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Whole Foods Are Gifts from Nature
Processing the Importance of Whole Foods
By Donna Smith
Are your pantry shelves lined with toaster pastries, cookies, fruit snacks and boxed convenience meals? With today's hectic lifestyles these items may seem like a quick fix, but are they the best choices for your family?
According to Jon Gordon, energy coach and author of Energy Addict: 101 Mental, Physical and Spiritual Ways to Energize Your Life (Perigee, 2004), parents are feeding children too many processed foods with no nutritional value and not enough whole foods that naturally contain the vitamins and minerals children need. "Even more than adults, our children's growing and developing bodies and brains need nutrients, vitamins, water, minerals, healthy fats and protein from whole food sources to function optimally," he says.
Gordon says that a child's body knows what to do with a piece of fruit, but has no recognition of a fruit rollup. "Just as a natural-flowing river becomes polluted by toxins and chemicals, our children's natural bodies are being contaminated by the hundreds and thousands of chemicals they consume each year," he says. "In fact there are over 6,000 synthetic chemicals used in the processed-food industry."
The goal is to eat a majority of foods that are closest to the source as possible, says Gordon, who is also the co-founder of Positive Energy Program (www.positiveenergyprogram.com), a nonprofit initiative to help develop healthy positive kids. "So fruit is better than fruit juice," he says. "Eggs are better than egg substitutes. Raisins and nuts are better than cookies."
Here are 10 tips to help make the switch from processed to natural foods:
