Health Starts Here Challenge - Day 10

Hey everybody! It's the 10th day of the Health Starts Here 28-Day Challenge and I'm feeling pretty good. It is growing increasingly harder to quell my cravings for dark chocolate, artisan bread and gouda cheese. Thankfully, there is something out there for me that has a similar texture that will satisfy me until the end of the 28 days.

I recently watched the documentary Forks Over Knives. The movie was recommended by the people at Whole Foods who run the 28-Day Challenge. The film is about eating a plant-strong diet instead of the Western diet of animal-based products, which is quite similar to Health Starts Here. The movie was incredible and showed me how important it is to eat your vegetables to avoid problematic/fatal diseases. The term "forks over knives" doesn't mean vegetables and fruits (fork food) over meat (knife food); it rather means that food should be used to reverse and prevent health conditions such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Forks Over Knives is an impactful movie for many adults, but for kids, it's different. It's all about the health issues 30-year-olds and over have and how we can reverse them. My take on it is that kids and teens must watch this movie. We may not have to worry about heart attacks and other diseases yet, but we will in just a couple of decades. As a kid or teen, you have time to gradually build a healthy foundation for adulthood. It's never too early to start.

In the movie, the Western diet of animal-based products was often compared to a diet eaten by people in rural areas outside of the country. In those rural areas, they ate more vegetables than in the United States. Their risks for a plethora of diseases were drastically lower than those of people in the United States. The only problem with these studies is that the comparisons were so dramatic. What about people who eat in between the grease-laden Western diet and the vegetable-laden rural diet?

What I take away from the movie is that kids should be eating healthier and consuming their 5-9 servings of vegetables every single day. I'm not going to stay on a completely plant-strong diet, cut refined sugars out of my life forever, modify all my recipes to not have oil, and turn my back on dairy and eggs for good! I'm going to eat how I normally eat with a few changes. Kids and teens need to know and follow the following things:

• You can eat oil, but be conscious of how much oil you eat every day and remember that every tablespoon of oil is 120 calories.
• Instead of snacking on cookies (which I often did, only I'd eat the organic kind), snack on a sweet fruit. My favorites are mangoes and nectarines.
• Learn how to cook so you can have an appreciation for real food and set aside the desire for processed junk.
• Read the nutrition labels on everything you buy, and start buying more things that don't have nutrition labels (vegetables and fruits don't have nutrition labels - buy more of them).
• Remember that every 1/2 cup of fruit or vegetable is one serving, and try to imagine how many servings you are eating and how many more you need to eat to get into the 5 - 9 range.
• You can eat meat, but eat lean meats (chicken, fish, turkey, 15% fat beef, etc.). Make sure that the animal was humanely raised. If you do eat meat, only eat it 3 - 4 times a week.
• Beans, nuts and tofu have lots of protein! Meat only gives you protein, but these ingredients (especially beans) give you protein and other nutrients that your body needs.
• Limit your dairy intake. I used to eat lowfat/nonfat Greek yogurt every single day because I thought I'd be getting extra calcium (I tak calcium supplements), but vegetables have just as much - if not more - calcium than dairy. Find out which of your favorite vegetables and fruits have the nutrients you need.
• Eat whole grains. They contain so much more fiber and nutrients than an enriched white flour. To ensure your whole grain intake, have a variety of grains in your pantry and cook them for breakfast. My favorites are rolled oats, quinoa (sounds weird, but if you put mangoes and vanilla extract in there it's delicious) and millet. Remember that a slice of artisan bread or a homemade cookie every once in a while is not going to kill you!
• Calorie count a little. As kids and teens, we are still growing and developing, so cutting down on calories is not the objective. By having a rough understanding of how much you are eating, you can make sure that you get your 2,000 calories a day. Girls don't need as many calories as boys do, but you should still keep your weight, age and height in mind when eating.
• Pack your own school lunch. You can control what goes in your lunch this way and eat something far more nutritious than what your school's reheat kitchen can serve you. Even if your school has a cooking kitchen that serves good food, try to pack your own lunch at least half of the time.

I know that's a lot of information to soak in, and there's a ton more out there. A bunch of different resources tell you to do different things. If you don't do any of this or just do a little bit of it, then pick one thing you'd like to change. Once you've changed and it has become a firm part of your routine, pick another thing and gradually change your habits. Transitions are always easier for kids than gigantic, immediate changes.

My dad found a review on Forks Over Knives that points out the other side to the story. It is quite interesting and shows you that the ideals of a plant-strong diet are still very premature. Because of this review (which is really long, so you don't have to read the whole thing), I realize that eating animal-based products and sugars in moderation is a perfectly acceptable way to go. http://rawfoodsos.com/2011/09/22/forks-over-knives-is-the-science-legit-a-review-and-critique/ You can stream Forks Over Knives on Netflix, watch it on Hulu, or do it the old-fashioned way and actually purchase the DVD. The review of Forks Over Knives will make much more sense if you watch the movie first.

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