If You’re Going to Eat “Bad,” at Least Make It Good.

“Huh?” You may ask, “what does that mean? It sounds like a contradiction.” Simply put, if you are going to eat something that is deemed “bad” for you (I’ll leave you to decide who is doing the deeming), at least make sure you are eating real, high quality ingredients, free of anything artificial. If possible, use whole foods, rather than processed ingredients.

Let’s take lasagna as an example meal — meat lasagna. The reason I specify meat lasagna is that I want to acknowledge that it is different from a veggie lasagna. I could say substitute a veggie lasagna as a healthier lasagna choice. But honestly, it’s different. A veggie lasagna does not taste like a meat lasagna. I’m not speaking of a vegetarian or vegan version of a meat lasagna. I’m speaking of a lasagna made with vegetables, such as spinach, mushrooms and other veggies. So back to what I was saying…

Use High Quality Ingredients

Make your own sauce, or at least buy an organic sauce. In fact, use all organic ingredients if you can. Stay away from canned tomato products, as the liner has BPA that leaches into the sauce. Instead, use jarred tomato products. Use grass-fed beef, which is high in essential fatty acids (omega-3’s) and free from hormones and antibiotics. Use high quality cheese. If you don’t use organic ingredients, at least make sure you are not consuming anything artificial or may contain herbicides, pesticides, hormones, antibiotics or genetically modified ingredients.

The same goes with any “once-in-awhile” food choice that is not exactly the healthiest.

Remember, food is to be enjoyed, but not over-consumed. If you are, for the most part, healthy and not suffering from a major disease, it’s OK to indulge once-in-awhile. It’s good for a sense of well-being. Since you may not eat this “bad” food very often, make it really good. I always say, if it doesn’t taste really good, then it is not worth it (“it” could be my stomach space, or extra calories, sugar, fat, etc.). Another example is popcorn. Pop it on the stove in high quality oil and put real butter and sea salt on it. Don’t eat that microwave garbage that’s over-salted and contains artificial stuff that your body doesn’t know what to do with. You’ll be amazed at how much better it tastes! If you want a dessert, don’t eat cake made with gmo high frutose corn syrup, transfat and artificial crap. Make your own cake with real, whole ingredients. Or, have an organic blueberry pie, or a hot-fudge sundae made with organic vanilla bean ice cream, organic hot fudge, and organic whipped cream.

We’re all human and we want to indulge. So at least do it right.

Go Do It

Now go give yourself a treat and be “bad.” Indulge without guilt. You deserve it. Just do it right with REAL, whole, good tasting, ingredients. And as I said earlier in so many words, eat good “bad” stuff.