Healthy food. Is that always healthy?

In this blog we tell you more about healthy food. Why is healthy food not always healthy?

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People often ask us: "Coach! Is this healthy? Is this oké to eat?" Generally our response is not the answer that people are looking for. Our answer is: "That depends". Is chocolate healthier than cauliflower? It depends.

To understand this blog well, you need to realize that we will look at the extremes to make the point clear. Of course, if we look at nutritional value and the overall effects on the body you can better eat cauliflower than chocolate in 99% of the time. We haven’t gone completely grazy. However, we want to make a point that it is not always that easy to answer questions as various factors play a major role, especially when it comes to nutrition and health.

In our previous blog we have already discussed the fact that you need to be in a specific "state" to be able to absorb nutrients. We are talking about the autonomic nervous system here. The part of our nervous system that, among other things, controls digestion without our conscious influence on it. This nervous system can be divided into two parts: the sympathetic and para-sympathetic nervous system. Digestion and recovery takes place in the para-sympathetic nervous system, while physical activities and mental stress such as running a marathon or giving an lecture mainly take place in the sympathetic nervous system.

You can note from the above that your autonomic nervous system does not prefer digesting food whilst running a marathon. It has something better to do. If we then look at two extreme products such as a chicken fillet and a bag of haribo candy, then the chicken fillet is much harder to digest than the bag of candy. The chicken fillet will therefore be very poorly absorbed during running and pose a great burden on the digestive system, where the bag of candy forms a minimal load and provides the body with glucose which can be used as fuel to run the marathon. In this example you can say that a bag of haribo candy is a "healthier" choice than a chicken fillet. #mindisblown

With this blog we want to make clear that healthy food depends to a large extent on many different factors, including the "state" in which someone finds himself / herself when he / she eats the product.

From here there are two types of people who have read this blog.
1. People who now think: Ah! So if I am in a sympathetic state, I am going to eat a bag of candy because that is healthy. Jeej!
2. People who now think: Ah! So if I am in a sympathetic state, I will first make sure that I am calm, so that I am in a para-sympathetic state so that I properly can digest my chicken fillet.

It is up to you to choose which you are / want to be ;).

So don't look at us too sadly if our answer is: "that depends".