Why Lick a Lawnmower for Nutrition?

"If it tastes bad, like licking a lawnmower, than it must be good for you."

This is a popular interpretation of many people when it comes to deciding what foods are good for you and what foods are not so good for you. OK, so it is not completely untrue. For example a jelly-filled donut tastes amazing and Brussels sprouts can leave a lot to be desired. However, a fresh cut kiwi can be more tantalizing (and much better for you) than an oatmeal cookie.

If you were looking for nutrition, we all know we would get it more so from fruits and vegetables than from donuts and cookies. In fact, donuts are one of the absolute worst things for our health but yet we cannot pass up that beautiful box of sugar filled, deep fried dough that leaves our taste buds going back for a second helping.

Our nation has become a society of instant gratification. If we crave sugar, we eat it. If we crave caffeine, we drink it. If we crave greasy French fries, we eat them. We are much more focused on fulfilling our immediate wants than looking at the long term consequences.

The nutrition industry has faced quite a challenge, "How do we supply nutrition to the public in a form they would like or crave?"

For the longest time our nutrition was convenience based, "Give me a vitamin that I can choke down quickly and be on my way." The problem with this is that people are starting to realize that synthetic vitamins do not work as well as once thought. The vitamins and nutrients you get from eating an orange is 10 fold what you would get from swallowing a vitamin C tablet.

While many industries continue to produce these vitamins (mainly pharmaceutical companies) the more innovative companies are looking into a way to capture the nutrition from these whole food sources instead of creating the vitamins in a test tube.

So these companies began trying various methods of processing fruits and vegetables in hopes of creating a more nutritious product. Green drinks began to appear on the market. Powder or liquid forms of fruit and vegetable juices were created and marketed.

While the product did provide more nutrition than the average vitamin, it tasted like licking your lawnmower. So these products did not really take off.

Then the Super-food juice drinks hit the market. Goji, Noni, Acai ...it seemed like a new berry was being introduced every few weeks. Berries naturally taste better than vegetables, but these new drinks still leave a lot to be desired.

Super-food juice drinks are typically just one fruit. The body needs a combination of fruits and vegetables, nuts and sprouts and enzymes to get complete nutrition to remain in good health. In addition, these juice drinks are typically pasteurized (a requirement of most juice drinks in order to maintain shelf life). This pasteurization process kills many of the good nutrients in that super food. Then preservatives are added in also to help maintain shelf life. So this essentially "good for you" fruit has now been denatured and then tainted with preservatives.

The green drink powders were on to something. They may have tasted like licking a lawnmower, but they were packed full of whole food nutrition. So when mixing and drinking the powder, the body is getting the closest thing to eating all of those foods in their raw state. These green drinks have come a long way. There are many companies out there trying to perfect the taste without adding artificial ingredients. Many companies have not been able to succeed in this, but some have. Do the research yourself, it will be worth it. There is no better source of nutrition than eating live, raw, whole foods.

Check out the best source for LIVE Whole Food Nutrition: www.ph4you.com

Stop by my blog and see what else I have to say. Be sure to post a comment if the mood so strikes you to. Go Green with Whole Food Nutrition

I have spent the last two years studying nutrition. I have explored many theories and considered all options on nutrition. I have sampled and tested many different supplements to find the ultimate in nutrition. I found it and I am excited about it. I want to share all the information I have learned over the past two years in hopes that I may be able to improve someone else's life.

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