Eating healthy is pretty important to the gang at StoneTree Clinic. If you come into our staff room at any given lunch time, you’ll find big bowls of organic salad greens, vegetarian curries, beautiful pieces of fish, or big jars of fresh pressed juices.
It makes sense–after all, food is medicine. What we eat is a big part of being healthy…and it’s also important that we practice what we preach.
But we’re also real people. In our staff room you’ll also see some chocolate, the odd bag of popcorn, and a sweet treat for a staff birthday. We enjoy these little treats with an afternoon cup of coffee and a couple of good laughs.
It’s a balance – 90% healthy, 10% life, and none of us worry about it.
Orthorexia: Healthy Eating at Unhealthy Levels
Orthorexia, a term originally coined by Dr. Steven Bratman in 1997, is healthy eating taken to potentially unhealthy levels. It generally shows up as the restriction of foods that are perceived as insufficiently clean, healthy, or wholesome. The problem usually starts from a good place–the intention of eating better–but then turns into an obsession about everything that enters the person’s mouth. Is it the right type of food? Are the ingredients healthy enough? Am I eating the right amount at the right time?
Modern media coverage of food and diets has made the whole idea of healthy eating seem overwhelming. Should I eat low fat or low carb? Should I eat six meals a day or three? Should I eat gluten or avoid it? Should I be vegan? Paleo? Is it local, or organic, or “natural”? There are thousands of different books that seem to say a thousand different things, and all of them saying it with confidence that they have the right answer.
What is the right answer? We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Eat foods that nature makes, mostly plants.
Do this 80-90% of the time and in that 10% of the time that you don’t, don’t sweat it. Enjoy it, and move on.
Trust your body to use the 90% good to deal with the 10%’s potential harm. That’s what our biochemistry was made to do.