Over Analysis?

Organic or not organic? Raw or processed? Pasteurized or raw? Red or green? Frozen or canned? Absolutely no soy, wheat, dairy, and eggs, or maybe just a little? No artificial sweeteners?

If you're asking these questions, you're probably over-analyzing your diet too much. My diet is the short-ingredient diet, for sure. Nothing I eat has any more than six ingredients (okay the canned salmon and vegetables has eight, but it's all natural ingredients.) That's usually what I tell people to do. If a person's diet is atrocious, I focus on quality first, and then quantity and then timing. Telling them to eat a particular percentage of calories, and to eat a particular ratio of carbs and protein 35 minutes after a workout is too confusing.

Your diet should be as natural as possible: fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, organic, free range meat, seafood, and maybe a few grains (quinoa if possible, but not technically a grain). Dairy is optional. You shouldn't eat processed foods and avoid anything with a lot of sugar.

Sometimes, however, we want to enhance our diet even more. Fruit in a can is still fruit, but it's still a concentrated source of sugar, for example. And even when we think we're eating okay, we learn that common ingredients such as wheat, soy, and dairy, and artificial sweeteners aren't really good for us after all. Yet they are so ubiquitous that they're almost impossible not to eat. Almost everything on the supermarket shelf has a common allergen. That prepackaged tuna salad I wanted to buy has soybean oil. Good god!

Improvements

Here are some simple ways you can enhance your diet

Good: fruits and vegetables
Better: organic fruits and vegetables

Good: canned fruits and vegetables
Better: frozen fruits and vegetables

Good: peanut butter
Better: Raw almond butter

Good: lean meat
Better: grass-fed, organic meat

Good: seafood
Better: only particular types of seafood. Wild Alaskan salmon. Farm-raised tilapia. Sardines. Yellowfish tuna.

Good: "Healthy" bread and energy bars
Better: Limited grains, soy, wheat, dairy, peanuts, eggs

As you can see, even if you think you're eating "healthy," there's always a healthier option.

But are these ingredients really going to kill us? Probably not, at least not in insignificant quantities. Even so, nobody knows how much of any of the crap is in our food. They aren't measured like macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. And since humans aren't really designed to eat anything but unprocessed, natural food, it's probably a good idea to err on the safe side and not consume much of these ingredients.

While I commend people for improving their diet, you can oveanalyze your diet. It's not necessary to eat everything organic. It's not necessary to avoid tofu, tempeh, and tamari just because it has soy. It's not necessary to avoid a sauce because it has wheat gluten in it. But don't make any of these foods staples of your diet. If there is an alternative without these ingredients (and these days, they aren't hard to find), then choose the alternative. Going from junk food to more produce and fresh meat is a huge improvement. Going from a little wheat in your diet to no wheat is not as beneficial, and is much harder to do. It's like training for a sport. A deconditioned athlete will make initial improvement fast, but Olympic-level athletes have to train for years to make just the smallest improvement. Fine, subtle improvements in your diet are the same. I'm trying to eliminate all common allergens (wheat, soy, dairy, corn, eggs, but not fish) from my diet, and it's a true challenge!

It's important to adhere to your principles most of the time. I would aim for 90% of the time. If 90% of your food is unadulterated, unprocessed, and doesn't come in a package, then you're fine. If the majority of your food has a long list of ingredients, it's time to make some changes. Most people would be shocked to see how much crap is actually in their food. Even mustard these days has high fructose corn syrup, and rice bowls and pre-cooked enchiladas have a lot more than fresh vegetables and a corn tortilla. As much as I prefer to eat naturally, even I drink diet tea and soda. But most of the fluid I drink is water and tea. I feel excess sugar will kill me before a little Splenda in my diet. Too much, as you know, can wreck havoc on your body. So moderation is the key.

Follow this rule: if your food is convenient and ready-made, you might want to check the ingredients. Those products have long shelf lives because of the preservatives in them. Natural food doesn't last long; processed food does. Don't you ever wonder how peanut butter can sit in a pantry for a year?

Take home message: do your best. Try to remove most allergens from your diet. Avoid packaged food. Eat as natural as possible. Adhere to these principles 90% of the time. Initial improvements in your diet are easy. Aiming for perfection is difficult, and you can spend all day trying to adhere to a 100% natural, unadulterated diet.

Kevin