Olympic athletes closely monitor their diets in order to keep their bodies in prime condition for their sport. Unfortunately, the rest of us mere mortals don’t seem to have the same mentality. We know that Haagan Daz ice cream and McDonalds French fries are bad for us, so why do we keep eating junk food? CAUSE IT TASTES GOOD! This is because our brains are wired to seek out fatty, sugary, and salty foods because those types of resources were hard to come by in evolutionary times. Fast forward a few million years later to a society where accumulating fat, sugar, and salt is as easy as answering “yes” to “would you like fries with that?” in the drive through. Our caveman tongues are telling us to consume things we know are bad for us because our bodies haven’t caught up with the evolution of food.
THE PROBLEM:
While our bodies require a balance of everything the availability of junk food and our natural disposition towards it has created a world wide epidemic. As we let our taste buds be the navigator of our diets we deviate toward excess amounts of saturated fats, sugar, sodium, and processed foods. Today’s diet has led to..
1) Skyrocketed amounts of total sugar intake
2) Over consumption of fruit juice
- Keep in mind that juice doesn’t get processed the same way as fruit and can be just as sugary as soda
3) Increased Calorie intake of 400 calories per day
4) Abandonment of traditional fats in favor of PROCESSED vegetable oils
5) Switching to TransFat Laden margarine
6) Increase in soybean oil
7) Lack of egg consumption
8) Less nutritious wheat
9) Maximized consumption of processed food
All of these dietary issues have and will continue to cause obesity and obesity caused conditions such as Type II diabetes, heart disease, cancer, metabolic problems, and elevated cholesterol levels. Following this type of diet can also lead to insufficient amounts of Magnesium, Iron, Zinc, Choline, and Copper. The scariest part is that eating this way has led to harmful structural changes in our fat cells. So its more than just having to buy a size bigger in jeans, our actual genes are changing too.
It is imperative that we start to change how we eat. However, that doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice yummy foods in order to be healthy. In the spirit of the Olympics, I looked at what the world class athletes have been using to fuel their bodies to find some nutritious and delicious recipes. So check out the recipe below or click on the link to visit the official Team USA site to learn tons of great ways to eat like an Olympian.
The Two Ingredient Cookie
Ingredients (for about 14 cookes)
- 1 cup quick oats
- 1 cup mashed banana
- Hint* make it extra tasty by adding cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, chocolate chips, dried fruit, coconuts, or nuts
Directions
1) Mix the ingredients together
2) grease a cookie sheet and place the formed cookies in the oven
3) bake at 350 for 12-15 minutes
4) Let them cool for about 5 minutes
5) ENJOY! :)
To check out the original recipe and to learn more about how US Olympians fuel their bodies check out this link!
For more information on issues with the modern diet check out the link below
http://www.businessinsider.com/whats-wrong-with-the-modern-diet-charts-2014-2
