Warning signs:

Be curious:

My title of How to eat implies that I know all the answers to the complex questions of what is the perfect diet and how to eat. The straight up simple answer (from my experience anyhow) is that there is no one absolute and perfect way to eat. To think so is daft and to argue so is closed-minded. How can one diet at all times and phases of life work for so many culturally and geographically diverse people?

We are dynamic beings in an ever changing world, with multiple ‘things’ influencing our health and homeostatic balance at all times; our environment is constantly changing, our stress levels fluctuate alongside our ability to tolerate “stress”, and alongside this the trillions of cells in our gut are in constant dynamic flux alongside us – the beauty of symbiosis. We are complex, food is complex, and health is complex.

I think it is best to say: get curious, learn to be intuitive, take people’s big claims of knowing the definitive answers like a pick and mix adding what you intuitively agree with to your health strategy. Try things but don’t cling blindly to them; test them out and see where it gets you.

I feel it is best to avoid getting overly identified with our style of eating. For example calling ourselves vegan, keto, low carb, Paleo and so on creates limitations on our ability to fluidly adapt to what foods best suit us in the moment. See your diet as food, nourishment, joy and a way to socially connect and seasonally adapt. It’s a cool thing; who doesn’t love food and eating and to do so with freedom is a privilege.

Learn about your body, your ancestry, your environment from the ground up: the soil, wild plants, what you can grow yourself in a vegetable plot, local agriculture, farmers markets and the whole local supply chain.

Ask questions about where the food is coming from. For example is the beef on your plate Irish or an import from Brazil that may be linked with the Amazon forest destruction? Read here. Are your avocados from Mexico? Read more here. To make a positive impact on our world and economies, environment and climate it is important that we get curious about where our food comes from and how is the best way to eat based on where we live and what is available to us. Develop your own ideas and thoughts on this because I don’t feel any one person has the answer here. Do what you can, in your own way.

Learn about the food our oceans and rivers provide. Get to know your food likes and dislikes, be inquisitive about your food cravings and mostly, be flexible because our health needs also change over time.

There are many theories proposed about the cause of our current health and obesity epidemics.

Obesity and our growing waist lines are only the tip of the iceberg. We have more autoimmune conditions (The World Incidence and Prevalence of Autoimmune Diseases is Increasing), more allergies (see global atlas of allergy the allergy epidemic section), more digestive problems like inflammatory bowel disease (for example), more cancer and increasing incidence of infertility.

As first world developed nations we have more affluence than ever; and massive numbers of our population are not optimally healthy or experiencing “good” quality of life because they are not well. This is directly linked to the food we eat, the way that it is cooked, how and how much it is processed, lifestyle habits, environmental pollution and the stresses that our modern lives create (in addition to other susceptibility factors such as genetics, gut microbiome, etc.).

I think food and nutrition, activity levels and weight, genetics and environment are very complex and interrelated issues. They cannot be explained by just one theory: we are mind, body, emotions and the memory of all events in our lifetimes. Our health even extends beyond our own control and direct experiences as research shows us that genes are influenced by the stress our mothers experienced before and during pregnancy, what we were fed as an infant and even what our mothers and father ate in the preconception and for the mother during her pregnancy period. if your father smoked this impacts you, if your mum was overweight and so on. Amazing! Generational trauma can also influence our health as far forwards as several generations!

Some things we can change, some we can improve; the rest we cannot worry about and all of us can do our best to nurture and nourish our bodies and minds to our best ability.

A few things I would pay attention to are:

• Food volume (we eat too much).
• The balance of food groups on the plate: vegetables should dominate the portion for most of us.
• When we eat and how much of a gap we give our digestive system (it is good to fast on occasion or more correctly termed intermittent fasting; especially if you have chronic health challenges).
• Food processing such as refined and high sugar carbohydrates, heat processed/ treated fats, poor quality processed protein, processed vegan or vegetarian foods, burnt or charred foods.
• Food (and health supplement) quality.
• Air-miles and country of origin.
• Animal well-fare, environmental responsibility, fair-trade.
• Excessive use and hence intake of food additives, pesticides, artificial sweeteners, herbicides, etc.
• Our exposure to endocrine disrupters, heavy metals (e.g. amalgams, water quality, food quality, local industry, dare I also say food imported from China) and carcinogenic substances.
• Medication use and its impact on our homeostatic balance in addition to the gut microbiome (e.g. proton pump inhibitors, excessive use of antibiotics or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pain killers).
• Gut health especially in relation to food quality, and diet regimen (low carb or high protein, keto, high carb etc all have consequences for the gut microbiome) and also foreign travel and exposure to parasites and microbes.
• Stress management, sleep, shift-work, jet-lag, exercise and movement. 
• And finally our emotional / psychological health.

Our bodies health relies on a delicate balance of so many factors.

A healthy body is resilient, resistant to illness and infections, and adaptive; there are only so many insults that it can take before it all starts to spiral into a mess.

The sooner you pay attention and make changes whilst removing triggers and causes, then the better.

Ethical dilemmas:

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