What are whole foods and why should you care?

When I am sp

eaking of whole foods I do not mean the groceries store. I speaking about food in its purest form. According to wikipedia whole foods are defined as foods that are unprocessed or unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed. Many of the foods purchased in the grocery store today are not whole foods. These foods generally contain many added ingredients including sugar, salt, fat and preservatives. It is very important not to mistake whole foods with organic foods. Many foods labeled as organic are not whole foods and many whole foods may not be organic. True whole foods are fruits, vegetables, unprocessed meats (any meat that does not contain added nitrated or nitrites or any other chemical preservative), unpolished grains, fish, and non-homogenized milk. Baked goods, frozen meals, cereal, lunch meat, and many fruit drinks are all examples of processed foods. I do have to argue  that cooking does not mean that the food is not whole. Cooking or food preparation involves the use of a combination of whole foods to create a meal which is still considered, in my opinion, whole.

I included the definition of whole foods to give a little background. In this day of age, it is almost impossible to eat an exclusively whole food diet. According to the above definition, even homemade baked goods are considered processed. As an athlete, it may seem even more impossible to eat whole foods all of the time due to the high energy demands of training. Energy bars, drinks and other supplements are not considered whole, but many athletes can’t live without them. I would suggest eating a whole foods diet 75% of the time. Which means during the remainder of the day when you are not training. There is a great web MD article that explains a little about why eating healthy whole food is beneficial.

Something I found interesting about this article was that the cost of eating whole food is much cheaper, which makes sense because processed foods take time and equipment to prepare which increases cost. The major cost of whole foods is the preparation time to make healthy meals. Many people argue that they do not have time to prepare healthy meals and rely mostly on processed foods because of time. With this mentality you could be compromising your immune system, recovery time, and over all health. In addition to other topics related to sports nutrition and training I will continue to offer advice, sample meal plans and recipes to make it easier to eat a whole foods based diet.