Health Food vs. Healthy Food? Is there a Difference?

Convenience is important. Whether you’re a doctor, or someone just trying to make a healthier life choice, we all tend to take the more convenient path because of everything else we need to juggle throughout the day. Doctors are the same, especially those who do not go above and beyond in their work. Some studies have even shown that doctors at lower-ranked medical schools prescribe opioids more than doctors trained at higher-ranked schools. 

A personal journey through health

I can’t tell you how much time I’ve spent in my car, commuting to work. Going to work, helping my kids, and even social things, like going to church or visiting a friend, seem to take up all my waking hours. I never feel like there are enough hours in the day to do everything I need to do, let alone the things I want to do. I hardly ever have time to cook anymore and I can’t tell you what’s popular on Netflix, because I can’t remember the last time I had enough time to sit down long enough to finish an episode of anything. 

I’m not trying to explain my day to complain, but to point out that we all have different levels of problems that we are all struggling with. I’m stating the obvious to ensure we all understand one clear point: convenience is important in our modern lives. 

A prepackaged cereal bar might give me 10 minutes back in the morning, while a quick trip to Chick-Fil-A seems “healthy enough” for dinner, so I don’t feel guilty when I don’t have time to actually cook a full, healthy meal. But these little, quick bites of convenience may give me more time, but they end up robbing my family of their health. 

Doctors, nurses and healthcare workers have families just like the rest of us. They want to be healthy too. They also exercise and they also struggle from the same weight gain and skin issues. They also struggle with inflammation, even though they understand how eating processed foods and meats can lead to inflammation. They struggle with these issues, because they are human, just like us, and also look for ways to compartmentalize their days and live happy lives as best they can. 

And convenience can unfortunately sometimes lead to unhealthy side effects. 

Life After “Supersizing” 

I know we’ve likely all seen the videos of the pink slime you can find in beef. If you haven’t heard of the original meme, I don’t blame you since the controversy is more than 10 years old now and the fast food industry would like you to forget all about what they used to do. However, it’s important to understand that these practices haven’t gone away. If anything, the food industry has gotten smarter about how it packages up waste products now. 

The food industry has come a long way in the past few decades. Food scientists have developed new starches to keep fried foods crispy longer and “blood” from the roots of soybean plants. 

While these new developments result in wonderful new products for us - namely french fries that will not be soggy when they get delivered to your door or vegetable patties which finally taste almost like a beef hamburger - the food industry has not given us anything that didn’t exist in a better form than it did before. French fries are still ultimately the same and veggie burgers are still made from a variety of chemicals and pastes to mimic a beef patty. In fact, these burgers even have micronutrients injected into them to make up for the fact that the ultra-processing the ingredients endure have little nutritional value in them. 

This blog post is not meant to make you feel bad for trying new food items out. Instead, it’s meant to remind you of the importance of fresh, whole foods. We as consumers have become smarter about what we are willing to spend our money on. This may be why chopped fruits and vegetables have become so much more popular in recent years.