There is a lot of confusion and conflicting information about what healthy eating means. Myriad diets fads and Instagram influencers offering up unobtainable ideals. Here’s the thing: Diet fads and dogmas suck! Healthy eating is ultimately about having a healthy relationship with food. That relationship has to start with the acknowledgement that FOOD IS JOY!

Thankfully it turns out that the healthiest and most planet-friendly way to eat can also be profoundly enjoyable and uncomplicated.

We call it the ‘eat like a bear’ philosophy.

The bear contrary to popular belief eats mostly plants (unless she’s a polar bear). She eats what’s in season and has never heard about factory farmed animals and highly processed foods.

This philosophy is meant as a gently guideline rather than restrictive dogma. It’s a way to eat that’s great for our health and good for the planet — without compromising joy.

To eat meat or not to eat meat, is that the question?

Central to both our health and the future of the planet is the question of eating meat. It’s a well-established fact that we need to eat less it. But rather than asking: “To eat meat or not to eat meat”, we should ask ourselves: ‘How to eat meat or not to eat meat’. A more nuanced approach to meat is to think of it as flavour rather than being the primary source of protein. The same goes for dairy. There is in fact nothing new about this. Throughout the ages it’s how most of peoples ate.

The ‘eat like a bear’ philosophy can be summarised as:

• Eat mainly seasonal fruit and veggies + pulses + whole grains + seeds and nuts. 

• Use less but better quality meat and diary for flavour rather than being the main protein element (if you’re an omnivore). 

• Avoid ultra-processed products and ingredients – If you’re great granny wouldn’t understand what it says on the back then that’s a big red flag. 

• Become seasonally aware: Use the seasonality calendar both regional and country specific, and check where things are from when you get them in the super market.

• Eat a broad variety of fish and seafood (if you eat fish) and mostly those from lower in the food chain like sardines, mackerel, and herring.

Lessons from the places where people live the longest 

But hold on, we hear you say. Is there any evidence for the whole eat like a bear thing? Yes, dear friend, yes. The benefits of eating like a bear are well documented, though under a different analogy: Blue Zones. 

Blue Zones are defined as places in the world where people live a very long time and don’t suffer from common Western lifestyle diseases. They are found in Japan, around the Mediterranean and Costa Rica too. 

In the book by researcher and author Daniel Buettner, explains the secret to eating for longer life in the Blue Zones is based on four main pillars, which is the important bit that you need to remember. 

Those are: PULSES + WHOLE GRAINS + FRUIT and VEG + SEEDS and NUTS with limited quantities of dairy, fish, poultry and very little red meat. If 80-90 percent of what you eat comes from these food groups in the right balance, then you’re smashing it! 

The healthy eating plate

We all know the ‘food pyramid’. The problem with this is that it’s quite arbitrary when it comes to what exactly to put on the plate in what quantities. Overall we should aim to have about half of our plate be vegetables, two thirds a whole grain cereal of complex carb like potato or sweet potato, and one third pulses with seeds and nuts sprinkled on top or used as part of the vegetable element. They can always be easily incorporated.

We forgot that FOOD IS JOY! 

In his brilliant book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan shows us how food and eating are being attacked on two sides. The food industry on one side and nutritional science on the other have both brought needless complications around eating. 

Pollan identifies “three pernicious myths” that nutritional science with its reductionist approach have served to ruin the pleasure of simply eating good food made from real ingredients: 

1. What matters most is not the food but the “nutrient”. 

2. That because nutrients are invisible and incomprehensible to everyone but scientists, we need expert help in deciding what to eat.

3. That the purpose of eating is to promote a narrow concept of physical health. 

Pollan continues: “if such an approach to food doesn’t strike you as the lest bit strange, that is probably because nutritionist thinking has become so pervasive as to be invisible. We forget that, historically, people have eaten for a great many reasons other than biological necessity. Food is also about pleasure.” 

Most likely there is an inverse correlation between the amount of time and effort people spend worrying about nutrition and whatever diet they’re on and their overall health and happiness. Obsession over ‘healthy’ eating is in fact supremely unhealthy and is now so prevalent and in some cases so extreme that the diagnosis, “orthorexia” had to be invented. 

Something as rich and complex as food and eating cannot be reduced to nutritional science. Not that nutritional science doesn’t have anything important to teach us, but we must also look to history, culture and traditions in order to broaden our horizon on food. 

“Most of what we need to know about how to eat we already know, or once did until we allowed the nutrition experts and the advertisers to shake our confidence in common sense, tradition, the testimony of our senses, and the wisdom of our mothers and grandmothers”. 

Thankfully a growing number of people are waking up and (re)discovering that the best choices for our health also happen to be the best choices for the planet – and that these also happen to be the most delicious choices is very good news indeed! 

Michael Pollan sums up his advise on cooking with the words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. 

How to fall in love with cooking

You fall in love with cooking the same way you fall in love with anything else: Do it consistently and get good at it. The good news is that it’s a lot easier to become a proficient home-cook then it is to become proficient on the violin. The other thing that cooking’s got going for it is that it will make you feel better and better as you improve your diet. Once you’ve gotten to that stage on the journey, you will never look back on account of how freakin’ awesome you feel. Guaranteed! 

If you want to eat healthy, consistently, then fall in love with real food made with unprocessed ingredients. That’s what we want to help you with.

Why Cook?

Cooking your own meals is one of the most powerful avenues for positive transformation available. The three top reasons to cook your own meals are:

• If you’re serious about getting enough veg.

• Mental health benefits - cooking gives us a sense of accomplishment and is a therapeutic activity.

• More energy to live to life you want.

Are you really too busy to cook? 

Mastery tends to go hand in hand with loving to do something. Often I’ve found that it’s actually not time that’s the issue, but rather the excuse covering up the fact that people just don’t like to cook. They don’t like to cook because people don’t like to do what they aren’t good at. Getting good at something does require effort. 

But, when it comes to everyday cooking, mastery doesn’t mean knowing how to do fine dining. It means getting to a level of competence where you can confidently feed yourself and your loved ones relying purely on your intuition. I’m not saying you’ll get there without practice, but you don’t need to practice for 10,000 hours. 

You just need to do it! Often. Ideally every day. Consistency is the name of the game here. The one percent every day. It adds up. The average person in the UK watches 12 hours of online streaming services like Netflix per week. How much TV do you watch? Could you prioritise differently? Come on. Put some consistent effort in. You will soon be well on your way with some good momentum.