It’s no longer news that eating unhealthful food and not engaging in regular physical activity contribute significantly to a number of chronic diseases that are among the main causes of death in the United States each year.
These include heart disease and some cancers, which, combined, led to about half of all deaths in 2012. Other major causes are cerebrovascular maladies such as hypertension, which can lead to strokes, the cause of about one of every twenty deaths annually. Yet another is Type 2 diabetes, often associated with obesity, a condition afflicting more than a third of adults and contributing not only to Type 2 diabetes but also to heart disease, strokes, and some cancers.
What, then, is to be done? What does it mean to eat healthfully?
Here at the Council for Healthy Food Systems, we believe the key is what we call “real food.” To provide you with the best guidance, we break that subject into three areas:
