Do you ever wonder why we—health-minded people—want to know all these nutrition facts? Is it really so we can become healthier, or is it simply so we can know that what we're eating is healthy or unhealthy?
I find myself thinking about this when I eat something unhealthy. I'll say to myself, "Yep, that was unhealthy"... as if the statement made it any better.
Of course I have things I just won't eat at all. For instance, MSG and partially hydrogenated oils. It's very easy for me to resist eating foods with those ingredients in them. With sugar, it's hit or miss. I do pretty well overall, but sometimes eat sugary foods, despite my knowledge of what it does to the body.
Bottom line: knowledge doesn't automatically lead to the right behaviors.
I don't know whether or not this is true, but I once read that Mark Twain smoked so that he'd have a bad habit to give up when he got sick. When he'd get well, he'd start smoking again.
Maybe that's the reason for all this health knowledge... so we know how to be healthy when it's absolutely necessary.
But the trick is being healthy when it's not necessary—being healthy simply because you want to be.
What are your thoughts? Why do you want to have knowledge of what's healthy and what's unhealthy?
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