Happy Foods
Happy Foods –
Bringing true pleasure and balance back into our foods
by Jim Montrose, Ayurvedic Specialist, March 2020
For most of us we no longer just eat to survive, but instead eat for pleasure. Yet today with the changes in our food, preparation and diet we often miss the pleasure we are expecting. An apple I used to eat in the past that was hard, crunchy, aromatic and bounding with flavor as the juice exploded from its flesh; is now mushy, mealy, less flavorful, less sweet, and sometimes less juicy.
As a compensation for this lack of nutrient flavor, wellness and health in our food supply we have now created extravagantly flavored sauces, added sugar, salt, and flavor enhancers to our foods. Fast foods and junk foods with these artificial enhancers and empty calories abound but only give a semblance of pleasure that is short lasting.
And the trouble is…
Those foods aren’t satisfying us at a deep level and often leave us unsatisfied and in the famine state which encourages us to eat more empty calories and junk that doesn’t provide the basic nutrients we need and doesn’t satisfy our taste buds long term. They’re just activating the dopamine reward centers in our brains fooling us into a false satiety.
In the long term, poor eating habits exasperate the situation which most of us feel at a deep level of knowing.
Degrading health, obesity, loss of energy, dopamine crashes, physical limitations, depleted nutrient reserves, constant snacking … don’t make us happy. They may even create a level of depression that we learn to survive with in modern life.
There are solutions that can help us reclaim our pleasure in eating and increase our health and wellness at the same time. Replacing them with whole, natural, and healthy foods that naturally give true satiety is a first step.
We can choose foods that enhance our well-being, elevate our moods, increase our immune system, have broader nutrient values (replacing processed and nutrient –sterile foods) and add foods that replace some of the depleted nutrients that lead to poor health and depression while increasing joy. Coupling this with preparing our foods in ways that conserve the nutrients, concentrate the nutrients, and provide them in tasty, exciting ways that meet our unique body’s constitutional needs we can create Happy foods that do us well, satisfy hunger, and increase pleasure in eating. Read on.
