Wellness@Work: How to eat healthier in 2025

By Robert Israel, M.D.
USA Health Integrative Health and Wellness

Are all those confusing messages about what to eat overwhelming to you? Let’s simplify and correct the messages. Eat more… food. That’s right, if we replace the non-food, fake food, and processed chemicals we eat with real food instead, that’s a big step toward being healthier.  

How can we do that?  

• Choose whole, minimally processed food. Eat your colors. Colorful fruits and vegetables are loaded with vitamins, minerals, and fiber. More importantly they have hundreds of bioactive phytochemicals that have antioxidant effects, immune promotion effects, anti-inflammatory effects and are literally like taking medicine to improve your health. Whole grains like oats, whole wheat, farro, quinoa, barley, and others are also loaded with many of these compounds, and they are good sources of fiber and protein.   
• Enjoy your food. Eat for pleasure. Cook. When you cook more, you become more aware of what produces flavor, and as you find flavor in food, you begin to dislike the various chemical flavors that fast food and processed fake food utilize to sell their products. The smell of fast food becomes off-putting.   
• Cook more. Take a cooking class or four. Learn how to plan meals and snacks ahead of time so you aren’t making decisions when you are starving. Eat real food when you are hungry.    
• Sit down. Just eat. When you are eating, enjoy the food, and don’t do six other things, like watching TV or the news, or checking email on your phone. Pay attention to the flavors. Taste the earth, sun, and rain in your food.   
• Drink water. Don’t drink manufactured sodas that are loaded with sugar and have no nutritional benefit.
• Try to avoid non-food. Processed food stuff strips almost all the nutrients out of any real food that enters the factory and leaves it on the factory floor or the drain. Don’t be a sucker and pay for that.
• Become a snack gourmet. Eat great tasty snacks, like fruit, nuts, seeds, nut butters on whole grain crackers, hummus, and so many others.   
• Love your meals. Enjoy your food. Think of non-food, fake food, and other processed substances as poison, because that is what they are when they make up significant portions of your intake. Eat to live healthier and better.

Still have questions on how you can eat healthier this year? Sign up for a healthy cooking class with USA Health’s Integrative Health and Wellness Program. It’s a great way to experience hands-on preparation of nutritious whole foods so you can see how simple and delicious it is. 

How can you lead a longer, better life? Follow weekly Wellness@Work tips from USA Health Integrative Health and Wellness. We cover ways you can eat better, move better, be more mindful, and find more balance to support your optimal health and well-being. Learn more at usahealthsystem.com/wellness.