When was the last time that you actually, consciously, noticed what was going to be on your plate? Did you intentionally put that there thinking about your health? Did you think about the nutritional content of what was there? Did you wonder whether that was enough of x or y nutrient? Did you notice whether there was enough color? or whether there was a dominant color? Most importantly though, did you notice how the food made you feel as you ate it, or after you finished eating it?

Most likely, you answered with more NOs than YES right?. Most of us don’t think too much about the food we eat. More often than not, the extent of our thought process is as simple as: is it yummy? do I want more? We plate what we have on stock, and we stock what is economical, what we are used to buying or what was advertised to us. But we rarely give thought as to where that came from or how it was made.

We have all heard about mindful eating or intuitive eating and even intentional eating. All of those can excellent ways of eating, however, only if you know what is good for you and what is not. Unfortunately, this is where the fallacy lies. Way too often, we just don’t know how bad something can be. Or we don’t know how something good can be easily found or cooked. So we end up with all of these mediocre (bordering on really bad) choices in our plate.

The challenge I am proposing is, ask yourself, “what’s on my plate?”. “Do I want it to be there?” and then…. “should it be there?” Would my wise-old self approve of it?