Published by healthyblender.blogspot.com.
Never too fat, never too thin, I have always studied the theories of weight control and discounted most of the popular fads. I’ve been an avid exerciser, at times more than necessary. But what I’ve learned over the last few years is that calories are one of the most misleading guides to weight control.
The two concepts that helped me most in my unscientific journey to finding my body’s proper equilibrium are food particle size and the expansion and contraction of my stomach and digestive system. Pseudo-scientific books and articles led me to understand how particle size influences digestion and the accordion action of the stomach. Over time the stomach expands and shrinks as needed. But this does not happen instantly.
I am primarily a vegetarian, but not an indulgent one. I drink a small amount of milk and eat cheese, seafood and poultry occasionally. My key to success is to avoid factory processed foods entirely, include the so called casual dining and fast food restaurants. The center isles of grocery stores, including Whole Foods (WFMI) are the most dangerous.
By now everyone has been grilled on the benefits of complex carbohydrates, but why does it matter? The small food particles are the smoother they taste, but also the easier they are to absorb in the digestive system. Pastry flour is ground into much smaller particles than all-purpose flour, which again is smaller than whole wheat flour. A calorie of pastry flour is more likely to be absorbed that the other two. Most processed foods are designed for maximum smoothness in the mouth and taste, so they are based on minimum particle size.
A handful of raw peanuts and a spread of peanut butter might have the same number of calories, but by now you understand that the absorption ratio will be quite different. Chewing the peanuts in your mouth will never match the particle size of the peanut butter when you swallow. The same can be said for oranges and orange juice, and apples and applesauce.
The media has paid a lot of attention to radical gastric bypass surgery to shrink the stomach and reduce the size of the small intestine. This prevents the patient from overeating and reduces the absorption surface area of the small intestine. This temporary fix has shown dramatic results, but can be undone without discipline since the shrunken stomach pouch can expand again.
I found that when I gave up meat and packaged foods my stomach shrank naturally over a period of time. I cannot eat large quantities of food without feeling overstuffed. This has created totally natural breaks in my food consumption.
Eliminating processed foods will also reduce your cravings for sweets and eventually lead you to be repulsed by the foods that you once craved. Now I find unsweetened baker’s chocolate to have a much more intense flavor than a Hershey (HSY) bar. And after even a small amount of ice cream, even the best quality brands start tasting icy.
Finally, don’t be lulled into feeling comfortable with organic or all natural processed foods. There is no reason to believe that the absorption of organic pastry flour is any different than conventional pastry flour.
In my article
"Casual Dining: Frozen Dinners with Waitress Service", I reviewed former FDA Commissioner David Kessler’s book
“The end of overeating.” Kessler provides a detailed description of the business of engineered food.
Who says white bread cannot be fully flavored and hearty? Forget your childhood memories of Wonder Bread and step in the world of natural fermentation, where a slice of bread becomes a meal. This bread is relatively mild with a slight sourdough taste and a chewy satisfying texture.
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