Making a healthy eating plan? Let the Carlsbad Public Library help
Often when a new year begins, it brings a desire to make positive changes. One of those changes could be to eat healthier. Sometimes I never know where to start. Let’s All Eat Right Day is February 25th. It marks the birthday of Adelle Davis, a famous nutritionist, author, and game-changer in the nutrition movement throughout the 1900s. A famous quote from Davis herself was “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”
Food is as important to human beings as air and water. In some ways, one might argue that food tops the list, because it can affect us in ways beyond just the physical. Food can change your mood, speak to your very soul, and make a difference in your self-perception. Thus, on some level, we all want to eat right and are open to making changes that may bring us to good health. So, it is only fitting that there be a day to celebrate eating right, which will hopefully put us all on a lifelong path of developing a healthier relationship with our food.
Nutrition itself has been around as long as humans have, however, it was not until 400 B.C. that the Greek physician Hippocrates observed the impact food has on physical health, especially when it came to the prevention and cure of illness. Ancient world foods used for medicinal properties (such as using garlic to cure stomach ailments) and the birth of nutritional science itself is fairly recent. The onset of World War I caused widespread fear of food shortages and forced nutritional scientists to focus on food as a preventative for diseases. Hence the first Recommended Dietary Allowances (R.D.A.s) were issued around this time.
A great way to celebrate this holiday is by developing healthy eating habits all year long. But where to begin? The library can help you. Often there are roadblocks that keep us from eating healthily. Finding solutions to these roadblocks will help the process. The library has the nursing and allied health database. This database gives library patrons access to many health resources that can help with healthy eating and more health-related topics. The Mayo Clinic Wellness article “8 solutions to healthy-eating roadblocks” can be accessed on this database. It will give you healthy detours to get you on the right track.
We also have a whole health section in the library. Many of these books can help you make positive changes, or just find more tasty food options. A great book for either is “Eat to beat your diet: burn fat, heal your metabolism, and live longer” by Dr. William Li. In his first groundbreaking book, Dr. William Li explored the world of food as medicine. By eating foods that you already enjoy, like tomatoes, blueberries, sourdough bread, and dark chocolate, your body activates its five health defense systems to fight cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular, neurodegenerative autoimmune diseases, and other debilitating conditions.
It shows readers how adding the right foods to your diet can heal your metabolism, reduce unhealthy body fat, and result in the kind of weight loss that can increase your lifespan and help you thrive. Both informative and practical, Dr. Li offers a four-week meal plan for food lovers; easy food swaps and shopping tips; and more than a month of crowd-pleasing recipes. These are just a few ways to start eating better today. There are many ways to improve your diet and health at your library.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Making a healthy eating plan? Let the Carlsbad Public Library help
