Mia
There is no denying the fact that health and wellness matter the most in our lives. A French physician by the name of François Rabelais who lived between 1400 and 1500 once said, “without health, life is not life; it is only a state of languor and suffering-an image of death.”
Before we go on, it is important to differentiate health and wellness. In simple terms, health is a state of being free from illness or injury while wellness is a state of living healthy. Living healthy includes consuming the right foods i.e those that are not harmful to your health.
The good news is that a lot of people today are learning the secrets to health and wellness. That explains why our average life expectancy appears to be gradually increasing, as proven by statistics. For example, according to these statistics life expectancy at birth for both men and women increased by 6.2 years between 1990 and 2013.
Since we are committed to seeing our average life expectancy go up even further, we have been researching how to achieve absolute health and wellness, which are the key prerequisites to push life expectancy upwards. One of the factors that play a key role in achieving the highest level of health and wellness, as we’ve learned, is nutrition. For many of our readers, this begs two questions;
- How does nutrition impact health and wellness?
- What foods and drinks are bad for my health and wellness and what should I eat or drink instead?
How Nutrition Impacts Health and Wellness
In layman’s language, nutrition can be defined as the process of sourcing the food necessary for health, wellness, and growth. Remember that there are different kinds of foods out there based on their impact on health and wellness. In other words, some foods promote health, wellness, and growth whereas other foods do damage to the above states of being and process.
Examples Of Foods And Drinks That Are Bad For Your Health and Wellness Plus Good Alternatives
- Most Pizzas: we can’t get away from the fact that pizzas are a number one treat for many people, especially children and women. Unfortunately, these junk foods are among the top contributors to weight gain, obesity, and other health and wellness risks. Besides weight problems, when you eat too much store-bought pizza, you risk experiencing frequent constipation and suffering from a lack of dietary fiber. The worst part is that you increase your chances of developing both diabetes and heart disease.
Alternative: If you can’t avoid overconsuming pizza, try to at least stick to homemade pizza. Store-bought pizzas are full of unhealthy ingredients, which are used for the crusts and toppings. When making your pizzas, you can substitute those ingredients with healthy choices. Having said that, this post shares some amazing tips to make healthy pizzas at home.
Source: hearstapps.com
- Sugary Drinks: energy drinks, regular soda, sports drinks, tea alongside coffee that contain added sugars, fruit drinks that contain added sugars, as well as sweetened waters are some common examples of sugary drinks. These drinks contain an ingredient known as “added sugar”. Though added sugars have a sweet taste just as natural sugars, these synthetic sugars are manufactured in factories using chemicals that have been proved to be very harmful to our health and wellness.
If you can’t keep away from the above drinks, at least go for those that do not contain added sugars. There are plenty of alternatives that consist of natural sweeteners such as honey, maple syrup, molasses, etc. If those are not available, you can easily make your own sweetened drinks or beverages. For example, I sweeten my morning coffees and evening teas or vice versa with maple syrup or honey.
Where do I source these healthy natural sweeteners? Of course, you can buy them at your local grocery store. Alternatively, you can order them from various organic meal kit providers available out there. Maybe this makes you want to try a provider? If that’s right, our latest review post points you to a few trustworthy options. The informative article talks about Home Chef, Sunbasket, Seamless, Freshology, Fresh & Easy, Grubhub, and Purple Carrot, in-depth. Each meal kit delivery service is available in New York City.
- White Bread: white bread is the most common type of bread consumed in many homes, especially for breakfast or evening coffee if not tea. Unfortunately, this type of bread is highly unhealthy. According to experts, white bread can contribute to weight gain or obesity, plus heart disease, and diabetes. Plus, it lacks some essential nutrients (e.g dietary fiber) that play important roles in our bodies. You can read this post to learn about the other disadvantages of white bread.
The best type of bread you should be eating instead of white bread is brown bread. Brown bread has lots of health benefits over white bread. For example, it contains higher vitamin, protein, and mineral(B vitamins, iron, and selenium) contents than the latter. Plus, it contains healthy bacteria, thanks to the fermentation methods used to create it. On top of that, it’s better for the digestive system and gut health than white bread.
Final Thoughts
Everybody wishes to live forever. While living eternally is not a possibility, living longer is. By achieving absolute health and wellness, you can live as long as possible. The key to achieving optimal health and wellness is proper nutrition. This entails consuming foods and drinks that contribute to your health and wellness and avoiding those that negatively affect your health and wellness. The journey to maintaining proper nutrition starts with knowing foods that are healthy for you and those that are not. Having said that, I hope that this article helped you learn about a few common foods and drinks to avoid and healthy alternatives with which to substitute them. With that knowledge, it’s time to start working on your health and wellness with proper nutrition.
