Exercise Training: Quantity vs. Quality
ByI happened to be reading a book the other day. The author said something quite interesting which I never gave much thought. He questioned the quantity of the food versus the quality. Have you noticed the quantity of food has gone up, while the quality of food has gone down? What does that mean? I don’t know if you have looked around lately but there are an abundance of places selling bad food. Oh yeah, I’ll be doing a review of this book I’m mentioning, so look out for it.
The idea of more is better 
When I was kid, I would beg my grand mother to take me to McDonald’s. I would usually beg her on Friday because that was the only time she would take me. I would “hound” her countless times until she finally agreed. Once she agreed, we would pile into our big yellow car nicknamed the “yellow goose” and off we went to Mickey D’s. I can remember going through the drive thru and within minutes we had our food. In the words of my good friend Riley from the Boondocks, “it was the best thing ever,” or was it? As I think back, it may very well have been the worst thing to ever happen. Why do I say that? In the old school days the burgers were much smaller and there was no “supersize it”, go large, or buy one get one free. Did that make the food worse? The food was already bad for you but now you just have more of it. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see if you eat more you gain more weight, right? Is the idea of more really better?
From a boy to a man
Some of our food choices are dictated by the money in our pockets. Do you think that’s true? I certainly do. If I had ten bucks in my pocket in high school or college, I would more than likely be at the latest fast food joint getting the cheap stuff. I had done this countless times in my evolution from a boy to man, until I realized you have to pay for quality. Quality is the nutritional dense food your body needs to heal itself and get rid of disease. I never looked at food in this manner, until I became passionate about fitness. I always thought food was something I just threw into my mouth because my stomach was growling, and I needed to satiate it. I realize most people still think this way and this is why there is an obesity problem in America. There are far too many of us who think cheap food is better food. Is that solely based on the lint in our pockets?
Food observations
Do you realize you always get more cheap food? You can go to any fast food spot to prove it to yourself. If you have ever dined at an expensive restaurant, you know you don’t get a whole lot of food, but it tastes much better. You enjoy the food more, but you might get hungrier a bit sooner. Why? If you noticed, you get less food and its balanced with healthy things like salads! This seems to be a hard idea for our society to understand and many of us are paying for it with our health. What do you think?
For sure.It’s good to see more of a movement towards locally-grown food. Good for the planet, good for the body. And yes, it DOES usually cost more. Sure, we all sometimes chow down on “fast-food”, but keeping the quantities small makes sense. But there’s nothing better on the dinner table than freshly-prepared produce straight from the farm (or the farmer’s market:)
My kids used to ask me why “poor” kids and adults were fat. I’m sure there are a number of reasons, but the one I told my kids was that it was cheaper to buy macaroni and cheese in a box than it was to buy healthy pasta, low fat cheese and vegetables. I try to buy organic when we are going to eat the skin, but have read that bananas and other fruits that get peeled, are rather safe if you don’t buy organic. It’s true though, healthy foods do cost more.
I definitely agree that sometimes our pocket books dictate what foods we consume. I being in college, have a small budget for food every week and sometimes make poor choices because lack of funds.