How to eat well

The more I look into how to eat well, the less I seem to know. For many years, we have been told to avoid fat, animal fats mostly, such as fatty meat, lard and butter. Then we found out that trans fat is bad for you, so we avoided Margarine. Then it seemed that carbohydrates might have been the culprit that made us fat and caused us to have a whole range of other metabolic related diseases.

We cannot just eat protein for our caloric needs. Fibers are attached to carbs. and essential fatty acids are, well, essential. Another factor complicated protein intake is that studies showed methionine restriction without energy restriction extends lifespan in laboratory animals. Methionine is one of the essential amino acids that we humans cannot make ourselves, but is a must for us.

In the end, I will stick to the diet that I grew up with, which consists of rice, vegetables, fruits, nuts, shellfish and fish.

Two ingredients that I will avoid eating as much as possible, which are:

Refined Sugar (sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactose, maltose, Maltodextrin etc.)
Seed oils (often labeled as vegetable oils, olive oil is the exception)

The American know-how has made these two ingredients wonderfully cheap so they are everywhere in the processed foods. The Mediterranean diet is believed to be healthy. They use animal fat for cooking and olive oil for everything else. While growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution, cooking was done with either lard or peanut oil. Peanut oil (and canola oil) is better than most other seed oil, as they contain less linoleic acid.

When you avoided these two ingredients, you avoided almost all of the processed foods, which unfortunately also include chocolate and bread, the two foods I miss most whenever I go healthy eating.

In the end, I will adhere to eating with moderation.