Real food is crucial to learning how to eat right. As I was learning about health and weight loss, one very aspect kept showing up in my research: The importance of real food. Most people seem to understand that eating fast food and processed crap isn’t good for them, but why? Why is real food so much better for us? It comes down to synergy. What is synergy?

According to Wikipedia: Synergy is the working together of two things to produce a result greater than the sum of their individual effects. The term synergy comes from the Greek word synergia συνεργία from synergos, συνεργός, meaning “working together.“

I’m always trying to figure out ways to explain complicated concepts in very simple ways for people who are not familiar with food and nutrition. Awhile back, I was wandering through Silverhydra‘s site and came upon a startling revelation regarding food. As he puts it:

“… synergism is defined as “adding up to more than the sum of its parts”, which can be seen as 1 + 1 = 3. Taking two compounds which are synergistic with each other at the same time can yield more total benefit than taking them both at separate times or even them both in higher doses.”

Eating real food is like 1+1=3.

Hmm, interesting.

Simply put, whole/real food is the best source of virtually all the things the body needs. By eating a real food diet (ala Paleo or GAPS or WAPF or whatever you want to use), your body is able to obtain the proper nutrients and compounds needed to keep running smooth.

What you stick down your “throat hole” is one of the biggest factors in determining the quality of your life!

Some people may think that they can get everything they’d ever need from supplements. This is true to a degree (namely proven by a man who fasted for 382 days on nothing but multivitamns and lost 275lbs.) Regardless, you still need real food. You will in fact “starve to death” if you lack those nutrients and minerals needed for everyday living.  Water and a vital concoction of vitamins, minerals and nutrients are required to keep the body running. Without them, you’ll die. You CAN technically be eating processed food but get few of the recommended daily allowance. If you do this every day, you’ll eventually get very sick.

To REALLY get everything you need, simple unprocessed real foods will provide them. Even more so with fermented foods. That way they’re already partly processed by the bacteria and make it easier for our bodies to absorb. (Plus they taste good!)

However, don’t demonize supplements completely. While they are indeed processed and taken out of the natural environment, there are cases where they are simply impossible to achieve through food intake.

Creatine is a good example for body builders. You just can’t get enough from the food you eat so a little extra purified processed stuff can be beneficial:

“The average person gets only about one gram of creatine per day from his diet. When you cook your meals, you also destroy a good part of the creatine found in foods such as beef, cod, salmon, and herring.”

Just keep in mind that when you remove the nutrient or mineral from the natural environment, you open up new problems. For instance, when you take a food high in fat and remove the protective anti-oxidant components, it will go rancid very easily. If real foods provide a synergism of 1+1= 3, then extras taken in a pill can be reduced to 1+1= 2, sometimes even 1+1 = 1 (especially for lower quality supplements.) Nature designed a very advanced system to keep particular things in particular places. When you remove it from the naturally evolved protection, things don’t work the same.

Poisons and toxins have synergies too.

“Fake food” has the polar opposite synergies. These man-made concoctions of chemicals are not good for our bodies. Some of ingredients they use in these frankenfoods is a very low grade poison to us. The more poison you pack into one little piece of “food”, the more toxic the effect. Look at the long list of crap that most boxed foods have. Do you really think an ingredients list as long as your finger is good for you!? If you eat this frankenfood on an almost daily basis, I believe this leads to most of the diseases that plague Americans that can be easily rectified by simple nutritional education and willpower.

Food made in a factory by humans can NEVER emulate real food perfected over billions of years by nature. It’s what our bodies are meant to eat!

Pizza and beer are pretty noxious by themselves, but you can have them every so often without too much problem. Consuming them every single weekend for years on end? You’re going to start seeing some problems.

Mixing heavily processed bleached wheat with chemical laden pseudo meats and cheese AND alcohol all in one weak little stomach? Not to mention the easily digested carbohydrate overload causing the hormones to go batshyt crazy? The body has to put up with some schyt, but boy, that’s REALLY trying to fuark it up.

Fight against Diabeetus!

After all, the companies that produce these poisonous concoctions will literally add chemicals to make it more addictive and have more apparent flavor. They’ll overstimulate your brain and make you unconsciously desire more and more. The people who eat these additives essentially become drug addicts and the corporations become the drug dealers.

Did you know High Fructose Corn Syup has traces of mercury? Isn’t that a lovely thing to keep adding to foods! They don’t give a schyt about you or your health, they just want your money. They’ll get you addicted and you’ll keep coming back. It’s just like tobacco companies but not as obvious. (Especially when they hook kids at a young age by making them into FUN SHAPES! Ugh… )

Frankenfood: The longer the shelf life, the lower yours…

It’s not just one particular company, nor is it one particular food, they’re all guilty of it. The simple fact is, if you eat a nutritional real food diet and get a little decent exercise, you’ll live longer, be happier, have more energy, etc. This is not hard to understand, folks. Your body came from nature, real food comes from nature. Stick with real food for your real body.

Think of the body as a car. You have to put fuel and oil in it for it to run properly, no getting around that. If you give it really low quality fuel to run on, it’s going to gum up the sensitive parts and no be very efficient. If you use low quality oil (or worse, never change the oil at all) it’s not going to last too long. It’ll begin to break down from the inside-out. Stick it on the Autobahns at 100 mph and see how long it’ll last? I’m going to bet on “not too long.”

Your body has a highly educated and skilled mechanic built into it. It knows everything about itself and can repair virtually everything BUT only if you allow it to. Eat real food, get a little physical exertion now and then, and avoid the poisonous stuff as much as possible. Keep your car running smooth.

“Everyone has a physician inside him or her; we just have to help it in its work. The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well. Our food should be our medicine. Our medicine should be our food. But to eat when you are sick is to feed your sickness.” – Hippocrates

Your friend,

-Yossif

UPDATE: THEY GIVE A SCHYT ABOUT US! 

UPDATE 2: Oh wait, they’re just replacing high carb HFCS with other nasty compounds and making smaller containers for a higher price. If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is <3

Last updated by Yossif on April 15, 2014.