CHAPTER 3:
WHAT IS FOOD?
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“My wife and I have had terrible seasonal allergies for several years. Now our allergies have all disappeared. We are off all allergy meds, which we used to take like candy. As for our four-year-old daughter, we are two weeks into her Whole30, and I am amazed to report that her allergy symptoms are virtually gone. No sneezing. No runny nose. After taking both pills and nose spray for much of her life, her allergy symptoms are better now than they have ever been.”
—Brian C., Burnsville, Minnesota
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We choose our foods by following four Good Food standards. We’re pretty picky about this: all the foods we recommend have to satisfy all four criteria. Not three, not most … all. We’ll explain them in more detail in the coming chapters, but here are the basics.
OUR GOOD FOOD STANDARDS
The food that we eat should:
Promote a healthy psychological response.
Promote a healthy hormonal response.
Support a healthy gut.
Support immune function and minimize inflammation.
Before we get into each of the Good Food standards, however, we need some general background on food.
WHAT IS FOOD?
Food is composed of a multitude of complex molecules. Some provide energy, some provide structural components, some interact with various receptors and transmit signals to our bodies, and some are relatively inert. People sometimes oversimplify food, and say things like, “I eat whole grains for fiber” or “I drink milk for calcium,” but the reality is that all whole, unprocessed food is a rich, complex blend of nutrients. We broadly organize these components into two major classifications: micronutrients and macronutrients.
A micronutrient is defined as an essential compound needed only in relatively small amounts. A micronutrient’s purpose is not to generate energy but to serve a wide variety of important biological functions, including: protection against free radicals, enhancing immune response, and repairing DNA. There are hundreds of different micronutrients, but some you’ve probably heard of include vitamins (like vitamin C), minerals (like calcium), and phytonutrients (like beta-carotene). Selecting foods with the right amounts and a wide variety of micronutrients is critical for our long-term health.
A macronutrient is defined as a group of chemical compounds consumed in large amounts and necessary for normal growth, metabolism, and other bodily functions. Macronutrients are used to supply energy and, in some cases, are used as structural components. In humans, the three macronutrients are carbohydrate, protein, and fat.
THE MACRO VIEW
Carbohydrates include several types of sugars, multiple types of starches, and dietary fiber. All carbohydrates, whether they come from a carrot, brown rice, or a Pop-Tart, break down into simple sugars in the body. Complex carbohydrates are simply a bunch of sugars linked together, and those chains of sugars are broken into their individual “links” upon digestion. Simple carbohydrates, specifically glucose, are a universal energy source that is easily used by most cells in the body. Glucose is fuel for intense activity and fuel for your brain cells.
CARB CONVERSION
Even if you don’t eat any carbohydrates, your body can manufacture them from certain amino acids (and to a small extent, from fat) in order to supply an adequate amount to your brain. This is why some people say that there is no dietary requirement for carbohydrate.
Proteins are made up of long chains of amino acids, which are the building blocks for all sorts of biological structures. The amino acids in proteins are necessary for building, maintaining, and repairing muscles, connective tissue like tendons and ligaments, skin, hair, and even your bones and teeth. In addition, most enzymes and many hormones in the body are actually proteins.
Fats are either in free form (free fatty acids) or built into complexes. Fatty acids belong to one of three types or families: saturated, monounsaturated, or polyunsaturated. Fats allow you to absorb fat-soluble vitamins and essential nutrients from food, help to transport nutrients across cell membranes, and are critical to maintaining proper immune function. Dietary fats are also the building blocks for brain tissue, nerve fibers, reproductive and stress hormones, immune messengers, and cellular membranes. Finally, fat is also an excellent slow-burning energy source, perfect for supporting lower intensity activity.
The energy contained within each type of macronutrient is measured in calories. Carbohydrates and protein each contain four calories per gram; fat contains nine calories per gram. Diet books and experts have long attributed weight problems to simply eating too many calories, and specifically, too much fat. After all, fat is more than twice as calorie-dense as either protein or carbs!
If only it were that easy.
While calories do count for something, good health depends on far more complex factors—and simply reducing calories (or fat) isn’t the answer. The foods you eat exert a powerful psychological influence, stronger than any act of willpower. They influence your hormones, silently directing your metabolism. They affect your digestive tract, your body’s first line of defense. And they impact your immune system and your risk for any number of diseases and conditions.
Your good health starts with the foods you eat. And determining which foods make you more healthy starts with our four Good Food standards.
SNEAK PEEK
Chapter 4: Your Brain on Food
Chapter 5: Healthy Hormones, Healthy You
Chapter 6: The Guts of the Matter
Chapter 7: Inflammation: No One is Immune
We’re about to introduce our four Good Food standards. They’re in this order for a reason—because we think this is generally how things start going wrong. First, you overconsume nutrient-poor foods, because of their psychological effect on you. Overconsumption (and the kinds of foods you tend to over consume) then leads to hormonal, gut, and immune-system disruption—and all of the symptoms, conditions and diseases that may follow. These chapters will lay the groundwork for the discussion on food, and make it that much easier for you to understand why we’ll be asking you to remove certain foods from your plate. We’ll also wrap up each of these four chapters with a summary to make it easier for you to refresh your memory when we do start talking about food.