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Hello and Welcome Back,
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You know, in these blogs, and probably many other health-related articles that you read, the authors throw around a lot of $25 words that a person might not totally understand.
This is not a good thing.
How can a person understand something they are studying if they do not understand the words?
More so, how can a person continue to make progress on their health and wellness journey without understanding?
For this reason, anytime a person is reading or studying they should have a good dictionary to hand, or access to the internet so they can clarify the words and terms they don’t understand. That makes sense, right?
Have you ever been reading along and got to the bottom of the page and couldn’t remember what you had just read?
What did you do? Keep reading?
More than likely you tossed the manuscript aside and discontinued studying, right?
And why?
Well, because you couldn’t understand it, it didn’t make sense and it seemed too difficult. But it was probably only a misunderstood word, not an entire subject.
I’ll give you an example.
We all had to take Algebra in high school, right? Some of us enjoyed it, some of us did not, and some thought the whole thing was stupid.
Let me ask you something.
What does the word “Algebra” mean?
Without causing anyone to experience PTSD, it’s an Arabic word that loosely translates, to find the missing part, in other words, find X!
I’ve heard people say, “Reading is hard!”
No, not understanding the words a person is reading is hard, but how could understanding ever be hard? You understand it, you get it! What’s so difficult?
The problem is you went past a word, a symbol, or a term that you did not fully understand, and right after that word- poof! Everything goes blank.
If you find this happening to you, the best thing to do is go back through what you’ve just read and see if there wasn’t a word or symbol, or term you didn’t understand.
If so, look the word up in a dictionary or on the internet and get it understood.
Having done so, now read back through the text and see if it now makes sense.
If not, there probably is another word you did not fully understand.
Rinse, lather, repeat, and keep doing so until what you are reading makes sense.
Keep in mind sometimes what a person is reading is total nonsense, but now you will know having understood the words. Find a better source.
There is a whole technology to study, and I would be happy to show you what I’m talking about if you would like. Please let me know.
In the meantime, I thought I might clear a few words, terms, and concepts that a person might encounter reading or listening to, material concerning health and well-being, or even trying to make heads or tails of food labels.
What I thought I would do is spend the next several blogs defining many of these words and terms so that a person might be able to think with all they hear and read on labels.
I know one of the terms I’ve used quite a bit is-
Nutrient-dense, whole foods.
What does that mean?
Well, nutrients would pertain to having a nutritious value, right?
Taken from one of the Internet dictionaries, a nutrient is:
“A substance that provides nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life.”
“A nutrient is a substance used by an organism to survive, grow and reproduce.”
Okay, got that?
“Dense” in this case would mean to have an abundance of nutrients or be full of nutritious value.
Nutrient dense would mean that this particular food is full of those things that will help a body grow and prosper.
Now whole food is another interesting term. More than just being the name of an overpriced grocery store, whole food would mean just that… it is whole food, right?
Take a carrot for example. The whole food of a carrot is the whole carrot as you would pull it from the ground. Not parts of it, extracts, or anything else. It is the whole carrot, not parts of it.
A whole apple would be a whole apple, not apple sauce, or apple pie, but the whole apple!
Nutrient-dense, whole foods would be the whole-ness of a particular food that has nutritional value. These are not processed foods, but whole foods that have health-promoting properties contained in the whole food.
So, which would be better, a cup of broccoli, or a tablet that has ground-up broccoli in it along with many other vitamins?
You better get this right!!!!!!!!!
The cup of broccoli, of course…, and why? It is a nutrient-dense, whole food- just how Mother Nature made it!
Did you know that when raw broccoli is chewed two biochemical compounds come in contact with each other and make a phytonutrient called sulforaphane?
Oops, there is another one- phyto…, it means plant or relating to plants.
Anyway, sulforaphane is an amazing phytonutrient that does amazing things for a person’s heart, digestion, and overall health.
Only nutrient-dense, whole broccoli, chewed will deliver sulforaphane.
So much for buying broccoli supplements!
Okay, so let’s leave this blog at that, and I’ll continue with more definitions in the next upcoming blogs!
As usual…, thank you for reading along!
Take Care,
Dr. Dave
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Thanks Dr. Dave. Very good data and I will work on having a better diet. It is not too gross right now but not 100% either. ML, Jim
Just like the tortoise- slow and steady wins the race!
Thanks for reading along and best wishes!
Dr. Dave