| Alternative Health Guide
Food Cravings: the key to a healthy and effective diet?
ArialSeveral decades ago, before the late 60s, researchers decided to test the degree to which infants who had been fed only breast milk would display natural instincts when it came to selecting other foods.
The babies were 9 months old or older. They were surrounded with fruits and vegetables and allowed complete freedom to taste and select whatever they wanted while scientists recorded each child´s choices. All foods available were natural and did not include sugar or salt.
During the experiment, some children selected an entire meal of one item, the next meal a different food. Others chose a little of this and a little of that. All choices were duly monitored and recorded.
The conclusion of the test was that each child, over a period of weeks, based on their own tastes and what we might call "cravings, selected a completely balanced diet.
Scientists believe there is evidence that our bodies do not lose this natural instinct to select the exact foods that we need, provided that our tastes are not skewed by sugar and other altered foods. The problem is that altered foods tend to confuse and pervert our built-in instinct toward optimum health. They are foods that we were not created to eat nor our bodies created to digest.
White flour products are one example. The bran and most of the nutrients that we need for efficient digestion are removed. In many cases bleach products are used to make it snowy white. And then often chemicals that were produced in a laboratory are added as preservatives. None of which we were originally programmed to digest. We eat it and our body says, "WHAT am I supposed to do with THIS!?" Since what we have eaten is not completely digestible in its present form, we set up a toxic environment in our bodies. Eventually, loaded down with toxins, we are candidates for disease.
The road back to better health can be a simple process of returning to natural foods--eaten as close as possible to the form in which nature provided it. And as we do that, perhaps we should pay attention to those crazings. They just might be telling us something important!
So read the labels. Better yet, if it has a label on it, don´t buy it. Do your shopping in the produce department at your favorite grocery store--or from your local organic farmer. You´ll be glad you did!
Food Cravings: the key to a healthy and effective diet?
Alternative Health Guide |
