How many diet and nutrition gurus do you know who agree with each other?  It seems like everyone has their own theory on what you should, and shouldn’t, eat.  Meat or vegetarian?  Raw or cooked?  6 meals a day or 3?  There are a lot of different opinions.

So when a bunch of big nutrition personalities actually agree with each other, I take notice.

And the nutrition gurus of the day seem to agree on one point – sugar is toxic.

As you know I’m currently at the Integrative Nutrition Mega Conference (and liveblogging it on twitter with #MegaIIN).  After Day 1 the anti-sugar message was clear.

At Vintage Savoir Faire, I’m all about eating real foods, whole foods, foods that your great-grandmother would recognize.

But unfortunately, great-grandma wouldn’t recognize our refined, white sugar.  Or if she did, it was only from fantasies and an occasional taste – because sugar used to be a luxury product, not an everyday part of the diet like today.

 
If you missed it, the sugar debate kicked off earlier this year when doctor Robert Lustig suggested in the science journal Nature that sugar is toxic, addictive and should be regulated like alcohol.  (If you want to learn more, check out his Sugar the Bitter Truth lecture, or this Is Sugar Toxic article.)

 
What surprised me yesterday was that four different speakers, from very diverse food philosophies, came to the same conclusion.

 
First up, Mark Sisson from Primal Blueprint.  He takes vintage to a whole other level!  We’re not talking great-grandma here – we’re talking about our paleolithic ancestors who pre-date modern agriculture!  His concept is to focus on the original whole foods: protein, vegetables and fats.  Refined sugar didn’t exist, and the only occasional sweets were wild fruits or the brave person who fought off bees for their honey.

 
Julia Ross, a well-known nutritional psychologist said that diets don’t work because we’re actually dealing with addiction.   Sugar addiction.  And while we should eat what our body truly craves, we can’t do this while we’re dealing with a sugar addiction.  This sounds dramatic – but have you ever tried to quit sugar?

How did that work out for you?  Headaches, cravings, low energy, crankiness?  Yeah, me too.

Gary Taubes presented tons of scientific evidence that the real reason we’re fat is because of insulin imbalance. And what’s the main cause of this insulin imbalance?  Sugar.  (And refined carbs, but that’s a topic for another day.)  Reducing sugar is the #1 thing he recommends to improve our health, energy, and waistlines.

The day wrapped up with David Wolfe, the iconic raw foodist.  We started the day with a meat and fat primal diet, and ended the day with all raw, cacao, superfood loaded green smoothies.  His conclusion: if you have any kind of medical condition, infection or immune issues, avoid all sugar because it suppresses the immune system and inhibits your body from healing itself.

 
I’ve gotten the message loud and clear.  Cut back on sugar.

Really, I think great-grandma would agree.  Sugar used to be relegated to dessert only.  And on special occasions.
So where does this leave an avid baker and lover of sweet things like me?  I think I’m overdue for some quality time in the kitchen to test out some new recipes…

Photo from nationaalarchief on flickr, early 1930s

“The point is simply to eat,

as opposed to eating and talking, eating and watching TV,

or eating and watching TV and gossiping on the phone while Tweeting and updating one’s Facebook status.”

-Mindful Eating as Food for Thought, NY Times.

Did you catch this article in the NY Times?  I thought it was brilliant.

Personally, I spent years (…YEARS!) eating while reading blogs or books, watching TV, writing in my journal or thinking about … well, anything other than the food I was eating.

And now that I’ve stopped (well, most of the time), the enjoyment I get from eating is so much more.

The biggest change is that I eat slower.  A lot slower.  I’m not just mindlessly shoveling it in and forgetting to chew.  Because I eat slower, my digestion is better (I never would have believed that until I tried it myself.)

Also, I eat less.  Probably because I’m eating slower, and it takes 20 minutes for the stomach to tell the brain that it’s full.  It’s also probably because I am noticing my stomach feeling fuller, instead of racing to finish my plate.

There are a few downsides to mindful eating though.  I eat slower, which can be annoying when I’m with a group and always the last to finish.  Also, when you eat mindfully, you taste your food a lot more!  So cheap, fake, processed food tastes … well, not good!  It makes you a bit pickier about what you’re eating (although this is probably good for your body in the long run!)

Sometimes I catch myself racing through a meal, or lost in thought, or unable to put down my iPad, and I try to remember to stop.  I take a breath, and focus on what I’m eating and who I’m with.

Mindful eating is such a classic bit of wisdom.  Grandma would approve.  Food-centric cultures like the French, Italians and Spanish would approve.  It just makes sense that we should pay attention when fueling our bodies.

And in our jam-packed, overbooked lives, mindful eating makes your lunch break feel, well, like a break.  Which we could all use more of these days.

What do you think about the NY Times article and mindful eating in general?  Have you tried it? How do you remind yourself to stay present?

I wrote last week about food as medicine, and how we should eat for nourishment. The next day, I got a phone call from my mother.

“I love that word, nourish. It’s one of those words that sounds like what it is. You just feel warm and comfortable when you say it.”

She’s right. I’ve been playing with the concept of nourishment myself over the past year, but couldn’t quite clarify what it was that I loved so much about the concept.

Nourish.

It sounds like home. It sounds like healing, like comfort, like warmth. Like a cozy sweater. Like something that makes you feel better – be better – live better – after you do it. Something can nourish your body, nourish your mind, nourish your spirit. Nourishment seems to be the essence of healing.

I love this concept of nourishment, and want to weave it into all the elements of my life this year.

Can you see a difference between eating something “healthy” and eating something “nourishing”? Which seems more appealing?

Are there activities that you do in your daily life which are “healthy”, and others which “nourish” you?

I’m not saying that something has to be either healthy OR nourishing. In fact, most if not all truly nourishing things are healthy for us.

But perhaps everything we do because we think it’s healthy, is not actually nourishing?

Would love to hear your thoughts on this concept. How do you incorporate nourishment into your life?