Usually, “diet” is understood as a program useful for losing weight, which involves considerable sacrifices, implying renunciations, sensory frustrations, even social isolation, given the extraordinary role of food as a “social glue.” It must be recognized that this meaning is very far from the “true” (etymological) meaning of the word diet. Diet derives from the Greek term diata which means “lifestyle” and encompasses all aspects of a person’s life: certainly nutrition, but also physical activity, how often and intensely it is possibly performed, the habit of consuming tobacco and alcohol, even the way of conceiving oneself and seeing oneself immersed in reality, made up of encounters, relationships, exchanges is important. We can therefore state that “being on a diet” means balancing these three factors: physical activity, nutrition, and psycho-social well-being.
From the point of view of nutrition (the truly central aspect for the entire lifestyle that determines and influences the other two), it is important to emphasize that eating behavior is fundamental in achieving and maintaining the best state of health for ourselves, which does not only mean “absence of disease,” but the achievement of a balance within ourselves and for ourselves, inserted in our natural and social environment in a dynamic way.
It is now well known and widely accepted that the Western lifestyle (that is, the diet) is at the root of the development of all the main causes of mortality and morbidity most frequently encountered: cardiovascular diseases (primarily heart attack and stroke), cancers, diabetes, degenerative and autoimmune diseases, chronic pain, osteoporosis, and so on. Thus, the need for an adequate path emerges strongly, one that integrates various disciplines, in order to be concretely effective and efficient in terms of prevention and, then, treatment of a possible pathological state of the person. It is in these terms of prevention that nutrition proves to be the simplest, most effective, efficient, and economical tool to concretely provide for our health and that of our loved ones.
Concretely, the more nutrition is enriched with colorful, plant-based elements, the greater its preventive and even therapeutic power. Plant-based foods, unlike those of animal origin, enrich us with minerals, vitamins, antioxidants, all with a protective action against all the diseases we have mentioned. If we think of the fundamental role attributed to the famous “free radicals” in the genesis of tumor or cardiovascular damage and in aging in general, we easily realize how important it is to have an ever-increasing amount of these antioxidants available. Where do we find these anti-aging compounds? In all plant-based foods, which are colorful: think of the different shades of green, red, orange, blue, purple, brown, yellow. The only truly “forbidden” color is the bright white of industrially refined foods, such as flours, sugar, salt, milk and derivatives, and foods that contain these ingredients.
Let us acknowledge the fact that the true nourishment of the human body is of plant origin. The food pyramid can (and sometimes should) stop at the following groups of foods: cereals (preferably whole and in grain), legumes, fresh seasonal vegetables (it is essential to return to considering the seasonality of foods!), fruit, dried fruit, seeds, herbs, and spices. In this mix there is everything our body needs to be born, grow vigorously, sustain itself with dignity, achieve respectable athletic performance, achieve all-round psycho-physical well-being, and respect the environment.
By achieving truly powerful and lasting health, how much more time and energy would we have available for the pleasures of life?
