#TheSimpleLife

Ever get the urge to simplify the things in your life?

Sometimes it’s nice to do the same thing for our bodies and what we’re putting into them. 

So our challenge to you, should you choose to accept it, is to try to only eat foods (any and all packaged & processed foods) that have 5 or less ingredients in them. 

The number of ingredients in any food item is usually quite telling of how processed that food actually is. I say "usually" because there are certain foods that might have less than 5 ingredients and still be terrible for you AND others that may have more than 5 ingredients and be perfectly okay (think of a bag of trail mix with a bunch of nuts & seeds!).

In his book “Food Rules,” Michael Pollan touches on this idea by suggesting the following:

“Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients. The specific number you adopt is arbitrary, but the more ingredients in a packaged food, the more highly processed it probably is. Note 1: A long list of ingredients in a recipe is not the same thing; that’s fine. Note 2: Some products now boast, somewhat deceptively, about their short ingredient lists. Häagen-Dazs has a new line of ice creamed called ‘five.’ Great–but it’s still ice cream. Same goes for the three-ingredient Tostitos corn chips advertised by Frito-Lay–okay, but they’re still corn chips.”

Beyond the 5 ingredient “Rule” some other great food rules you may want to consider:

• Not eating things you CAN’T PRONOUNCE
• Not eating things if you DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE
• Not eating things that you CAN’T BUY IN THE STORE (ingredient wise “Oh I was just looking for the Trisodium Phosphate, do you happen to know which Aisle it’s in?”)

Basically it’s all about simplifying what you’re putting into you body! Remember most likely if what you’re eating was made in a plant – you’ll probably need a plant to digest it!