  Sorry!

Apparently when “we” switched over to the new site, the old RSS feed was lost.  Bummer.   Nonetheless, as much as I realize it’s lame and a major pain in the ass, old subscribers will have to use the new link (provided below) to re-subscribe:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/gentilcore

Secondly, I want to share something with you that I feel paints a pretty direct picture on today’s Western Diet.

SPOILER ALERT:  it sucks!

As many of you are well aware, my girlfriend spent the past ten days down in Colombia working as a consultant for an organization called Partners of the Americas in an effort to better ascertain how she can help improve youth sports development and coaching development.

She rocked it. They loved her.  And, most likely, she’ll be invited back down on an annual basis (and bring me with her…..hint hint).

Anyways, while down there, she stayed with a host-family who, aside from adopting her as their own – introduced her to Colombian culture:  language, dance, sport, drink, and of course, cuisine.

Now, to her credit, Lisa has been a huge influence on my ever growing food repertoire.  Because of her I now consider things like kale, ginger, sprouts, garlic, and various spices (to name a few) a part of my weekly diet.  In short, she eats VERY well.

Like most people, however, she has food intolerances that she’s had most of her life.  As such, she knows what she can eat and what she can’t to keep things under control.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, when I say that things like bread,butter and cheese are on the “I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole” list.

Incidentally, guess what foods make up the staples of the Colombian diet?   Exactomondo:  bread, cheese, and butter.

As you can imagine, she was less than enthusiastic, but it was eithe that or not eat for ten days.  A funny thing happened, though.  Despite the fact that she was eating those foods with literally every meal, NONE of the issues she would normally encounter eating the same foods here, happened.  Zlich!

Why is that?

While it’s only hypothetical, we both came to the conclusion that it was the lack of chemicals in the food.  Yes, she was eating her fair share of butter, cheese, and bread, but you know what (?), she was eating REAL food.  Everything she ate was either homemade or fresh.  She also noted that the eggs where the brighest orange she had ever seen and the fruit (pineapple, mango, etc) was immaculate.

Alternatively, look at the typical American diet, wraught with a plethora of highly processed flour, meat, sugar, and manufactured “food like substances.”  Oftentimes, it’s hard to distinguish whether we’re eating food, or a chemistry experiement!

I guess, in the grand scheme of things, I just want people to be more cognizant of the fact that what we put down out pie holes – even if you ‘think” it’s healthy, is still probably loaded with god knows what.  At the end of the day, eating REAL food is probably the healthiest thing you can do.


 

 

 

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Comments for This Entry

  • JArmndrz

    Have you seen "Food Inc" yet? Gotta watch it...

    February 3, 2011 at 8:29 am | Reply to this comment

  • Tony Gentilcore

    Yep - saw it when it first came out. TWICE. That was actually the very first movie me and my girlfriend saw together when we first started dating. Who says romance is dead?

    February 3, 2011 at 9:10 am | Reply to this comment

  • Cara

    I have to chime in and agree here that chemicals totally ruin the American diet. I spent two weeks in Greece this summer, and I loved getting to truly experience the Mediterranean diet, rich in olives, nuts, fish, yogurt, veggies, etc. But, I also ate bread and wine and dessert daily - and surprisingly, didn't gain an ounce and felt great the whole time. I can only attribute it to the higher quality ingredients and fresh, unprocessed preparation of everything we ate. If I had eaten the same foods, in the same amounts here, it would be a different story.

    February 3, 2011 at 7:36 pm | Reply to this comment

  • Rusty

    I experienced the same thing in Turkey. 3 weeks of stuff I "can't" eat. Freshest food ever and no flare ups.

    February 4, 2011 at 10:45 am | Reply to this comment

  • Nick Efthimiou

    Did she gain 10 lbs of pure muscle whilst there? Oh wait, it was Colombia, not the Dominican Republic ;)

    February 5, 2011 at 8:41 pm | Reply to this comment

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